Comedian Bob Newhart once based a routine on the thesis that if we equip an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters, eventually they will write the great books. As I inspect the now 17 Republican presidential candidates, I have begun to suspect that this is a null hypothesis.
Newhart is checking the infinite monkey results: “twzzz.lkrrrnttttyyy.” No, nothing there. “abababhabqb.” Hmm? Hey Jim, I think we’ve got something here! “To be or not to be, that is thegamaiqillpicffffc.”
I recall this whenever I see Republicans campaigning for president by trying to tap into economic populism. They start with appropriately grandiloquent anger about the moral depravity of income inequality and indignation about what the hucksters did to the personal economies of a whole generation. But when it comes to solutions, it turns into gibberish.