Revenge on the Nerds

Thanks to John Hughes kids who grew up in the 1980's have adopted a rather interesting piece of mythology: Nerd power.  Read his filmography and you find numerous entries where the social caste system of American adolescents was raked over the coals. The messages of a lot of these movies was pretty clear: some day you and the popular kids will be on equal ground, and then your inherent intelligence and sensitivity will bloom like a flower.  And to a certain extent that is true, the popularity contests really don't last much longer than high school, but never assume that human nature undergoes any sort of fundamental change.
There are still bullies. There are still many ways in you always sort of remain that kid you were in high school, for better and for worse.  There are still moments as adults where you run into this:

That, for those of you who don't know is a character called Ogre, a member of the jock fraternity in the movie Revenge of the Nerds.  The movie revolves around a bunch of stereotypical nerds, thick glasses, pocket protectors, obnoxious laughs, social awkwardness and above average intelligence.  It is two hours of brain melting burlesque comedy, I don't recommend it, if you really want to experience the 1980s nerd phenomenon, Mr. Hughes is a much better way to go.  The basic gist is that Nerds can rise up and challenge the popular and the powerful, they can use their wits and their inherent character to win the day.  It's generally a nice fiction.

But fiction it is, because the reality is that popularity and winning are still highly valued in our society.  Evidenced by the rise of the political fortunes of one Donald J. Trump.  Politicians on the national level have been, for a long time, nerds.  Not all of them, but enough of them to justify calling it a trend.  And we the voters are like Molly Ringwald, torn between a really good-hearted nerd, and the dashing popular captain of the football team.  In my lifetime, we have seen Nixon (nerd, albeit of the sinister sort), give way to Ford (football player at Michigan), give way to Carter (Nuclear engineer, down home Sunday School teacher), give way to Ronald Raygun (nuff said), give way to George H.W. Bush (not gone do it, no sir, don't like broccoli), give way to Bill (slick Willy) Clinton, give way to George W. Bush (baseball party guy, but still I think awkward enough to be a Nerd), now Barack Obama (who I think is a sort of cool-ish nerd).  Obama definitely has the smarts to fit the bill, and he's got the tone of voice for sure, but he is the sort of suave, cool, confident fellow who can manage to court both Michelle Obama and the American people, despite those ears.

There has been a teeter totter of nerds and jocks going back a long way (even the famously macho Teddy Roosevelt, was a sickly kid who, until he took to taming badgers and riding moose, would certainly have been considered a nerd).

And this bolsters us with the idea that you can rise up and become great no matter what lunch table you sat at in High School.  I've got bad news for you though nerds, the popular kids and the bullies are still around.  No matter how well you think you're doing Bernie Sanders, Hilary is still the homecoming queen of the party and she's got all those superdelegates in her pocket.  No matter how much people like you Marco, The Donald, and Chris Christie are still going to be able to shove you into a locker, and they don't give a hoot if you are the captain of the debate team.  You're probably also going to have to deal with sociopathic people from your own set, like Ted Cruz (definitely on the Nixon side of the nerd continuum).

Unfortunately for all of us, politics remains largely a popularity contest.  I don't actually want to know how true this is.  I would love to think that, like in those movies, Molly Ringwald is going to see who the real hero is, but the more Trump hangs around, the more I'm afraid it's going to be this guy:

And let's face it we're in for a show down between that and this:

And that kind of makes me feel: