It’s been a little over forty years since a certain mediocre Hollywood actor became President. You might instantly recall his iconic role in Bedtime for Bonzo. In this film, the prez-to-be plays a psychology professor attempting to teach human morals to a chimpanzee. I suppose it isn’t any more absurd a storyline than current cinema’s cartoonish penchant for superhero tales, or supernatural hauntings, or makes-no-sense sci-fi thrillers that create monsters without any backstory whatsoever (Us, A Quiet Place, A Quiet Place, part 2 (!!) Passengers…). But enough people pay to see this cheap cinematic sausage to allow for more and more cheap (and cheaper) movie gunk to hit the screens.

I’d like to think some silver screen consumers of these offerings gag on the product and avoid repeating the experience, but that star of Bonzo (the above noted human, not the chimp) didn’t suffer from such low-grade, grind-it-out studio offerings. Indeed not. He was reliably functional, if not very flashy. His ease of effort in front of camera gave him an edge on the campaign trails. As is well noted, ever since JFK set the table for style being rather vital to likeability, that now a candidate’s looks and non-verbal stylings count as much if not more than their substance.

You may be wondering: where is this blog post going? Obviously it’s about that book, the one for which one should not be judged by its cover. No, wait. It’s about people being willing to cram down their gullets any cheap, processed, packaged piece of floor scrapings for gratification. No, wait. It’s about how the fuck does one make any sense of a Mitch McConnell getting elected over an over in spite of his McTurtle looks and mumbling, muffled vocal stylings?! Or maybe it’s exactly about the consumers of junk food, junk politics, junk science, junk rage, and junk that they keep having delivered to their doorsteps by Amazon, UPS, FedEx or USPS. Yeah, that’s it. And now we live in a junk “democracy”. Which started getting junky the day that Bonzo’s handler started the grift that has the U.S. in its grips quite tightly these looney bin daze. And the Grifters reside in both political parties. It’s so bad now, that even when we the people got rid of the Orange serial grifter and his failed coup attempt, the new sheriff (and his congressional posse) still seem unwilling to place people over profits. And the utter and complete irony is that the new sheriff got elected while looking embalmed. THAT’S how much the voters wanted a new sheriff to replace the tin-pot wannabe dictator. Is this incompetence? Hell, no! These are the new Grifters, beholden to much the same corporate masters, but without all the vile and vicious invectives that accompanied the previous ones.

Maybe there is a Bonzo out there who can bring his rope-swinging reformers with him (her?). We’ve been living with political chumps long enough. A Chimp couldn’t possibly do any worse. Teach it human morals? No need, I’m sure any chimpanzee has better morals than what passes for such in politics-at-large.

Sure, that sounds completely bananas. But at this point what have we to lose?