United States Politics: ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0 where ε=4 and φ=0.25

[DavidCroquet]

Politics reverting to catty high school attitudes is a little sad. Everybody gave up on trying to be serious people and fell down to Trump’s level. When once “you’re no Jack Kennedy” was seen as disrespectful, now we have a 60-year-old guy playing off the Vance boning furniture thing. Rubio making a remark about Trump’s penis is the go to political play these days. And members of both parties embrace it. I don’t know if there’s going back to boring policy candidates. Eventually it’s going to be Logan Paul vs Mr Beast telling voters to smash that ballot checkbox.

I think everything old is new again. America as a country has never been uniformly smart or particularly respectful. But the language changes so it always feel extreme to all of us getting older.

Grover Cleveland is dead as fuck, but his campaign is instructive here. Republicans had a chant: "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?", because Cleveland was a deadbeat dad. From some brief research, it sounds like it was never confirmed, but the chant stuck anyway.

Democrats responded with "Gone to the White House, Ha! Ha! Ha!"

It sounds quaint, but I see it as nearly equivalent to the whole porn-star-payout thing...not in terms of legality, but in terms of bawdy and tasteless personal attacks.

Dems: Trump is paying to fuck pornstars 
Republicans: Our guy is banging pornstars! 

I still think all the couchfucking, "weird republican" stuff is boring and not really worth engaging in. I just don't think it's particularly new.