By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Another wild season of Game of Thrones has reached its conclusion, Save Jerseyans, leaving us to once again ponder some similarities (and differences) between the fictional realm of Westeros and our very own Garden State. Off the top of my head:
(1) The heroes always lose. Without fail! You can hope but you’re always let down. The fair and just inevitably fall. In Westeros, we can blame George Martin is a sadistic jerk. In New Jersey, the primary culprit is redistricting.
(2) Incest? Big deal. We’ve got enough nepotism, corruption, double-dipping, pay-to-play and general debauchery to curl a Lannister’s hair.
(3) The real political power isn’t in Kings Landing (Trenton). It’s shared (and fought over) by a number of minor-to-major dynastic lords (“bosses”) ruling in their own little fiefdoms far away from the capital.
(4) We’ve got terrifying armies of undead with which to contend, too. Most of them are content to stay in Hudson County where they’re registered Democrat voters.
(5) No one “takes the black” but plenty of folks plead the 5th.
(6) In Trenton “Starks” are “Republicans,” defined as lovable rubes with predominately noble intentions yet who can’t play the game of thrones for shit.
(7) The North [Jersey] worships different gods than the rest of the state. One of the strangest is called “Mr. Met.”
(8) Winter is always coming. And by “winter,” we mean fiscal insolvency and off-cycle elections.
(9) It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good king. In fact, everyone is starting to forget what one looks like.
(10) I’ll take Super PACs over dragons any day of the week. No contest. Receipts beat fire any day of the week.
(11) Yes, Jon Snow knows nothing; he still knows way more than most legislators.
(12) Sometimes it’s hard to watch but it’s equally hard to look away. Like a bad accident or reality TV.
_______
Thanks to Xfinity’s Watchathon Week, I finally got to see my first episode of Game of Thrones. That’s all it took to know that Matt Rooney’s on the right track with this post