All these instant discussion of gridlock that will be visited on the American people from the power-shift away from the Democratic Party, aside from seeming like this was a baited, rehearsed response, made me wonder a bit at the metaphor and all the taut analogies and wonderful anachronisms in common parlance.
There are no gatekeepers or linemen, even by abstraction, in politics and unhealthy, dispirited debate could result in an impasse that could at least mitigate reprisals and minimize the statecraft of compromise that undoes better intentions. Figuratively, we deal in icons and language that no longer resembles the product or the process they represent, not recognizable except as their pictograms and few would have the experience or dexterity to use them: no one uses a telephone with a rotary dial, emails appear as envelops, padlocks, there are no dollar signs on the dollar, piggy-banks, search with a magnifying glass, megaphone, few have paint palettes or could translate musical notation, played on a victrola.
Maybe venom and vitriol are good offense but maybe like the icons, they hark back to some exercise that has fallen away. In addition to the altered topography of capitol-players, which may or may not be attributable to apathy over choice, Californians have folded on their efforts to regulate, milk and otherwise to decriminalize marijuana, spooked by the legal liability being a forerunner could present.
