New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Can America smile again?
In 1996, after Bill Clinton handily defeated Bob Dole for the presidency, I recall reading an analysis that explained Clinton’s win in the following way: Americans were in a happy mood.
The article cited a number of possible causes for the happy mood, including the Macarena, a relatively easyto-do dance craze. In fact, the person who invented the choreography later said it didn’t matter if people did things in the wrong order.
And yes, the delegates did the Macarena at the Democratic National Convention. And yes, when Dole fell off the stage at a campaign event, he joked that he had been trying to do the Macarena.
But it seemed unlikely to me that voters arrived at the polls breathlessly chanting, “They all want me, they can’t have me.” It seemed more likely to me that, if the electorate was measurably less unhappy, it was because of the growing penetration of Prozac (introduced in 1987) and its antidepressant cousins.
Here is 2021, we need better dances and better drugs. I don’t think I’ll get much argument (for once) when I say America right now seems comprehensively and bipartisanly crabby.
We’ve had two consecutive presidential elections in which substantial blocs of voters were more eager to vote against one candidate than for the other. By early 2021, to distrust of candidates had been added distrust of the election itself
And then, on Jan. 6, a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol either to express their civic concerns over the vote count or to kill everybody, depending on who you believe.
No sooner had that bout of bloodlust died down than a new group of bogeypersons was identified.
This new enemy was indeed an army of yellowfanged villains who engaged in forms of evil that would make a normal sinner blanch.
I speak of course of ... Boards of Education.
Crabby persons who, due to travel restrictions, were not able to visit Washington and hit a policeman on the head with a flagpole could transfer some of that positive energy into their own communities by threatening Boards of Education, stalking Boards of Education, showing up on the lawns of Board of Education members
A major movie and TV trend — exemplified by “Joker,” “Maleficent,” “Ratched,”and “Cruella” — is the villain origin story. Let’s get to know these horrible people better.
and frightening their pets and children.
Why? Because Boards of Education are full of powermad zealots who hate the white race and enjoy suffocating children with oxygen-blocking masks.
This is the energy we brought into Tuesday’s vote, and it’s pretty hard to find a significant election that was not massively affected by “againstness.” Critical race theory. Critical mask theory. Critical police theory. Critical dance theory.
We are against everything and for nothing.
It’s not that there were no dance crazes. It’s that there were too many. And they were on TikTok or in the Philippines or both. Mainly on TikTok, where there is a new dance craze every week, and some of these dances can be done in 20 seconds.
They are the Fruit Flies of Terpsichore. Most of them don’t stick around long enough to acquire the definite article “the,” the exceptions being The Renegade and The Git Up.
Michelle Obama learned to do The Renegade, but she is kind of famous for knowing how to do dances. What makes a dance craze a dance craze is that people less lively and more lumpy than Michelle Obama attempt to do the moves.
The most talked about TV show is “Succession,” an HBO seriocomedy about miserable, dysfunctional, genius-skips-a-generation siblings clawing furiously at one another for the privilege of taking over media empire that none of them knows how to run. It’s hard to pinpoint any sources of pleasure or happiness on the show unless you count Shiv’s power pants (you can look them up) which have developed a passionate following.
The number one fiction bestseller is the 26th (I’m not kidding) Jack Reacher novel, tellingly titled “Better Off Dead.”
Also climbing that list (No. 3 right now) is “Dune,” the bleak and humorless 1965 sci-fi novel which has been converted into a bleak and humorless half-a-movie which stops abruptly, leaving its viewers stranded in oceanic expanses of sand inhabited by giant murderous worms.
A major movie and TV trend — exemplified by “Joker,” “Maleficent,” “Ratched,”and “Cruella” — is the villain origin story. Let’s get to know these horrible
people better.
The number one song in the United States is “Easy on Me,” another of Adele’s typical joyful anthems about her divorce, her troubled childhood and her struggles with despair.
The biggest trend in antidepressants is tachyphylaxis, a fancy way of saying that, at a certain point, they stop working.
As Huey Lewis would say, “I want a new drug.” Except that — this is really depressing — Huey Lewis has a medical condition that has robbed him of his ability to hear music.
Who can save us? Who can restore American joy, enough so that we can set aside the doctrine of againstness and once again seek leaders and political solutions that represent to us positive change?
Probably ABBA. By the time you read this, ABBA will have released their first new album in 40 years.
We may be down to our last chip — relying on septuagenerians from a socialist democracy on the other wide of the Atlantic to lift us from this valley of sorrow and bitterness.
Otherwise, we’re facing a cultural and political Waterloo.
Colin McEnroe’s column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Thursday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his free newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe.