How the story of a buppie film student’s Oscar pool strategy just might save the Democrats in 2020.
“Lord Jesus help us if these Dems lose in 2020!”
Me
If you know me, you know that I am no fan of Trump. If you don’t know me, sign up for my email list to be notified of my pending satirical memoir, then you will know me. Until then, if you don’t know me, know this… I loathe the man. No, that’s not strong enough. I LURTHE him (I just made the word up to fully express how much I despise him and what he stands for).
It is because of my lurthe for him that I want a Democrat taking that oath on January 20, 2021. So, with much anticipation, I watched some of the highlights of the first Democratic primary debate. And as my momma used to say, “Lord have mercy!”
I only saw bits and pieces of the debate, but what the actual FRAK! That debate was practically a PSA for the frakking Trump campaign. Geeze-us, Mary in heaven that was a fuster-cluck.
I’m no political strategist, but if the presidential election were held today, I fear we’d get another 4 years of MAGA. That is totally and utterly UNACCEPTABLE!
So, I am going to offer the top 3 things Dems should do NOW to ensure a 2020 win.
But first, as usual, a story.
Oscar pools and political strategy
When I attended film classes at De Anza Community College (which, although no USC or NYU, has a pretty terrific film program), as expected, someone would always host an Oscar party. Now, this was during a time when I was still very much more towards the right of my political leaning, and very much a business yuppie type. I’d come to class straight from work, still dressed in shirt and tie, while all the other film students were in their requisite baggy multi-colored, Dead-head style t-shirts, jeans, ripped tennis shoes, and scrappy goatees (for the record, the girls did not have goatees. Well, most of them didn’t anyway. This was the Bay Area after all. So, you know, people there are sometimes, um, different.)
Anyhoo, I would go to the Oscar parties after work, still looking like a Buppie, then cast my votes for the Oscar pool. And if any regular Tom, Dick, or Jane walked off the street into that living room, and took a visual survey of the people in attendance, I would be the LAST person anyone would expect to win the Oscar pool.
Why? Because no one would expect a black yuppie in a shirt and tie, in a room filled with 20-somethings who all looked like extras from “Jesus Christ Superstar” to win a pool based on picking the movies that would win Oscars.
But guess what? For the two years in a row that I attended De Anza – I ALWAYS WON THE OSCAR POOL. And you know why? Because I f-ing wanted to win, and I knew that in order to win, I had to pick movies I KNEW would win. The other schmucks in the class picked the movies they WANTED to win.
There were certain formulas and strategies I would employ. For instance: any short film about the Holocaust I would ALWAYS vote for. I don’t care what the hell any other short film was about. If someone made a short documentary about the man who discovered the cure for cancer and AIDS while simultaneously escaping from the ravages of a South American dictatorship with his six adopted children and blind wife in tow, if it went up against a short doc about a Holocaust survivor, it was losing.
I didn’t vote for “important” films that no one f-ing heard of. I don’t care how amazing the Dali-esque cinematography or Nietzsche-esque writing was. If it was going up against a Sandler-Barrymore blockbuster juggernaut of the time, it was not getting my vote.
So for two years in a row, the black yuppie in the shirt and tie, who approached the Oscar pool more like a business strategist vs. a romantic cinephile, went home with the cash and bragging rights; and all the hippie-looking Jesus Christ Superstar extras went home empty-handed.
You may be asking yourself, “Ron, what the hell does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China when it comes to these Democratic debates?” Well, I’m glad you asked.
The Dems need to STOP excessively talking about issues that a majority of the country will not necessarily care about. Notice I said “excessively” talking about. So, it’s not that you shouldn’t mention the needs or atrocities of the black transgender community. By all means, bring it up every now and then. But don’t frakking make it a major talking point; and sure as hell don’t say you plan to enact laws that will give men the right to have abortions.
I know that may sound surprisingly insensitive and un-PC coming from me. But it’s time to get Sun Tzu up in this mo-fo, and beat the Re-pubes, I mean, Republicans, at their own game.
My 3-tip listical for Democratic success in the 2020 election
So, without further ado, here’s what I’d do (see what I did there. Pretty clever, huh?)
- Sun Tzu this bitch: read my story above. Win the election first, by any means necessary; then, use your power to fight injustice. But don’t f-ing talk about that ish during the election.
- Stop preaching to the choir: I’m sure it would be great going to L.A. and being hosted by Clooney and Pitt for some major political speech at the San Francisco Biltmore. But California is already in your pocket. Set your engines to warp factor 9.3 and hyperspace your ass over to OH and any other swing state in the midwest where you can address the needs of the miners who were lied and pandered to by Trump in 2016. (I apologize for the mixed sci-fi metaphor, but these are drastic times, so drastic mixed metaphor measures are required). Then YOU lie and pander to them to get their vote (I jest. Don’t lie. As a future leader of this country, you should never lie.)
- Pander to THEM not US: stop f-ing talking in Spanish. Your accent sucks and it’s so blatantly pathetic and obvious what you’re doing, it just makes you look silly to both Dems and Re-pubes. And Bill, I think it’s great you married a sista and that you have a biracial son. I have biracial children too. But for god sakes man, I don’t care how woke you are, any time a white man uses his colored children (whether or not they are biological) as a political tool, it reeks of tone deafness. I swear I thought you were about to break out into ebonics to upstage Booker and Beto’s Spanish.
So there you have it. My Oscar-inspired, Harvard Business School-esque fool-proof strategy for the Dems to take 2020. What do you think of my ideas? What ideas do you have? Share in the comments. Or scream at me on Facebook or Twitter.
Also published on Medium.