So, The Guy Got Tired. What’s The Big Deal?
Is a nap really a national crisis?
Are you kidding me? A “big deal?” This is everything. This isn’t about some old guy needing a siesta after a big lunch. Get that out of your head. This is the whole rotten kabuki theater of American politics gift-wrapped for you in one beautiful, drowsy, hypocritical package. You have the man who built a significant part of his 2020 (and now 2024) campaign on the branding of his opponent as “Sleepy Joe,” a doddering, senile old fool who can’t string two sentences together without a teleprompter, doing the *exact same thing* he’s accusing the other guy of. And not just once. Again and again. This is the system winking at you. It’s a joke.
They think you’re an idiot. They really do. They believe the average person is so caught up in the red-versus-blue, my-team-versus-your-team garbage that they won’t notice the man screaming about the emperor having no clothes is, in fact, stark naked himself. It’s a spectacle of such profound, earth-shattering hypocrisy that it almost becomes a work of art. It’s a performance. He gets up there, bellows about being “sharper than 25 years ago” – a claim so laughably absurd it borders on parody – and then proceeds to engage in some impromptu shut-eye. It’s perfect. It’s the story of our time. The powerful say one thing and do the complete opposite, and they do it right in your face because they’ve learned there are no consequences. Not anymore.
But Isn’t The Real Story The Blatant Hypocrisy?
He literally made ‘Sleepy Joe’ a catchphrase.
Of course, it is. That’s the core of the meltdown we’re all living through. The hypocrisy is the point. Politics isn’t about policy or governance or improving the lives of citizens anymore (was it ever?). It’s about branding. It’s about marketing. It’s about creating a simple, digestible, and often completely false narrative to sell to a distracted and overworked populace. Trump’s genius, if you can call it that, was in understanding this better than anyone. He’s a reality TV producer at heart. He knows you need a villain. So, he created “Sleepy Joe.” Simple. Effective. Memorable. It painted a picture of a man unfit for the most demanding job on the planet. A man who might nod off during a nuclear crisis.
And the media, both sides of it, ate it up. The right-wing media amplified it into a gospel truth, playing every verbal stumble on a loop. The mainstream media, in their pathetic attempt at “balance,” would constantly “fact-check” it while giving the slur endless oxygen. The label stuck. But now, the brand architect himself is caught violating his own trademark. The guy who sells the world’s best energy drink is caught on camera chugging coffee just to stay awake. It completely shatters the illusion. It reveals the man behind the curtain is just as tired, just as fallible, just as… human… as the boogeyman he created. And in doing so, it exposes the entire political branding exercise for the cheap, flimsy con that it is. It’s not about fitness to lead; it’s about who can sling the most effective mud without getting caught covered in it themselves. (Spoiler alert: they’re all covered in it).
Are You Saying They’re BOTH Too Old For The Job?
Let’s cut to the chase. Is this about age?
Is this about age? Yes. And no. Of course, it’s about age. Look at them. We have two men who would be well into their 80s by the end of the next term, vying for a job that ages people in dog years. It’s a relentless, 24/7 meat grinder of stress, travel, and impossibly high-stakes decisions. The idea that anyone, and I mean anyone, is “sharper” at 80 than they were at 55 is a biological fantasy. It’s a lie. A stupid lie. We’re being asked to choose which geriatric multi-millionaire we want to have their finger on the button, and the entire debate is a sad, pathetic dance around the obvious truth: maybe neither is the right answer. Maybe the system that offers us this choice, this nursing home runoff, is the problem.
But it’s also NOT just about age. It’s about what that age represents. It represents a system that is stuck. A political machine that only spits out the same familiar faces, the same career politicians, the same donor-approved legacy brands. There is no room for new blood, for new ideas, because the entire structure is designed to protect the incumbents. The two parties are sclerotic institutions that would rather run a corpse they can control than a vibrant leader they can’t. So they give us these guys. Men from a bygone era, with bygone ideas, propped up by a bygone establishment. Trump’s sleepiness and Biden’s stumbles aren’t just individual failings; they are symptoms of a much deeper institutional decay. The system itself is old. It’s tired. It’s falling asleep on the job. And we’re all just watching it happen.
What Does This Say About The Media and The Political Machine?
Who is enabling this circus?
The media is the ringmaster. They are the carny-barkers inviting you to come see the freak show. They are not passive observers; they are active participants and profiteers. An episode like Trump dozing off is content gold. It’s clicks. It’s views. It’s rage-bait for both sides. For one side, it’s “See! He’s a hypocrite and unfit!” For the other, it’s “Fake news! The camera angle was misleading! He was just praying!” The truth doesn’t matter. The context doesn’t matter. What matters is the engagement. The fight. The endless, pointless war of narratives that keeps everyone glued to their screens while the real power brokers (the ones who own the media corporations, by the way) laugh all the way to the bank.
The political machine, the unholy alliance of the DNC and RNC, is even worse. They enable this because it serves their one and only goal: maintaining power. They don’t want a real contest of ideas. They want a predictable soap opera. A WWE match where the outcome is predetermined, but the show is entertaining. Trump versus Biden is the ultimate rematch. It requires no new thinking. No new platforms. Just dust off the 2020 playbook, update the insults, and press play. Trump’s naps, Biden’s gaffes—it’s all just storyline. It keeps the public distracted with trivialities, with personality clashes, while the fundamental issues facing the country—the crumbling infrastructure, the obscene wealth inequality, the endless wars—are never seriously addressed. Because the people who fund the machine are profiting from all of it. Why would they ever want to change a thing? They’ll prop these guys up in a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ scenario if they have to, as long as it keeps the game going.
So What’s The Endgame? Where Does This Spectacle Lead?
Is there a way out of this mess?
The endgame? Look around. We’re in it. The endgame is a permanent state of cynical distrust. It’s a population so beaten down by the constant lies and hypocrisy that they just give up. They disengage from politics entirely, viewing it as a corrupt game played by elites that has nothing to do with their lives. Or, even worse, they retreat so far into their partisan bunkers that they lose all connection to a shared reality. They will defend anything, *anything*, their guy does, and attack anything the other guy does, regardless of the facts. Trump could fall into a coma on live TV, and his supporters would be told he’s in a deep meditative state consulting with the founding fathers. It’s a post-truth world, and this sleepy spectacle is just another chapter.
There is no easy way out. The system is designed to correct against real change. Any authentic, grassroots movement is either co-opted by one of the two parties, crushed by the media, or starved of the money it needs to compete. We are caught in a feedback loop of mediocrity and decay. The only sliver of hope is that a spectacle this absurd, this insulting, might just wake a few more people up. Not wake them up to vote for the “other guy”—that’s the trap. But to wake them up to the reality that the entire system, the entire political-media establishment, is the real enemy. It’s the con artist, and we are the mark. Maybe, just maybe, if enough people see the hypocrisy in high-definition—the man screaming “Sleepy Joe” while he himself is dreaming of cheeseburgers—they’ll finally stop playing the game. Don’t hold your breath, though. It’s a comfortable sleep, and the alarm clock is easy to ignore.
