About Last Week...

All Hail the Glorious Leader!

Since this is the sixtieth About Last Week, I thought it would be fun to have it open to all and leave the comments open as well. Merry February and thanks for subscribing!

So South Carolina Democrats held a primary Tuesday and President Joe Biden won.

The news was flayed about in a rather typical manner – Biden Win Shows Dems Solid, Biden Primary Gambit Pays Off, Biden Banishes Replacement Thoughts with SC Win, etc.

The media also put paid to any thoughts that either Crystal Blue Persuasion (Ms. Williamson) or Ice Ice Baby (Mr. Phillips) could ever even possibly think remotely about sniffing even the trailing edge of mattering in 2024.

Biden got 96.2% of the vote – does that remind you of anything?

Because “Glorious Leader Smashes Reactionary Wreckers” is the kind of headline one typically associates with 96.2% of the vote of anything, anywhere.

To say the national media is in the bag for Biden is an insult to bags everywhere and it can be assumed that in some newsroom somewhere nearly thought of printing something like that.  Nearly because the angry toddlers who populate newsrooms today do not have the sense of history required to recall totalitarian media tropes and nearly because it is already a totalitarian media just still barely smart enough to not allow such potentially off-putting public acts of brazenness.

Though considering the coverage of “Bidenomics” and the repetition of the term “dignified transfer” when three dead soldiers arrived home last week, the headline may not be outside the realm of possibility. 

A further note on the “dignified transfer” matter: it is tragic that three service members were killed by stuff possibly bought with money that came from the U.S.; it becomes a moment of skin crawling disgust when a “dignified transfer” is used for such obviously political reasons.

I wonder if Biden was thinking…what? over where? huh? the bunny?...oh, I should finish that thought… “Sorry we gave Iran money, but thanks for the photo op making me look honorable…oh, wait, dignified, yeah, that’s it.”

But I digress.

Joseph Stalin in 1937 got 100% of the vote. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov (huh…neither of those words spell checked so they must be right) was re-elected president of Turkmenistan in 2012 with 97% of the vote. 

Bashir al-Assad of Syria fame limped to election in 2014 with 89% of the vote but did better with his 2021 re-election vote total of 95%.

But both below Joe’s 96.2%

Nicolae Ceausescu, to his credit, did top Biden in 1989 with 98.8% of the vote and, of course, Kim Jong Un of Dennis Rodman fame did get 100% of the vote of the 99.9% of the public that bothered to turn out in 2019 (slackers.)

Good company to keep, Joe, especially because – never forget - the entire primary was created particularly for him to personally notch an automatically big win early in the process.  In other words, while it may not have been technically rigged, it was not, shall we say, a typical electoral event.

But why do dictators bother to go through the rigmarole of voting if they know they are going to win?

There are a few thoughts about that.  First, it’s always nice to be able to say “Look – my people love me!  I got 137% of the vote.”

That number is something they can point to to create some sort of cloud fog of legitimacy, something that might tamp down that uppity lieutenant colonel in the Praetorian Guard that may be getting ideas.

It’s also a handy way to flush out potential enemies and rivals.  For example, before announcing the 98.2% victory, the votes can be looked at closely (probably not really a secret ballot situation) to sniff out pockets of turnout or other problems. In other words, if the real vote shows only 70% support in the eastern province, promoting the governor of said province may be risky.

The purpose is to gather intel, not votes.

Most dictators themselves are – at least at a subconscious, lizard brain level – perfectly aware of the fallacy.   

But still they persist – hey, if you’re always going to roll a seven, keep on rolling.

Do not for a moment think using big numbers to add legitimacy to a victory is something purely restricted to bad other places that do not have perfect elections like the United States (we’ll leave that whole election security thing to the side for the moment.)

After Hillary lost in 2016, what did her supporters say ad nauseam?  Well, she won the popular vote!!! So she really should be president and she didn’t lose really!!!!

Reminding the supporters of Gurbanguly Clinton that without the margin of victory she rolled up in a single state – California – she in fact lost the popular vote tends to fall on deaf ears.

Similarly, Biden got the most votes ever!!! claims stoke the feeling of having a mandate, of filling in the legitimacy gap that could be caused by 2020 being the oddest election in American history, that his nomination was a put-up job, and that his campaign was essentially non-existent.

Headlines if – shudder - Biden gets re-elected?  Buy stock in BOLD FACE!

The day after will feature a headline in the Times (pick one) of:  Biden Crushes Evil; Our Democracy Preserved!!

And then during the second term expect to see variations on the themes of prosperity and joy and safety and following the rules:

Flash – Biden Beets Are Yummier

Thinking About Complaining?  Think Again, Scientists Say

Fascist Reds, Bloodier Roads:  Driving Safest in Bluest Counties

Choco Ration Increased to Twenty Grams per Week

Green is Good, Red is Bad:  MAGonistes Existential Threat to Climate, Children, Future

Study:  Ducks Float 7.4% Better in Biden Presidency

Of course ducks float better – 96.2% of the people say they do.

Speaking of 96.2%, did you know that is the same  percentage of EV drivers that are feeling nervous about reaching their destination at any given time?

Maybe not that many, but with an EV, the gnawing sense of not being able to feed your car to make it go more is a very big problem. 

And with a used EV – they’re becoming more and more of a thing – the sense of foreboding is only magnified.

As Sterling Archer from the wonderful Archer  spy show, once said:  “There is not enough liquor and therapy in the world to undo that.”

Archer was not talking about the worries associated with owning a used EV – wow, that would have been even ickier -  but he could have been.

Used EVs will lose more of their value than a used regucar because the battery system not only has a “you can drive 200 miles” limit, but also has a “I’ll work for a few years before I have to be replaced” limit.

Would you buy a used car for $21,000 (that’s what Hertz is selling Teslas for now) that would need a new engine in a whenever but soon?  Probably not.

And the issue is not just about individual re-sales – other rental firms and big leasers and such are worried they’ll get stuck, too

“When a car loses 1% of its worth, I make 1% less profit,” said Christian Dahlheim, who heads VW’s financial services arm. The issues with secondhand EVs, he said, have the potential to destroy billions of euros in earnings for the broader industry.

And of course, there this:  “China offers a cautionary tale. Lucrative subsidies turned the country into an EV giant, but also produced weed-infested graveyards of abandoned battery-powered vehicles.”

So California’s own EV mandate may be good for some people – people that own vast tracts of currently worthless land in the middle of the Mojave.

I mean the airplanes are already so…

The thank you for subscribing epigram this week needs a little explanation.  I distinctly recall this from “Egil’s Saga,” a bit of medieval Icelandic wackiness I read in school.  That however may not be the case because as hard as I tried I could not find it in an on-line version.  I assume (pleadingly) I just couldn’t find the proper translation, but if wrong it would mean I and a friend – we would quote it back and forth -  have our own little Mandela Effect going on (the Mandela Effect is something that is wrong but a zillion people remember as true, like it’s not “Mirror, mirror on the wall…” in Cinderella but “Magic mirror on the wall…)

Because of it’s minimal size, I guess this wouldn’t be a “Mandela Effect “but a “Bob DiPlante of East Providence, Rhode Island Effect.”

It could also just be an old Icelandic proverb, as poet W.H. Auden seemed to believe, or it could from the Latin or whatever. 

Anyhoo, here it is and thanks for subscribing:

“Every man loves the smell of his own farts.”

Keep it classy, Iceland.

BUT WAIT – BONUS TIME!!

I couldn’t leave without posting the two songs referenced waaaay above, so here you go:

Crystal Blue Persuasion

Ice Ice Baby   

Now, we’re done.