Great Moments in Magic Ruralism

Magic Ruralism (™) noun: a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of political fantasy.

As I have mentioned before, the Beltway media's hot new genre is something I call Magic Ruralism.

...just as Thrilling Detective and Detective Fiction Weekly were in the business of cranking out hard-boiled crime genre fiction for the titillation of their readers, so have The New York Times and the Washington Post gone into the business of cranking out True Tales Of Rust-Belt Trump Murricans! for the titillation of their readers.

And I wasn't kidding.  As someone who could once tell you what the submission policies and pay scale were for every science fiction market from Playboy and Omni (serious money) to the Windycon writer's contest (a gold coin and approbation) I can tell you that in all the animal kingdom there is no species that seeks out sustenance and communicates its location back to the hive more efficiently than hungry writers hustling after a buck.

And ever since the rise of Trump, no genre of Beltway media fiction has paid better or more reliably than Magic Ruralism.  Which, I predict. will go right on paying well as long as what passes for our national political conversation is dominated by coastal media corporations who:

1. Have apparently never met an actual Republican in the wild, and
2. Have no intention of giving up their twin myths of the Imaginary Reasonable Republican Party and the Imaginary Feisty Independent Voter which are as one with tall tales of John Henry the Steel Drivin' Man, Pecos Bill who roped and rode tornadoes, and Joe the Plumber who wasn't named Joe and wasn't a Plumber.  

But because they're not Homer and because they purport to be the "news", they can't get by reenacting the same fables year after year around the national camp-fire.  Instead, they have to hunt up new actors to populate their tired, old puppet show.

Enter Doug Ogden.

And I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "Doug Ogden?  Holy shit!  You mean the Doug Ogden?"

Yes, the Doug Ogden.  Now calm down and let the Associated Press tell you why you you are aupposed to care:

Democrats face identity crisis in next phase of 2020 race

"Golly,"  you're probably thinking.  "That does sound important.  Tell me more, Associated Press!"

Doug Ogden doesn’t know what to do.

So now you're thinking, "OK, that might trouble me if I knew who the fuck Doug Ogden was, but I don't, so..."

Patience.  All will be revealed.

The 75-year-old retired law enforcement officer is disgusted by President Donald Trump. But he can’t imagine voting for a Democrat in 2020, either. A self-described independent in South Carolina, Ogden doesn’t recognize the modern-day Democratic Party.

“The state of the Democratic Party is wild against wilder,” says Ogden, standing with his arms crossed at a recent town hall meeting for Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. “It scares me.”

Oh I get it now?  Doug Ogden is a moron.  He's just another random Republican meathead who now calls himself an "independent" because what-the-hell, it worked last time!  And because the Associated Press stuck a microphone in front him and had him recite the sacred "Both Sides Are Bad" talking points now, for no explicable reason, this is a national story about "Democrats face identity crisis in next phase of 2020 race".

Sure there follows a lot of meaningless yadda yadda about The Larger Picture which is larded onto the Amazing Tale of Doug "I'm An Independent!" Ogden --

At the core of Ogden’s concern is a broader question about the direction of the Democratic Party and its values in the age of Trump...

-- because the Associated Press is lazy that way.

But the core of this old meathead's concerns have nothing to do with the direction and values of the Democratic Party in the age of Trump.

Instead they have everything to do with yet another iteration of the same "Get Out Of Accountability Free" escape plan Republicans have been running for the last 40 years.

This is why it was so imperative that the media memory-hole the entire George W. Bush administration.  Because Republican shitheads like good ol' Doug Ogden now find themselves in exactly the same position they were in back when the Dubya Administration began to fall apart:  desperate to scuttle away from taking responsibility for electing the Worst President In History while at the same time not willing to give up their arrogant ignorance and their seething contempt for my Party of Scary Negroes, Mouthy Women, Gays and Commie Libtards:

Back in South Carolina, Ogden isn’t interested in hearing about multiracial coalitions.

The Democratic Party, he said, has become “the welfare party” by offering too many free benefits to people not willing to work for them.

“The Republicans aren’t any better,” Ogden said. “Republicans don’t seem to want to change, and Democrats want to change everything.”

He added: “I’ll have to see if I can stomach either one of them.”

Once again, the Republicans and their enablers who got us into our latest national disaster are scrambling to find  some way to escape the righteous judgement of history.

And if you listen carefully, somewhere just over the horizon you can hear the thrum of the instrument of their liberation -- a newly repainted and detailed Bush-Off Machine -- roaring to life.

My plan?
Hang Trump and everything that led to Trump around the necks of every Republic and Republican-enabler forever.