For those of you who weren’t born yet or didn’t partake of 1970s sitcoms, here’s the Wikipedia description of the phrase:
The phrase "jumping the shark" is used to argue that a creative outlet or work appears to be making a misguided attempt at generating new attention or publicity for something that is perceived to be once, but no longer, widely popular. The idiom that was coined in 1985 by Jon Hein in response to a 1977 episode from the fifth season of the American sitcom Happy Days, in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumps over a shark while on water-skis. The phrase is pejorative, and is most commonly used in reference to perceived unsuccessful gimmicks for promoting something, by critics who believe that a television show has strayed irretrievably from an older and better formula, that its writers have exhausted their focus, or that the series as a whole has declined in quality. Its usage subsequently broadened beyond its first use in television, indicating the moment when a brand, design, franchise, or creative effort's evolution declines, or when it changes notably in style into something unwelcome.
One could easily be mistaken for thinking this is the 1970s. With our cities suffering under waves of crime, a disastrously botched withdrawal from Afghanistan (think Desert One), oil prices soaring, rampant inflation and unemployment, China and Russia resurgent throughout the globe - and both houses of Congress under Democrat control with a doddering, incompetent Democrat president who breaks everything he touches — these are certainly not “happy days” for America.
The analogy ends there as today’s Democrats bear little resemblance to the bumbling yet well-meaning days of Jimmy Carter. Think about that for a minute. Joe Biden has me longing for the halcyon days when Democrats looked like Jimmy Carter. Carter’s still alive by the way. I’m betting he’s grateful for Biden’s aggressive pursuit of the title “worst president ever”.
The Democrats who today control (barely) the House of Representatives, (barely) the Senate, the White House, major social media platforms and the mainstream news media long ago ran out of appealing ideas for the average American. Having spent the past 50 years incrementally (progressively) winning on government spending, taxes, labor, race, religion, education, equality of the sexes, the environment and popular culture, the Democrats have run out of anything resembling a rational central idea upon which to form a governing philosophy. Doubt this? Conduct a simple thought experiment by asking yourself what do the Republicans stand for? Now do that for the Democrats. See what I mean? (As an aside, don’t judge the Republicans on what they actually do - that would be unfair)
This started with the Clintons (and we must always refer to them in the plural). Unlike all American presidential predecessors, the Clintons introduced the concept of the continuous campaign. Political war rooms in the White House. Win at any cost. The politics of personal destruction. Daily political talking points. Using the power of government to coerce and manipulate the press. And outright lying to advance their agenda.
George W. Bush was so naïve. I vividly recall when he had the White House, after an election calling for a “return to governing” at the conclusion of the “silly season”. Was he not paying any attention? Those days had ended with his predecessor.
I’d like to think this ends somewhere, and not because the Democrats have “jumped the shark” - but because “jumping the shark” is all we ever see from the Democrats now. Listening to ABC News Radio in the car last week, literally every word of every story was a lie. Not an exaggeration, not hyperbole, not stretching the truth - simply deliberate falsehoods intended to propagandize listeners: "Last January’s deadly attack on the Capitol which resulted in at least five dead…” Tune in to CNN and you’ll get the same treatment.
Joe Biden’s address on the Democrats’ celebration of January 6th (and they did celebrate) was an embarrassing non-stop lie. And Kamala Harris’s ugly equivalence of January 6th with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 was more over-the-top repugnance - like jumping a killer whale. Like porn addicts with unlimited bandwidth, they’ve indulged every reasonable, unreasonable and now just plain crazy fetish. It’s not enough to play in the Pornhub universe of fetishes. Democrats are now out there in something akin to Alien and Predator do the Nasty! territory.
But who can blame them? What else, at this point, do any of us expect from Democrats? I’m reminded of a post I put up on Facebook (back when I was on Facebook - before it censored conservatives, which was before it censored everybody not comporting with the latest government propaganda). My post went to an important point about our politics - then and today - to the effect that Democrats have run out of any interesting ideas. They’re all hysteria and bombast. They’ve become incredibly boring. Like a child endlessly throwing tantrums over any attempt at discipline - it just gets old.
This is why Americans have tuned out the Democrat message du jour. It’s the same as yesterday’s message, just a new villain, a new pillar of civilization to attack as “racist”, a new shark jumped. Or maybe it was two sharks. Or three. Whatever. And by Americans of course, I mean normal Americans. Not the Bar Scene From Star Wars cast of freaks and Karens that populate the hard left that now controls the Democrat party. They’ve ruined the franchise.
And here’s a little known truth: they know they’re boring too! They bore each other! I’m not a masochist so I don’t watch the “Sunday talking heads” anymore, but have you seen the Democrats who appear? Oh my God they’re automatons! You can flip from one channel to the next, see completely different Democrats on different networks saying the exact same thing. They’re like the Non Player Characters in a video game! That’s why every major narrative from the Left has to further push the Overton Window so hard - they have to jump the shark bigger every week!
It’s not enough to compare Republicans to Nazis - “Trump is literally Hitler!” Every piece of legislation is existential and without it, signals “the end of our democracy”. (Note - they never refer to our republic as a “republic”.) Every supreme court pick. Every senate seat. Every state and local government race, even the school board is now an existential fight for “democracy”.
Listening to the polemics, you’d think Republicans had enacted some nasty, democracy-destroying, racist laws in the brief time they had power and only by enacting the For The People Act can balance be restored to the universe. But this gets it precisely backward. The changes proposed by the Democrats will fundamentally alter how we conduct elections. They would install a one-size-fits-all standard for all voting in the United States, permanently cementing in the “emergency” Covid voting standards that enabled them to win places like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin - using mass mailout ballots and “harvesters” to bring in the votes needed (after stopping in the middle of the count to determine precisely the numbers needed). And if they can, they’ll do it with a zero vote majority in the Senate and a three vote majority in the House - with no Republican votes.
If you’re of the mindset that this ends somewhere, you’re wrong. It never stops. That’s not the nature of progressivism. They’ll keep going with ever crazier shark-jumping politics until they’ve turned America into Venezuela under permanent, one party rule. Think I’m being hyperbolic? Look at California - that’s their model for the entire country.