One thing’s for sure, Biden’s toast.

But how could this be? For months we’ve endured polls, talking heads, telling us he was the leader and the people’s choice, the man with experience shooting right up the middle.

But it turns out that’s not what people wanted at all.

So, the pollsters got it wrong. Oh, there was that “Des Moines Register” poll that was canceled that was supposedly more accurate, and I’m sure Nate Silver and the rest of the experts will weasel once again and tell us how they really got it right, but they didn’t. Turns out it’s not only government that is out of touch with the public, but the pollsters and the media too.

It all comes down to if you’re winning. If the present environment is working for you, you want no change.

But it turns out the present environment isn’t working for most of America.

Let’s start with Trump. The same media outlets and pollsters failed to see the disharmony that led to the Donald’s election, they convinced us, even him, that his campaign was a sideshow, a way for Trump to burnish his brand, to start a TV network, to get richer. Little did we expect that he would use the Presidency to get richer.

And on the other side you’ve got Bernie. According to Hillary Clinton, an evil hatemonger who refuses to play well with others. Meanwhile, Bernie almost deposed the anointed Hillary in 2016 and it appears he’s gonna run to the roses this year. Turns out most of the populace is not happy with business as usual.

Let’s talk about the Clintons. Sure, they were eviscerated by the right, but they also used their position to get rich, even Chelsea has gotten rich, she’s even wealthier than Hunter Biden! But sucking up to Wall Street and the rest of the billionaires was de rigueur, because everybody else did it. You needed their money to win. But Bernie didn’t take a dime from the usual suspects and this time around he’s raised more money than anybody!

As for Mayor Pete… Where were the articles predicting this? The polls?

And then there’s the question of why.

It appears that people want someone young and smart untainted by the usual b.s. Although if you look into Pete’s CV it’s not appealing, drinking at the trough of McKinsey and being unable to run his own damn city. As for being gay…no one cares about that anymore, if a black man can become President why not a gay man? As for those who couldn’t accept Obama…it didn’t keep him from winning.

Which brings us to the impeachment.

Turns out Trump is above the law. He can do whatever he wants and not have to answer for it. Furthermore, he doesn’t have to provide any details. He’s king, get over it.

As for the Iowa app debacle… If Trump loses in November, there’s no way in hell the Republicans will accept it.

But if the Dems lose…

They’ll just whimper. Can you say Al Gore?

Because you see the Democrats have no center. It’s a big party under a big tent but a self-serving cabal runs it and they don’t want any change. Now that Bernie Sanders is a distinct possibility the truth has finally come out, those in power, at the DNC, don’t want any change, no different from the Grammys. You see a new guy is gonna come in, who gets to choose the head of the party and…a lot of people are gonna lose their influence, if not their jobs.

So, America doesn’t appear that different from Afghanistan, some other tribal country.

Part of the public wants the trains to run on time, wants to rid the populace of scum and be entitled to keep all they’ve got and never go backward.

That’s what’s wrong with America, no one can lose. Hell, the Astros cheated but they’re not losing their title. It’s too big a step, like convicting Trump, we can’t handle the anarchy. But the truth is we’ve undermined the rule of law, it’s every person for themselves in America today. And if you don’t realize this, you’re part of the problem.

Like the people who say they can’t feel the change under Trump. They’re no different from Jews who refused to leave Germany. Everybody thinks they’re protected until they’re not, and the truth is contrary to their belief they’ve got no recourse.

So essentially no one is alive who remembers when America was a second-class nation. Everybody thinks the U.S. of A. is the greatest country in the world, it cannot be defeated.

As for Vietnam and Iraq, the belief is the agitators undermined us and if we just gave the armed forces and Dick Cheney and the other rulers carte blanche, we would have won again.

Only that doesn’t take into account hearts and minds. The North Vietnamese were willing to sacrifice everything for the cause. And the truth is so many of the losers in today’s society feel the same way. They’re sick of billionaires, sick of kowtowing to the rich, they want some power.

Which is how Trump got elected. He represented change.

Hillary was damaged goods offering business as usual.

Just like Joe Biden.

But the insiders tell us we must nominate someone safe in order to win in November, we must sacrifice all our beliefs, all our interests, for a greater good…which would only benefit the entrenched. Which brings up the question why bother to vote at all?

A huge slice of the public never does. Many because they believe there will be no difference. And after living through twenty five years of tech innovation they know that change can happen overnight, if people choose to make it happen. They also know that techies run circles around D.C., elected officials don’t understand tech, never mind regulate tech.

But all we hear from insiders is how dumb the populace is.

But that’s because they don’t understand it’s not about issues so much as emotions.

Oh, the Republicans always focus on a divisive issue, but the Democrats…Hillary Clinton fake smiled, just like old Joe, and no one bought it, they didn’t speak to your soul, they were controlled by those with the cash.

Globalization is here to stay. What’s your answer to that?

Trump’s is to promise impossibilities as he engages in trade wars. No, manufacturing is not coming back to America, and coal mining won’t boom. Instead of providing false hope, why don’t you give the disenfranchised a roadmap as well as a safety net as opposed to service jobs that don’t put food on the table, never mind a roof over your head.

This is why Bernie is resonating, because it’s crooked and you’re screwed. Everybody knows this, it’s just the winners don’t want to admit they’ve bent the system to their satisfaction, they just tell others to pull up their bootstraps, it’s easy, everyone can be a millionaire, even though you can’t get into a good college because they’ve paid for slots, with either bribes or buildings, and have had their kids tutored and… It would be like trying to become a coder in a school without computers, it can’t be done.

I’m not saying a whole hell of a lot new here, I’m just wondering when the powers-that-be are gonna wake up and admit what’s going on.

Add up the numbers. Put Sanders and Warren together and…

It appears the public wants radical change.

But what does the media do? Concoct a phony war between them.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi steals Trump’s thunder by ripping up his speech. He wouldn’t shake her hand and she took revenge. And owns the news cycle.

Sometimes you’ve got to test the limits, sometimes you have to push the envelope, sometimes you have to throw decorum out the window, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

But all the left can do is respond to the talking points of the right, as opposed to leading.

Which is one reason Mayor Pete can’t win. Do you think people are gonna buy his phony smile? He appears devious, and he’s selling nothing other than himself. It’s like he constructed his campaign on a computer. Let’s see, where’s the best slot, somewhere between Bernie and Biden, if you can believe in this guy, you probably went to Harvard and worked at McKinsey yourself.

Meanwhile, if you didn’t go to an Ivy, good luck getting that gig at McKinsey. As for the funds, they load your employer up with debt, take their investment and profits out first and you’re left holding the bag.

But you’re supposed to laud them because they’re rich.

The old America is dead. The internet proved that those telling us what was going on had no clue. Meanwhile, the rich on the left and right, the elites, rigged the game to their advantage, telling the less fortunate that it was just luck they lost out, that there was nothing they could do about it.

So, the public wants its revenge.

Any Democrat can beat Trump if the party just gets behind the nominee. Instead, the DNC keeps going on about who’s electable.

You know who is electable?

THE ONE THAT WINS!

The Republicans circled the wagons today. I’d say history will judge them, but the truth is Trump may run the country off the rails first.

It’s time for the Democrats to circle the wagons, to get back in touch with their natural constituency, the workers. Bloomberg may be able to get the nomination and win, but the truth is he’s not promising solutions to the real problems of this country, he just wants to pilot the ship as opposed to fix the leak, never mind build a new ship.

Disenfranchise the public at your peril. Turns out voters don’t want centrists, they want someone to believe in.

And this has got nothing to do with flawed apps and nothing to do with polls and everything to do with identity.

We’re sick of compromise, we’re sick of getting the short end of the stick, we’re sick of seeing our country going down the drain as those in power blame us for it. Trump said it was the immigrants. He’s always establishing scapegoats. The Democrats are the party of the future, they’re the party of hope, they’re the party of equality, if only those in power and the elites would get out of the way and let the voters get their shot. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

From “Tell Me What You See” from the America-only “Beatles VI” to “Girl” from “Rubber Soul.

Tune in today, Tuesday February 4th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

Rule number one…

You don’t let the opening act upstage you.

We know J.Lo can’t sing, but we always thought she was a fly dancer.

But Shakira trumped her on both counts, if I was J.Lo’s manager, I’d be hiding.

The Super Bowl wasn’t so super until Joe Namath and the Jets beat the Colts back in ’69. What did the Eagles sing?

Namath was arrogant, the Colts were the establishment. Joe played by his own rules, with his moustache, Bachelors III and his fur coat, when that was still a thing. Joe was brash, and he lived up to the rep. Only true fans can remember the quarterback of the Colts. Or the QB of any winning team. But Joe was a star, he made history in one afternoon. No one was paying attention before, the American Football League was seen as a joke. And in one game, it was par, if not better.

The NFL ground it out with brutes, it was a team effort, you didn’t stand out, or if you did you were humble.

Joe Namath was not humble.

Nor were the Beatles, Cream or the rest of the acts that followed the lads from Liverpool into our consciousness. Everybody picked up an instrument, they wanted some of what those on stage got.

Now people don’t want their progeny to get anywhere near the gridiron. And after watching a couple of collisions yesterday, I can see why. Is it worth it to sacrifice decades of your life for one moment of glory? Parents teach you not to, they tell you life is long, but Roger Goodell and the rest of the jockocracy have punted their responsibility, as long as it makes money, the players are fungible.

But I did watch yesterday. My first game of the season. Sans commercials, would I? Sans Mahomes, definitely not.

That’s another thing about the music of yore, it was never subsidiary, it always led. It was on a plane above and never compromised, which is why it became a religion. I mean can you believe in Post Malone after he stumbled in convenience store at the mercy of…who was it, Budweiser?

And if you were alive back then, you know there was a backlash against contact sports. It did not sustain. Nothing sustained after the Iranian hostage crisis and the election of Ronald Reagan.

The hostage crisis stoked nationalism. It was rah-rah, all of the time. You could not question authority, the military was good, everything the youth believed in was thrown overboard, especially when Reagan lowered taxes and legitimized greed. Once again, money changes everything.

So Mahomes delivered. He played by the rules until the Chiefs fell behind. Occasionally running the ball.

But that’s not what we came to see. We wanted the Air Raid. And when the Chiefs were losing and went to the no huddle offense and Mahomes aired it out…it was a wonder to behold.

Excellence. It still amazes us. Grace under pressure. Reggie Miller wanted the ball with less than a minute left. Michael Jordan too. They delivered when we knew we could not.

So, subsequent to the Jets’ triumph in 1969, the game was usually bad. The Super Bowl was all hype and no action. Until a few decades back, when suddenly the games got good.

By then we were all watching because of “1984,” Steve Jobs’s mini-movie that only aired once and changed the paradigm.

But few have the creativity of Jobs. He was willing to be serious on a day of frivolity, he wanted to make a point. A countercultural point, a Joe Namath, child of the sixties point…that the man can’t be trusted, don’t follow history like a lemming, think for yourself, chart a new course, dare to be different and better.

So now it’s the game and the ads.

But unlike Apple, today’s corporations, having spent so much money, rerun the ads ad infinitum, until the joke no longer plays and you wince.

And yesterday, even the new corporate titans were tone-deaf.

Google storing our data? How ignorant can they be, in an era where privacy is on everybody’s lips! Promote better results, some of the “free” stuff you offer, don’t tell us you’re our buddy and we should trust you with our info….you know they’re gonna cough it up.

Just like Facebook did with Cambridge Analytica. They didn’t even realize the value of the data! And yesterday Facebook runs an ad about irrelevant groups. Who are they appealing to? Youngsters are all on Instagram and the oldsters who are not invested in Facebook never will be. How about a mea culpa? A promise to vet political ads? No, Facebook is like the Colts, it wants us to believe everything’s copacetic, there are no kinks in their armor, they’re godhead and will always triumph.

No.

Now the funny thing is today is just like the sixties. Starting with Bernie Sanders. The septuagenarian who is beloved by the youth. This is what the DNC does not understand, the youth are the future, and they don’t believe the government is working for them. They don’t want to go back to business as usual, they want to throw the long ball.
And the Trumpers?
Rednecks. Who laughed at hippies and…you didn’t dare drive south of the Mason-Dixon line with your long hair and bell bottoms and… Didn’t you see “Easy Rider”?
But for one day, the corporations of America, the institutions, they want us to believe that we’re all one big homogeneous family under a big tent.
Huh?

There was no acknowledgement of the world we now live in. One of niches, special interests. The entertainment edifices and the rest of the media want us to believe it’s still the same as the pre-internet era. One Top Ten. We all listen to the same records and watch the same TV shows when nothing could be further from the truth.

As for the endless movie and TV ads…they burnished the image of Netflix, which needs no spots, its subscribers know what it offers, and are addicted to it. Netflix promises to make a zillion shows with no commercials, trying to do its best. It’s not all lowest common denominator, stuff that tries to appeal to everyone and really appeals to no one.

Kinda like J.Lo and Shakira.

Mariah Carey broke thirty years ago. Sure, Nirvana and Pearl Jam followed her right thereafter, but how many rock acts followed Kurt Cobain? I know, Coldplay! I thought rock was supposed to have balls.

So if you’re a youngster, you don’t even know what the rock ethos is. The other, refusing to sell out, reaching for the holy grail at every turn, knowing that if you’re good enough and credible enough your flock will follow you anywhere.

You marched to the beat of your own drummer. The establishment came to you, not vice versa.

So, Shakira danced so quickly and provocatively that you almost could not believe your eyes. She definitely has the music in her, but how long did it take her to rehearse this routine?

As for J.Lo…why is she famous again?

Oh, that’s right, the establishment record company pushed her, made her a success just before the internet killed that game and it became all hip-hop all the time.

As for Roc Nation’s partnership with the NFL…it’d be like Peter Grant advising the MLB. Sure, it’s great people of color can get ahead, but I can’t get over the sacrifice of Kaepernick. It’s positively Trumpian, the end justifies the means. And if you think it’s good for your image, makes you money, keeps you top of mind, you can march right over the rest of the populace. And if Roc Nation is so powerful, why wasn’t it a hip-hop Super Bowl? Especially when that’s what the players are listening to. J. Lo and Shakira turned out to be safer than Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Just the way the NFL wants it, no controversy.

But the amazing thing about disruption is the establishment doesn’t see it coming. E-sports mean much more to the younger generation than the demolition derby on the field. But if you print an anti-football article you become an instant pariah. Same deal if you criticize Trump. So the NFL removes the edge and we’re supposed to applaud them, congratulate them for bringing us together and leading? It’s a veritable plantation. That’s what the black-balling of Kaepernick is all about. The owners don’t care about the players, and Clark Hunt was evidence for the eradication of inherited wealth. This soft white guy rules over this team? Ridiculous!

But that’s today’s America, we gloss over its faults, love it or leave it, it’s the best. You abhor socialism when you feed on it, with Medicare and Social Security. Yup, that’s another thing about Americans, they’re ill-informed or uninformed but they’re loudmouth brutes who are constantly pontificating while believing it’s always somebody else’s fault, like the Latinos, the immigrants, the…

Oh, I don’t hate America. It would be easier for you if I did! I just want improvement, change. And one thing’s for sure, the new America ain’t gonna look like the old one, no way.

So, the halftime show hearkened back to the original, with Up With People. It was entertainment. It did not challenge us, it was not dangerous and had the nutritional value of candy, it was forgotten just after it was over.

So, once again, if you want to last, if you want to make a difference, you have to learn how to say no. Lil Nas X shortened his career last night, to the degree he has one, but I guess you’ve got to promote yourself when the Grammys deny you your due, i.e. Record of the Year.

Shakira proved that in a world where you think you’re well known, you’re not, until you play an event like this most people have no idea who you are.

Shakira delivered.

Maybe we need more unknowns during halftime.

Or maybe we should go back to marching bands, they’re hipper than the acts performing anyway. That’s right, modern marching bands make pictures, make statements, comment on humanity. Imagine if one formed a roach last night, and I’m not talking about the ones Muhammad Ali told you he despised, the ones crawling along your floor. Then again, maybe you crawl along the floor looking for said roach.

We live in challenging times. When it’s hard to get a handle on what’s happening. When it’s hard to make sense of what’s going on.

An alien would be flummoxed if he/she/it came down from orbit. Let’s see, we laud a game that maims men while we advertise products you don’t need and implore you to go to comic book movies.

America is fighting for its soul. Is it merely money, or is it about the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in your head at one time?

I thought about all this watching the spectacle yesterday.

But I must say, I enjoyed the game.

First you’re too young and then you’re too old.

Come on, you remember going to the amusement park and not reaching the line, now you’ve got no desire to go on the rides.

I was always the youngest until my hair started falling out in my early twenties. Then, instantly, I became old. There was no in-between. I waited to be twenty one, even though you could drink and drive at eighteen in Vermont (and I did both simultaneously, this was before Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and if you know Vermont locals, life tends to be short, as a result of misadventure, when was the last time you played “chicken”?), but it seemed I could not relish the change in how I felt and how I was perceived as I reached this landmark age. It’s probably worse now, when everybody starts their career right out of college, but then you turn thirty and re-evaluate and you feel lousy, like you haven’t accomplished much, not knowing when you turn sixty thirty will seem like a baby.

You’re angsting and struggling, especially in your twenties and thirties. Then, you wake up one day and you are who you are, that’s all she wrote, sure Julia Child made it in her old age but most people do not. As for retiring…they tell you in the entertainment business, suddenly the young clients don’t want to be talking to the old person. And then you get to the point where you don’t care, even though you used to care so much.

And hopefully you’ve got enough money to sail into the sunset. Many do not, and you can’t live on social security, no way. And it’s funny, except for the truly rich, it’s like being back in high school, everybody essentially equal, what your job was no longer matters, everybody’s on an equal plane.

I don’t want that, I want to work forever. For the fulfillment if not the money. And I need the money, there’s no way I could retire.

But last night we watched “Annie Hall” and I realized how old I am.

First and foremost, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton look young, and they’re way younger than me. I remember seeing the two on Broadway, in “Play It Again, Sam”, wanting to be living that life too.

So “Annie Hall” is about the struggle. Do you remember the struggle? Trying to find the right person to live with, to marry, to spend the rest of your life with?

There were no shortcuts, no online dating, you had to go out as opposed to staying in, which is the standard today. They’re waiting on line for the movies, and in New York it is “on line,” not “in line,” and I remember this. Movies were a way of life. Television was a second-class citizen, it did not drive the culture. And if you were in New York or L.A. you had to go an hour in advance, just to get in, films did not open in three thousand theatres, they were platformed, and the successful ones played for months! And when they fell off, you went to revival houses to catch up. This was when you could still be an expert, before the tsunami of pictures, when we all became overwhelmed.

So Alvy and Annie are playing tennis and…

She hits on him.

Not exactly, but she’s the one who starts the conversation, she’s the one who asks him if he has a car. Men love this, that’s how we know you’re interested. And I’ve lived this more than once, and it always resulted in a relationship.

But Annie lacks self-confidence, and Alvy is worried about what he says before he finds out who she really is. He wonders what she looks like naked…can you even say that anymore?

It’s a shock watching this film from 1977. The landlines, the lack of smartphones. You’re brought back to that era when we were all not connected, when we were foraging for connection.

But we still had our neuroses.

Alvy can’t go to a movie after it starts. Neither can I, I’m always thinking I’ve missed something. And for me, a movie is not entertainment, but life itself, which is one of the reasons the comic book movies don’t work for me, I’m interested in humanity, real life, insight.

And the seventies were the heyday of film. Starting in the late sixties to be truthful, with “The Graduate” and “Bonnie & Clyde.” The Oscars were important because the stars were really stars and even bigger than those on screen were those behind the camera.

And then came “Jaws” and “Star Wars” and the industry realized how much money could be made, and the change began. Now, movies about everyday people, everyday situations, have been wiped from the cinema.

So Alvy wants to improve Annie and she constantly laments that she’s not smart enough. You don’t realize you can’t do this until you’re fifty or sixty, you’ve got to accept them as they are or they leave you.

Furthermore, Annie broadens her horizons and Alvy then becomes possessive, he doesn’t want her to leave the nest.

So they break up.

And then get back together.

You’re foraging for people and…

It’s not like today, where you’re going on scores of dates, one and done. Occasionally you had one date, but most people were looking for a relationship, not because they needed to settle down, but because they were lonely, they were sick of looking at the four walls.

And if you made the connection within a year you were living together, even though your parents thought you should get married. Sometimes even our significant other wanted to get married. But, once again, we saw life as a continuum, a big game, and we didn’t want to retire so soon. That’s one of the reasons I never had kids, I never wanted to put myself in the back seat, never mind pay for them, even though I now know that we’re just animals, here to reproduce, and no one will be remembered, and you should have kids, not that I have any regrets.

So, this person knows you better than anybody else in the world. And then you’re disconnected? There was no ghosting, endings were never clean. You usually had to break up multiple times before it was truly over, and then it never really was, you still thought about them.

And you missed the sex. With someone you loved.

But then you had to go forward.

Eventually you settled down. You were worried that you were gonna miss your chance, and women have a biological clock, at least before egg-freezing and implantation and they couldn’t wait while you deliberated.

But it didn’t work out.

Baby boomers…the younger you got married, the sooner you got divorced. People who raised kids, who seemed part of the firmament, suddenly they broke apart. Some left for other people, some never found other people. And if you’ve never lived with somebody, never been married, people avoid you.

So Paul Simon, who was once young, you can see it here, tries to steal Annie.

How do you keep a woman?

Sure, there’s all this talk about keeping a man. And some of them do have affairs, but if your significant other or wife works outside the home and talks about their male coworkers you’re always wondering…are they gonna trade up? Even the rich and powerful have to worry about this, can you say Lauren Sanchez? How does Patrick Whitesell put one foot in front of another these days, when a good friend stole his wife. And there’s always someone richer, or more attractive, or less neurotic… Most men are insecure, despite media portraying them otherwise. They don’t want to be at the bar watching sports with their buddies and coming home to an empty apartment, no way.

So my whole life passed and I didn’t even realize it!

Things are good now on every front, work and relationship, but for so long they were not. And if work is not good, it hurts the relationship, money changes everything, especially when you haven’t got it.

And Alvy and Annie are always going out. Sure, they’re in New York City, but the truth is the older you get the less you go out. And you can never drop in on anyone, that’s anathema.

And the film is littered with conversation. And if you grew up on the east coast you instantly want to go back, to feel that pulse. But it comes with a lot of b.s. and everybody in this film wants to move to L.A. Then again, this was before the days of cheap air travel, most people had never been to Los Angeles, they had no idea what they were missing.

And today Woody Allen is a pariah. Whether he should or shouldn’t be. Funny how things change.

Just like the winners of yore, so many are done today. They’ve been pushed out of the corporation, a new regime has taken over, their work was their identity and suddenly there’s no work and they don’t know who they are.

I remember when my mother used to call people in their forties young and I winced. Now I can remember what happened forty years ago, and just like my mother couldn’t believe a pastrami sandwich was $3.95, I can’t believe it’s now twenty bucks! As for the price of concert tickets… Even worse, I’ve lost my money sense, I remember when a millionaire was a millionaire, but today the median income in America is $61,937 and you’re struggling on that. Then again, after running out of money I sacrificed, I’m still sacrificing, but nobody is anymore, they’re driving German iron and flying not only for vacations, but shows.

I’ve lost my reference points. I used to have them, but I lived too long, I’ve seen too much.

I’m trying to make sense of it, but then I watch “Annie Hall” and recognize my youth, my twenties and thirties, which are far from yesterday, and it seems my bedrock identity is back there.

We used to have time to dream, set our minds free. Today, everything is in-your-face, active, not passive. We don’t reminisce and plan so much as do. But without reflection, the direction you pursue is hobbled.

And on one hand I have the oldsters with their malarkey, yearning to go back to the past, and on the other the youngsters, who can’t believe we lived in an era without flat screens, without streaming media, without social networks. I often asked my mother what it was like living before television. Now I know, I lived before the internet. Seems quaint, don’t you think?

And to tell you the truth, today’s era is much better. There’s none of that boredom, none of that wasted time in the clubs, there’s stimulation at your fingertips.

But with every step forward something is lost.

But it’s minor. Ask kids today if they miss vent windows. They may not even have a car, never mind one without a/c.

Oh yeah, a/c was a novelty not only in cars, but homes. We shvitzed.

But that era is now gone.

And soon we will be too. With all our stories, all our memories.

It’s the way of the world.

But we thought we were different, that the rules didn’t apply to us.

We were wrong.