So far, over the last decade, nothing about presidential election rhetoric has much changed. We are still told ad nauseum, by both parties, that this election will be the most important election in the history of civilization. Our very existence as a species hangs in the balance, dangling like a chad of yore, over the fiery furnace of oblivion; of chaos; of fascism; of communism; of mandated sexual reassignment surgery and forced child birth combined!!!! Times are dire, the situation at hand is so critically important that both of our political parties are going to spend more money than ever before to ensure that either, our hearts are filled with hate, or our pants are filled with shit. Make no mistake about it, fear is the message. There are no more party platforms; no more shining cities on the hill, no more chickens in every pot, no more thousand points of light, and certainly no more hope. We’ve watched this distressing and depressing trend in negativity unfold throughout our lifetime until our very existence as citizens, as Americans, as voters, has become defined by the lesser of two evils.
We basically only have two relevant political parties in this country, we’re sure you’ve heard of them. They control the political discourse, they set the stage for the titanic battles we quadrennially fight for the soul and continued existence of this country. The intensity of these struggles, if they were actually fought by these political contenders, wouldn’t amount to more than a geriatric slap fight, but given the hype and political posturing are always billed as existential affairs. The theatre is the important part, a spectacle of potential violence and destruction gives credence to our vote, it makes it appear to matter. Personally, we’re not so sure. And given the history of turn out in American elections, we can only surmise that there is either an egregious lack of civics education in this country, or a lack of confidence in the process. Probably a bit of both. And who can blame us for not caring? Has anyone that we’ve ever been excited about in the political arena ever achieved any success other than as a spoiler? How many times can we watch the party establishment squash a popular contender for someone they view to have more ‘electability’, which we gather is code for ‘acceptable to our donors’. Money seems to always be the salient point. That’s what pays for the set pieces, that’s what greases the palms and puts on the show. When was the last time you checked the box on your tax return to give the presidential election campaign fund three dollars? How about never. When there are billionaires out there flinging tens and hundreds of millions of dollars at politicians and political action funds like so much pocket change it's hard not to feel incredulous. If only all of America donated those three dollars, then maybe we could bring some impartiality back into electoral politics. Give us a fucking break. We weren’t born yesterday. And besides, we know that most of you need those three bucks to offset the price of eggs.
So let’s talk about eggs. To educated voters like ourselves it may seem patently insane to select a presidential candidate merely for their perceived hand in the elevated price of a commodity like eggs. To begin with, it may seem unreasonable to blame them, or conversely, to believe their opponents promises of immediate relief from something that appears to be purely economic and environmental. Are their hands on the levers of power in such a way that allows them to cure chickens of avian flu, or reanimate culled flocks and revive their egg laying capacity? If we were electing a sorcerer then maybe these would be qualifications we seriously considered. And maybe a great many of us Americans were hoping that our candidate had magical powers; that they could conjure a manufacturing industry out of thin air, make 12 million people disappear, snap their fingers and bring about world peace, turn ones and zeros into gold, solve the national debt, bring housing prices down, and cast a spell over the populace to bring back the American dream. And maybe this was why the ‘incumbent’ thought that they were winning; no one could be that stupid. They just couldn’t believe that an ex-reality tv star, real estate mogul, and compulsive liar possessed the right concoction of flare, falsehoods, and fantasmagoria to fool enough voters into drinking his snake oil!
The losing party is still incredulous. They are ferociously denouncing the ascendant Troll and his party of Goons for their failed promise to deliver the American people from these high egg prices! Imagine that. While the American institution falls into ruin, broken by the white nihilism of anarcho-capitalists and so-called libertarians, the minority party is engaged in a fruitless chicken or egg argument. Instead of taking responsibility for their own shit heeled approach to governance, to their blatant disregard for their constituency’s concerns and demands, they are still looking outward, looking to blame us. They think that we are the one’s responsible for this attack on our “democracy”. If only we would have listened to the adults, to those neo-liberal scumbags running the show, sucking the tit of Wall Street and corporate America as lustily as their opponents, then maybe we could have had the privilege of slurping down another four years of their bullshit. Not only were we supposed to cheer on the status quo, but a genocide to boot. How could we possibly stay home on election day when our (unelected) candidate, the stand-in for the party’s previous political cadaver, was scolding us daily about our bigotry and sexism, was telling us to ignore the very egg prices they now claim to be their undoing while simultaneously extoling the historic rise of the stock market? How could we ignore the sage advice of the very villains of the early 2000’s as they were trotted out to denounce the MAGA movement in some sort of surreal October surprise? Were we supposed to be relieved or horrified when Darth Vader’s mask was ripped off to reveal that Dick Chaney was in fact our father?!
With a party platform of Unity and “shut up you’re dumb” how could they lose?
Well, they did lose. And now we are paying the price for their incompetence and cowardice. Maybe next time, try confronting your opponents instead of imitating them. If there is a next time. We’ll see. The narrative was clearly ‘the end of democracy’ as we know it, and yet the peaceful transition of power was honored and lauded. Was it all theatrics then, or are they really terrified of what this megalomaniac might do to them if they actually kick.
Easter is coming, and while we fully expect the libs’ protest to this building autocratic regime to be more whining about the price of eggs, we hope for some real self-reflection, a come to Jesus moment, if you will. What will that mean exactly? We’re not sure. But what it can’t continue to be is a crass regurgitation of previous policy, it can’t continue to be a simple act of political calculus. The party may not be capable of resurrection or reform, they maybe too deeply intertwined with a system that can only guarantee ecological destruction, exclusionary policy, and zero-sum struggles with rising geopolitical powers. In short, we can’t expect them to be our saviors. And maybe they were right to blame us, not for refusing to bend to their will, but listening to them in the first place. Allowing them to divide us, by race, by sex, by ideology, religion, and nationality. Now that some of the silent parts are being said out loud, we ought to all realize that the narratives were all self-serving, that the subtext had nothing to do with discrete differences, and that the real goals were greed and power.
And how’s that for the lesser of two evils.
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