Not Happy With the World Today? It's a Celebrity's Fault!

Evidently this is the man who gave us Trump II

Why are we at war with Iran? Why is inflation out of control? Why are civil liberties disappearing? Why are the rich paying little or no taxes while vital social services are being cut? Why do we have a president who is utterly despicable? The answer, I learned last night on social media, is simple. Because of George Clooney. The bastard.

Let me back up a little bit first. I frequent Bluesky having gotten out of the hellscape that was Twitter eighteen months ago. On Bluesky I mostly post about and follow accounts about my favorite English football club, Arsenal. I do follow a few politically-oriented accounts. But not many. Bluesky so far seems to be overwhelmingly liberal or progressive whether the accounts are American or British. As my primary interest is in English football (soccer, to you Yanks) most of what I follow is English born and bred, so to speak.

I followed (now past tense) this one charming woman who posted political stuff much of it displaying her wit. But last night she posted something that was utterly ridiculous. I had a hard time believing she was serious -- she was. The woman was understandably lamenting the current state of affairs vis a vis the presidency and claimed that it was in large part the fault of the actor George Clooney (please note I'm sparing you the actual posts primarily because I don't want to see the stupid things again). It seems that in her mind Clooney was THE driving force behind Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race some two years ago and this is was led to Trumpy's victory. Evidently she was unaware of Biden's performance in his debate with Trumpy and doesn't recall how far behind he was in the polls nor that he would have gotten squashed in the election. In her mind (what there is of it) had Biden stayed the course we would have been spared Trumpy. Pure fantasy.

One immediate question I had was: why are dredging this up two years after the fact? What possible purpose could it serve to start assigning blame for the results of the last election when we've got so many problems to be dealing with right now and while energy should be focused on kicking ass in the mid term elections which are a little over six months away. In any event she brought it up nonetheless. 

I noted that there were a fair number of responses to her post. I decided to have a look reasoning that people were taking her to task for such a ridiculous comment. I was wrong

Many people decided to pile on Clooney some noting that he no longer even lives in the USA. People on social media do love a good pile on. It's like seeing someone who's just been beaten up and is prone on the ground and giving them a few good kicks to the ribs. 

But some people found other villains. These included -- I kid you not -- Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. It seemed these two (to be fair they should have included Seth Meyers and probably dozens of other comedians) had the temerity to make jokes about Biden's debate performance and his general displays of ineptitude. If they'd kept their yaps shut or pretended that everything with Biden was hunky dory, Trump would have gone down in flames in the election.

Somehow Jake Tapper was lumped in with the comics and Susan Sarandon (who had been blamed for Trumpy's first election victory) was also blamed. Sarandon seems destined to be a punching bag for the rest of her days.

There's nothing like good old-fashioned finger pointing. However none of those fingers were pointed at all the idiots who voted for the Republican ticket in 2024. Seems odd to me because they were the ones who actually wanted the idiot in office. 

Democrats are often terrible at playing the political game (see Schumer, Chuck). One example is the veritable cannibalism that goes on. It's not just in-fighting its internal nuclear war. This includes finding scapegoats within the party which is a helluva lot easier than fixing existing problems or looking ahead to make a better future. After all that requires work. Finger pointing just requires a finger.

I threw my two cents into the conversation making points similar to those mentioned here. I got a little bit of pushback from a couple of particularly dense people but they were outweighed by those who gave me likes or re-posts. 

More than anything I wanted to get the hell out of the conversation and unfollow or block the offenders. I also wanted to see if I could track Clooney down and ask him if he'd own up to being to blame for the state of the world today. Damn celebrities.