Political Royalty

By Dr. Henry Flores, NewsTaco

Why do I get the feeling, and you may be having the same feelings as well, that the forthcoming presidential elections are beginning to look like old movie reruns.  Worse, they are “bad” old movie reruns.  You know the kind of old movie that is cliché-ridden, predictable, has no drama, possessed of a very thin plot, and the character development is lacking.  I mean, ¡por favor gente!  Give me a break!

Political Royalty 

You ask “what is so royal” about the bad old movies we are beginning to see on CNN, MSNBC and other somewhat credible news outlets?  Well, first of all we have Bushes and Clintons running against each other for the ith time.  The first two Bushes were terrible qualitatively; shoot Number 43 couldn’t even find the right door to use when exiting stage left.  (Ah, that might have been it.  He should’ve have tried stage right, it fit him better.)  Then we have Mrs. Clinton, which means we’ll get Bill as the “First Gentleman?”  I wonder how good he will be at visiting kinders and reading to the children or supervising the annual Easter Egg Roll?  Will Bill get to work out of the traditional “First Lady’s” Office or will he remodel it into more of a man cave?  Hmmm.

The bad part about this picture show is that we don’t know what each of the candidates will do once they get into office.  We do know, from the current unannounced campaign, that all of them have used personal emails while in office; we also know that all of them have been receiving money from questionable sources; and we do know that there isn’t a nice guy or gal in the entire lot.  I mean, what’s loveable about any of the proposed candidates so far?

Voter Participation 

The main reason I’m concerned about the bad old movie reruns that are playing on the media today is that they are going to affect voting behavior worse than ever.  Maybe I’m just getting cynical the older I get but it seems to me, maybe some of you agree, that the current crop of presidential hopefuls are, well, just plain old boring.

With all of the back stabbing and bloodletting that is going on at this moment in the “pre-primary/pre-general” election, the voters are not receiving any information as to what these candidates know about issues or how they stand on specific issues or what they intend on doing once in office.  The only rhetoric that is bandied about at the moment is verbiage about how bad the opposition candidate is and how they will bring about the end of the nation.  Yes, Ted Cruz actually declared that the nation was on fire and would burn to a crisp if voters didn’t support him.  Sheeesh!!!!!

And those of us in the profession wonder why voter turnout is so pathetic!  ¡Por favor! gente give the voters a reason to vote.  As it is at this moment all we are getting are unfounded declarations and statements of why we should not vote for the other person, not why we should vote for a specific candidate.

Old Movie Reruns 

Still, we are faced with a field of candidates that are warmed over versions of previous generations of candidates.  We have wives and sons and brothers of previous presidents running simply because they belong to the same family and can claim that their familial proximity gives them special insight into politics at all levels.  As a result, we should vote for them because of their special insight.  We might as well have a group of shamans running if that’s the case.

How about asking our political royalty if they can govern?  How about that for a question?  Not asking if they want to govern but can they govern.  Do they have the wherewithal to lead our country, guide the economy and stand at the head of world leaders when confronting global issues?

Even, the other candidates such as the Cruzes, Pauls, Walkers and Rubios, who didn’t have relatives sitting in the White House are not giving us reasons to vote for them.  All they are doing is spouting more empty rhetoric, repeating age-old political hyperbole about not raising taxes, cutting corporate taxes, and dismantling Social Security.  This is all stuff Republicans have been saying since the 1930s.  No wonder their called the Grand OLD Party.  No wonder they remind me of those old, late night, black and white reruns.