The hard feelings in Washington, DC that began when Donald Trump discovered the TWEET button on his smart phone, and which have continued to harden like reinforced concrete since the Democrats took control of the U.S. House after the 2018 midterm elections, and now have made lonsdaleite look like Silly Putty are getting ready to collide in the House this week and in the Senate probably in mid-January.
It is not just that Republicans and Democrats prowling the Capitol Building are acting like the Jets and the Sharks on chrystal meth, it's that people outside the Beltway who had previously chosen up sides (some will never watch MSNBC, while others will never watch Fox News Channel) are using impeachment as the ultimate proof that their position is the only true position.
And anyone who disagrees isn't just wrong; they're LYING.
A poll released over the weekend by Fox carried the headline (by Fox): "Fox News Poll: Trump job approval ticks up, views on impeachment steady"
CNN's headline about the same poll reads: "Half of voters support impeaching Trump and removing him from office, new poll finds"
Both headlines are correct.
In that poll, respondents were asked how closely they were following the impeachment proceedings. 53 percent said "extremely" or "very" closely. 47 percent said "somewhat" or "not at all."
What you and I have been obsessing about for the past six weeks is being largely ignored by half the nation.
The real news is that nothing anyone is seeing, hearing, or saying is changing anyone else's mind.
And, not just about impeachment.
The Fox poll took a long look at the Democratic primary race. Other than Elizabeth Warren continuing to sag in the national polling, the order and grouping stays more-or-less the same as it has been for months.
Joe Biden 30 percent
Bernie Sanders 20
Elizabeth Warren 13
Pete Buttigieg 7
Mike Bloomberg 5
Amy Klobuchar 5
Everyone else is at three percent or less. Ok, here they are:
Tulsi Gabbard 3
Andrew Yang 3
Cory Booker 2
Michael Bennet 1
Julian Castro 1
Tom Steyer 1
Mike Bloomberg, who is not actively competing in the four early states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada), according to CNBC has:
"invested $57 million in TV advertising, putting him on track to overtake fellow billionaire Tom Steyer in the coming weeks, who has spent just over $60 million since July, according to data compiled by Advertising Analytics."
Steyer's $60 million has bought him the same percentage of voters (one) as Michael Bennet (Senator from Colorado) and Julian Castro (former Mayor of San Antonio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Barack Obama's administration).
Back on October 8, the RealClearPolitics.com aggregate of polls had Elizabeth Warren in first place, edging out Biden 26.6 percent to 26.4. Now her RCP average (including the Fox poll) is 16.4 percent. A ten point drop in ten weeks is significant.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg's high point so far came on November 30 when his average polling score was 11.8 percent. As of this past weekend, Buttigieg's average was at 8.8 percent.
The Big Thinkers Association has tried to make a comparison between the Left Wing positions of Warren and Bernie Sanders and the wipeout that the Labour Party suffered last week in the U.K. elections.
I'm not buying it. If half of Americans aren't paying attention to whether Donald Trump should be thrown out of the White House, I'm having a hard time believing any appreciable number of Americans could identify Jeremy Corbin even if they found out that he, like Bernie Sanders, identifies himself as a "Democratic Socialist."
Corbyn led the Labour Party to its worst defeat since 1987 giving the Conservatives a clear majority to implement Brexit (another term that would earn you a blank stare in most coffee shops in America).
I'm not certain how many Americans, shown a photo of Boris Johnson, wouldn't mistake him for Donald Trump on a bad hair day.
We're only about six weeks away from the start of the primary/caucus season. The Iowa caucuses are scheduled to be held on February 3 with the other three early states following about a week apart after that.
Meanwhile, the Jets and the Sharks are laying for one another:
We're drawin' the line
So keep your noses hidden!
We're hangin' a sign
Says "Visitors Forbidden"
And we ain't kiddin'!
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to lonsdaleite (which I had to look up), to the Jets and the Sharks song, to the Fox poll, and to Jeremy Corbyn.
The Mullfoto is a bumper sticker I spotted over the weekend which took me back to my youth.
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