By Myles Ludwig
Ladies and gentlemen, the government has left the building.
Thank you and good night.
It’s times like these that make us glad to see a punky Miley Cyrus embarrass herself on the VMA, then make an amusing, self-conscious effort to redeem herself on SNL by slutting up Michele Bachmann, wearing an ironic throwback jersey and a lacy transparent hoodie jumpsuit and shower shoes, ratcheting up faux-black trap into an acoustic ballad — thus proving that the neo-hood really is a gated community in the suburbs. There’s an American story. It hits the thumbnail right on the beat.
If it wasn’t for that cute kid, we’d be stuck having Thanksgiving dinner with Granny Madonna and Auntie Gaga.
Or trying to make intelligent conversation about gov.com.
Here you go again as, Ronald Reagan used to say. Here’s that old, tired, political slapstick comedy of our gov.com slipping on a budget banana peel and tripping into a Florida-sized sinkhole that neither merits a snicker, chuckle or a round of applause. Once again, we get a chance to watch the Republicans eating their young and licking their lips while the Democrats are sticking out their tongues out like angry 12-year-olds and eating discount sandwiches to show how much they connect with the real people.
Spare us. It’s unseemly, childish and exposes the loosely stitched seams of our system of personalized checks and insufficient balances. Both sides are throwing Boston cream pies of clichés at each other. Neither side is hitting its target. Each side is Bogarting the ball, but neither is willing to pick it up and take it home. And neither is willing to write the checks and balance the accounts.
What’s really at stake here?
Power, of course.
And a power that’s fleeting at best. It’s really just the appearance of power. Virtual power. The Grand Theft Auto of politics. I remember doing some communications work for a local government in another state some years ago, feeling frustrated by the obstacles and being advised by a colleague at my client to cool it. Politics, he said, was not about doing something, it’s but about appearing to do something.
I guess these are the moments these avatars live for. It’s their big media moment. It’s about who has the biggest swinging bat. It’s a talking points war: furious soundbites signifying nothing.
In the meantime, the rest of us are sidelined, sitting on the bench like dazed and confused dumbos, and worse, we’re being punished for something we don’t even understand. Send us in, Coach. But where’s the coach? Where’s the field?
While each side is busy outscreeching the other, nobody seems to be able to explain the Affordable Care Act in simple, understandable every-day, 7th-grade English. Eligibility? Subsidization? Percentage of poverty line?
Yo, let’s keep it real: Are we going to lose our treasured Silver Sneakers benefits? Are we going to have to buy full-price tickets at the movies? How come movies on demand don’t have senior discounts? Why do I have to pay for Duck Dynasty to get HBO? Why can’t I unbundle?
These are the real issues.
Meantime, we’re paying “navigators” to guide us through waters that seem to get murkier and murkier every day. Click Help. We don’t understand what might or might not be beneficial. Nobody even seems to be able to get the website working. Where’s Martha Stewart when we need her? Where’s SEAL Team Six?
In Somalia? Libya?
What happens if some Al-Shabab franchise attacks the Mall of America?
OK, we know democracy is messy by definition, unless it’s tyrant doublespeak. We can live with that. But is messy supposed to be some kind of virtue?
Yes, it seems more workable, more likable than, say, those European coalitions that get themselves mucked up in arguments and corruption, those coalitions that seem to thrive on self-destruction or a spiral system like Iran’s’ confusing concentric circles of semi-power revolving around the Supreme Leader.
But, sooner or later, one has to clean up the room.
So, where is the media in all this? Where is the media while each side pretends it’s a zero-sum game and glowers at each other across the public airwaves for the sake of some foggy point. Pretends is the operative word here, because everyone knows it will end in compromise just as surely as every war ends in some kind of peace.
Like Leonard Cohen sings, “Everybody knows the dice are loaded.”
Miles Ludwig is a media savant living in Lake Worth.