{"id":1552,"date":"2016-03-04T19:09:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T19:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2023-12-31T08:34:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T16:34:58","slug":"electing-monkeys-in-presidential-years-no-wait-i-meant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=1552","title":{"rendered":"Electing Monkeys in Presidential Years&#8230;No, Wait&#8230;I Meant&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As if there weren\u2019t enough irrational discourse about this Making of the President 2016\u2013 or, as my own book would prefer labeling it, &#8220;The Circus of the Clueless&#8221; \u2013 there\u2019s been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanthinker.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/a_presidential_election_in_the_year_of_the_monkey.html\">some chatter about this being the Chinese Year of the Monkey and how especially, and (perhaps) appropriately auspicious Monkey Year elections have been for subsequent American presidencies.<\/a>\u00a0 But if these years are so transformative, then\u00a0what was so unusual or significant about 2004, the last Monkey Year vote for president? I mean, yes, these years always start out somehow being deemed the Most Important Election of Your\/Our\/One\u2019s Lifetime. As Samantha Bee, TV\u2019s newest investigative anchor-comedian-sage puts it, election years are like your children. Each is special in every way &#8212; except, apparently, midterms.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"2010 Election | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee | TBS\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fw41BDhI_K8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But is the Monkey more significant than, say, the Rat or (my own birth-year icon) the Dragon? Let\u2019s make comparisons, reaching back not TOO far in the previous century:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?attachment_id=3461\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3461\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3461\" src=\"https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/curious-george-2_wide-b411b6d315890c7058ec85f42771142c9c15bc34-300x169.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/curious-george-2_wide-b411b6d315890c7058ec85f42771142c9c15bc34-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/curious-george-2_wide-b411b6d315890c7058ec85f42771142c9c15bc34-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/curious-george-2_wide-b411b6d315890c7058ec85f42771142c9c15bc34-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/curious-george-2_wide-b411b6d315890c7058ec85f42771142c9c15bc34-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/curious-george-2_wide-b411b6d315890c7058ec85f42771142c9c15bc34-2048x1152.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Monkey Years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1932: \u201cYou Can Look Up Now, Everyone.\u201d<br \/>\n1944:&#8221;He Aint Peaked Yet. But He Sure Does Look Peaked.&#8221;<br \/>\n1956: \u201cIke I Still Like! (You, I Don\u2019t!)\u201d<br \/>\n1968: \u201cThere Must Be Some Kinda Way Outta Here\u2026\u201d<br \/>\n1980: \u201cGood Morning, Bitches!\u201d<br \/>\n1992: \u201cAll I Want Is To See You Smile\u2026\u201d<br \/>\n2004: Still having trouble with this one. Bouncing around with stuff from \u201cSwift-boat Me, Jesus!\u201d to \u201cStaying the Course to Nowhere\u201d to \u201cLook, It\u2019s Not as Though Things Can Get Any Worse\u201d (retroactive sniggering).<\/p>\n<p>2016: Yeah&#8230;well&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I see three, maybe four stars you can apply to that list. But let\u2019s look at another recurring Chinese annum:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/great_red_dragon_by_dubhghall.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1549\" src=\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/great_red_dragon_by_dubhghall-300x154.jpg\" alt=\"great_red_dragon_by_dubhghall\" width=\"300\" height=\"154\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/great_red_dragon_by_dubhghall-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/great_red_dragon_by_dubhghall.jpg 1013w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dragon Years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1928: \u201cChickens! Pots!! Each as Big as Your Head!!!\u201d<br \/>\n1940: \u201cRemember that \u2018Rendezvous With Destiny\u2019 thing? It\u2019s really here now!\u201d<br \/>\n1952: \u201cHeey! He won the war for ya, dinnee?\u201d<br \/>\n1964: \u201cHelloooooooo, Lyndon!\u201d<br \/>\n1976: \u201cOnce and for all, Why Not The Best?\u201d (retroactive sniggering)<br \/>\n1988: \u201cI want a kinder, gentler nation.\u201d (more retroactive sniggering)<br \/>\n2000: \u201cWait\u2026whaaaat?\u201d<br \/>\n2012: \u201cWhoop! He did it again!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The star next to that next-to-last one gets bigger in hindsight than even those Monkey elections with stars on them. And the Rat?:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Rat-PBS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1555\" src=\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Rat-PBS.jpg\" alt=\"Rat PBS\" width=\"150\" height=\"138\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rat Years:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1936: \u201cIt\u2019s a very nice win, dear, but don\u2019t get carried away!\u201d<br \/>\n1948: \u201cSure, it\u2019s the middle of October, but why bother polling again? This thing\u2019s over!\u201d<br \/>\n1960: \u201cWell\u2026Suppose we don\u2019t <em>want<\/em> to Get Moving Again?\u201d<br \/>\n1972: \u201cFour More Years!\u201d<br \/>\n1984: \u201cFour More Years!\u201d<br \/>\n1996: (um\u2026) \u201cFour More Years!\u201d<br \/>\n2008: \u201cWe Sure As Hell Did!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>2020: Democracy: Not Automatic, Not a Christmas Gift, Not for Sissies!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A very big star on the last one, which may only get bigger in retrospect. Otherwise, poor Rat&#8230;and, maybe, Poor Us.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As if there weren\u2019t enough irrational discourse about this Making of the President 2016\u2013 or, as my own book would prefer labeling it, &#8220;The Circus of the Clueless&#8221; \u2013 there\u2019s been some chatter about this being the Chinese Year of the Monkey and how especially, and (perhaps) appropriately auspicious Monkey Year elections have been for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[812],"tags":[1032,1033,1034],"class_list":["post-1552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-other-disappointments","tag-chinese-new-year","tag-samanta-bee","tag-u-s-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3824,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/3824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}