The Banality of Beto

I think I’ve figured it out: Beto O’Rourke is just a younger version of Howard Schultz, spewing forth empty platitudes while hopped up on too much Red Bull or something. Clichés sound so much better when said at high energy! I wonder if the Democrats will have to spread the podiums further apart in their televised debates to prevent injuries when Beto extends his full condor-length wingspan?

Trump has already figured this out, and Beto will go down next to “Low Energy Jeb” as the handsy candidate who can put even Joe Biden to shame. Jimmy Fallon gets it, too:

Somehow this puts me in mind of the great scene in Talladega Nights where Girard asks the question that might well be asked of Beto: “Is that a catch-phrase or is it epilepsy?” Beto—the shake and bake candidate, people!

P.S. Even The New Republic has figured Beto out:

The Profound Emptiness of Beto O’Rourke

. . . His rhetoric is as empty as his platform, his paeans to “coming together” the stuff of Obama fanfic. . .

O’Rourke’s posts resemble sophomoric creative nonfiction. They’re maudlin, confusing the expression of emotion with profundity. They’re formless, written in a quasi-literary clipped style. And they’re self-serious, filled with banal observations about the experiences that characterize American political life. But these sketches are also littered with stump-speech cliches. . .

O’Rourke lacks any platform whatsoever. He has no signature idea, and we know little about his political positions beyond the mushy centrism he exhibited in Congress.

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