Evolution of the Modern American Campaign

In Matt Taibbi's new book, he writes about his days on campaign trails, and most specifically on the campaign trail of The Insane Clown President Trump. Here he speculates about the future:

To campaign professionals, real people became fodder for stylized visual backgrounds and nothing more.

[...]

Campaigns needed “people” only as props. If a candi­date wanted to show that he or she was with it on racial is­sues, that candidate would visit a predominantly black high school and be photographed clapping to a school band per­formance. If he wanted a worker-friendly image, he’d visit a robotics factory in Wisconsin and be photographed wear­ing a hard hat and goggles. And so on.

[...]

In a less self-deceiving future—perhaps under a leader like Donald Trump who better understands that presidential races are now really just big television shows—they will conduct campaigns from a single soundstage in a place like Burbank and just blue-screen in the different crowds and locations.

  Penguin

And why not? It would reduce the costs of campaigns enormously, and we'd get the exact same relevance from them.

So, now that we're actually where we were headed (and btw: YWA's handbasket subhead - originated in 2003 - turned out to be rather prescient, don't you think?), here's Matt's Rolling Stone article wherein he gives us once again, drinking rules for the occasion:

I have a funeral to go to.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.