The other American quasi-celebrity Joe — notably less demented and more colorful than the alleged president of the same name — Joe Exotic, of “Tiger King” fame, is running for president. And he has a barn-burner of a campaign ad.
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Here’s his campaign platform in a nutshell:
I’m broke as f**k, I know nothing about politics, but I can g****mn guarantee you I’ll listen to the people’s voices — not the rich people, not the corporate America — I’ll listen to the people that are paying the salaries of all you bastards.
Would you vote for JOE…Joe Exotic? pic.twitter.com/acmvaUpm6w
— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) March 4, 2024
That I fully, legitimately, honest-to-God believe Joe Exotic could run the government more effectively, in better service of the public interest, than the current regime is nothing if not a damning indictment of America’s ruling class.
This popular rage at a ruling class that holds the rabble in utter contempt is the Trump phenomenon in its totality — not racism, not xenophobia, not “Christian Nationalism,” or any such smear employed against MAGA supporters.
This is essentially, by the way, the ascendant genre of Tucker Carlson/Alex Jones/Steve Bannon politics that has largely commandeered Republican politics since 2016.
Trump’s election wasn’t about Trump. It was a throbbing middle finger in the face of America’s ruling class. It was a gesture of contempt, a howl of rage, the end result of decades of selfish and unwise decisions made by selfish and unwise leaders. Happy countries don’t elect Donald Trump president. Desperate ones do. In retrospect, the lesson seemed obvious: Ignore voters for long enough and you get Donald Trump…
One of the most remarkable things about our immigration policy is how unpopular it is. Only the ruling class supports it. For more than fifty years, Gallup has polled Americans on whether they want more immigration, less immigration, or about the same amount. Not a single time has a plurality supported higher immigration levels. When Americans are asked what their preferred level of annual immigration is, they almost always want less than the current norm of about one million new legal immigrants per year. America was radically and permanently changed, against the will of its own population, by the people who run the country. Dare to complain about that and you’ll be shouted down as a bigot, as if demanding representation in a democracy were immoral. Not surprisingly, many voters have concluded that our democracy isn’t real. In important ways, it’s not.
-Tucker Carlson, “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution”