Let the screaming and crying commence. With recent polling now in rough alignment with the betting markets, it looks like former reality television villain Spencer Pratt has taken second place in the race for mayor of Los Angeles. While on some level I don’t think many Americans are surprised — there’s just something in the air these days, like the burning stench of Karen Bass’s smoldering Palisades, that has us all bracing for oddities in government — the panicked punditry, from our nightly news circus to the rotting carcass of Rolling Stone, is wondering: what’s driving the popularity of a professional 21^st Century clown like Pratt, with no experience in government, over a thoughtful, if imperfect, standard issue Democrat like Bass, in her nice professional pantsuit? In Los Angeles?

Well, I think it’s basically something like this: there really still just is tremendous political alpha in getting on stage and telling the truth. But in local politics it also matters what you’re telling the truth about, and a soccer mom of two will never care about Donald Trump while a meth addict’s shitting in her driveway.