Cue the honorable rimshot.

For those who didn’t get the joke in today’s title, Noh is an ancient, traditional form of ritualized Japanese theater, as is Kabuki. Which we’re explaining for the benefit of anyone who also didn’t get the joke after watching the even more ritualized theater of the back-to-back political conventions.

Just how completely staged the Democrat convention was is only now being revealed. Actors were hired to fill seats and cheer wildly every time Hillary was able to bark out a sentence without going into a blood-spraying coughing spasm. Huge white noise machines were positioned throughout the convention hall in order to augment applause as needed or drown out protesters (because #WhiteNoiseMatters).

And of course, who can forget the images of Bill and Hillary feigning wide-eyed slack-jawed awe and wonder at the miraculous and completely unexpected sight of balloons falling from the rafters (or quite possibly leaping suicidally after hearing Hillary’s angry acceptance speech). To quote Robert Downey Jr in the film Tropic Thunder, they “went full retard. Never go full retard.”

Although the conventions are now over, the big show is about to start: the Trump vs Hillary knockdown drag-out mud-flinging pummeling match of the century…out of which we’re expecting no winners (certainly not the American people).

In some ways, Hope n’ Change is feeling a little Kabuki-ish ourselves at the moment. Without putting on a thick coat of white face paint and a kimono, we can’t really feign happiness about Mr. Trump committing himself to an online flame war with the father of a fallen American soldier who happened to be Muslim. Nor is it helpful to have the GOP-ish candidate claiming that he received a letter from the NFL complaining of scheduling conflicts between upcoming games and the Hillary/Trump debates…then being forced to admit that he made up the NFL letter.  Frankly, we think The Donald needs to add Robert Downey Jr to his advisory staff as soon as possible.

Granted, Hillary is also a gift that keeps on giving – thanks to new revelations that her campaign had been hacked (possibly by those pesky Russians) and she refused to let the FBI investigate. And there are stories breaking about the possibility that the Clinton Family Foundation may be facing investigations by the IRS, the DOJ, and other acronym agencies which are part of the big Democratic cover-up machine. Yawn.

Maybe it’s just the Monday “blahs,” but we’re feeling a bit more pessimism than passion about politics today – and we’re admitting it because we don’t ever want to be guilty of just going through the motions to the discordant sound of plucking shamisens and kotos.

And no, we didn’t originally use the word “plucking” when we thought of that sentence…

This article is republished with permission from our friend Stilton Jarlsberg at Hope n’Change