Pulling Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps...

WITH THE NEXT election still almost 18 months away, you’d think the media would focus on more important topics in the meantime, such as where Kim Kardashian is spending her next vacation.

But you’d be wrong. It’s officially time for the press to ignore more newsworthy subjects in favor of endless coverage of the election “horse race,” but without the legendary good sense horses bring to such occasions.

ISIS on the move, taking the Middle East back to the 7th century? Forget that. Let’s talk about Jeb Bush’s 2016 run, although the hook could be how ISIS reminds people of the disastrous policies of the last Bush in the White House. Or was it the one before that? I can’t remember. (In hindsight, the Bush parents should have named alltheir sons George, so presidential ballots could be printed in bulk, enough for several elections.)

Interestingly, the latest news about ISIS is that its recruits from the West are having second thoughts about the medieval living conditions so praised by the jihadists. After all, in the 7th century there were no antibiotics, no running water, and only basic cable. But you won’t find the press covering that because “Sarah Palin may be running again!”

Although, to be fair, there is a foreign policy connection, since she has publicly stated “God bless our troops, especially our snipers.” (Such a wonderful ambassador for our nation. Definitely U.N. material.)

Climate change threatening our coastlines? Boring. Cable news thinks Mike Huckabee’s White House prospects are, frankly, a lot more interesting. His new book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, is an alliterative attempt to keep his name before the public. Either that, or he was reading from a Cracker Barrel menu. Regardless, he hopes book sales will be better than his last effort, When Monkeys Fly: My Timeline to the Presidency.

Nearly a quarter of American children living in poverty? No time to report on that since there are more Republican presidential hopefuls than there are months left before the election. And the media must profile each one, ad nauseam (which is a Latin phrase meaning “If you say that Rick Perry’s glasses make him look smarter, I’m gonna throw up”).

But here at Sojourners’ political desk, we’re going to ignore the horse race and save you some time. In our view the election is already over. It’s a done deal. The only question is how many votes Hilary Clinton will lose by, rounded up to the nearest $100 million. Because we don’t have one person, one vote any more. It’s one person, one very large check.

And much of that money will come from the Koch brothers—Beelzebub and Mephistopheles—two industrialists pledging almost $1 billion to stem the tide toward “collectivism,” which is the opposite of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” (which I think has something to do with choosing good footwear, but that can’t be right).

Actually, it means we shouldn’t depend on the government to help us. True success only comes when individual Americans work hard and create their own future, just like the Koch brothers, who began their careers with nothing but the clothes on their backs and several million dollars in assets from their father’s factories. Donald Trump is another example of a self-made man who started out after college with just a dream, a can-do attitude, and $40 million in seed money from his dad. And that buys a lot of seeds.

Coincidentally, the Supreme Court has ruled these men can use that money any way they want, like to buy a really big boat, some nice clothes, or maybe a country. Because Americans shouldn’t depend on anybody else to help make something of themselves. They should use their inheritances, like normal people.