Iowa: The Meaningless Sideshow Begins

By Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone via reader supported news (rsn)
January 03, 2012

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/9252-focus-iowa-the-meaningless-sideshow-begins

The 2012 presidential race officially begins today with the
caucuses in Iowa, and we all know what that means …

Nothing.

The race for the White House is normally an event suffused
with drama, sucking eyeballs to the page all over the globe.
Just as even the non-British were at least temporarily
engaged by last year's royal wedding, people all over the
world are normally fascinated by the presidential race: both
dramas arouse the popular imagination as real-life versions
of universal children's fairy tales.

Instead of a tale about which maiden gets to marry the
handsome prince, the campaign is an epic story, complete with
a gleaming white castle at the end, about the battle to
succeed to the king's throne. Since the presidency is the
most powerful office in the world, the tale has appeal for
people all over the planet, from jungles to Siberian
villages.

It takes an awful lot to rob the presidential race of this
elemental appeal. But this year's race has lost that buzz. In
fact, this 2012 race may be the most meaningless national
election campaign we've ever had. If the presidential race
normally captivates the public as a dramatic and angry
ideological battle pitting one impassioned half of society
against the other, this year's race feels like something else
entirely.

In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a
dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in
the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and
federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a
banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event - the real
event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of
disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a
corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political
establishment, represented in large part by the two parties
dominating this race.

To read more, go to
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/9252-focus-iowa-the-meaningless-sideshow-begins

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