[The following post was written last week before the election happened...and I stand by it despite the fact that someone is sure to shot me in the face for what I say in it.]
By the time you read this, the longest election cycle in
human memory will be over. Maybe. Or maybe it will still be going on, and we
are still facing months, if not years, of outrage and violence because the
wrong person won.
Years ago, I made the decision that my goal (as a pagan
writer and blogger) was to get pagans and witches to vote, but that I would
avoid telling people who and what to vote for whenever possible. In other
words, I wanted to remain neutral. Over the years, I would like to think that I
managed to accomplish this goal—but I will admit that my own political opinions
occasionally have bled though on occasion. Especially in this election cycle.
For instance, as a satirist, I have made fun of both primary
political parties…but let’s be honest, I made fun of one side much more than
the other. Still there is nothing quite like saying, “Congratulations America,
you just elected the worst President ever!” to make both sides hate your guts.
And yes, I firmly believe that for the next four to eight years, I am going to
see talk that whoever won is literally the worst President ever.
I also believe that I am going to watch the losing side do
everything in their power over the next four to eight years to prevent the
winner from accomplishing a damn thing. We just had eight years of the Republicans
doing everything in their power, to prevent the President from accomplishing a
damn thing—even voting for things that they knew were bad, and against things
that their own party originally suggested because their party didn’t control
the Presidency—in other words, they automatically opposed the President’s
position, simply because he belonged to the opposite party.
Basically, the
entire country was held hostage because voters elected the wrong person for
President.
And we are going to see that again. The Republicans have
already came out and promised to block every Supreme Court nominee that Hillary
Clinton puts forth. Think about that. If Hillary wins, the Republicans have
promised to block every nominee she suggests for the next four years (or eight
years, if she wins a second term). Already there are problems because the
Supreme Court is deadlocked on many cases. Now, imagine the rest of the members
of the Supreme Court dying one by one, and never being replaced—and that is
what we have been promised. And if it is Trump that has won…well, he is a barrel
full of monkeys that might have both political parties trying to slow him down.
For the one person who have not heard read my satire—I
believe that a Trump presidency will result in large parts of the Constitution
being crossed out, numerous military personal being tried for treason for
disobeying orders, several more wars, the use of at least one more nuke on a
civilian packed city; and journalists, cartoonists and comedians being locked
up after their professions are made illegal. And the punchline is that he won’t
accomplish a damn thing that he promised.
Ok, maybe that is merely my satirist eyes looking at the
situation. The real punchline may be that he goes back to the political
opinions that he held a decade or two ago (which mirrors Clinton’s), and it
does not matter who wins because we end up with the exact same decisions being
made—the only difference is the plumbing of the person sitting in the oval
office.
And there are certain problems that it does not matter who
gets elected, we still screwed. For instance, trade and manufacturing. If the
borders are closed, and companies are forced to make products here, prices go
up (because cheap foreign stuff doesn’t get in), wages do not keep up (and if
they do, you find yourself replaced by a robot). If we continue being part of
the global trade community, well, we are decades away from global wages being
equalized; and years before that happens, the workers who end up with higher
wages (no matter where they are) are
replaced by robots. In the end, it does
not matter what solution that you try, people get replaced by robots. The only
bright note is that if you follow the trend, and assume that businesses always
go for the cheapest labor option, is that everyone in the entire world eventually
is replaced by a robot—our country, being first world, merely got to experience
the problem sooner than the rest of the world.
Let me be clear here—some problems are so big and nasty that
it doesn’t matter who gets elected; the problems are still going to screw
almost everyone. Issues with healthcare, social security, the impeding mass
student loan defaults, and unemployment are not going to go away, and are going
to get worse—and there are no solutions that will magically fix them. We are
talking structural problems that sooner or later will have to be dealt with. It
is just too bad that no politician actually wants to be the villain that fixes
them.
And the reason that no politician wants to do what is
actually necessary to fix them is the voters will automatically howl at them
for being villains. The voters firmly believe that these problems are not part
of their world; and that if only the poor people worked a little harder, poor
people wouldn’t be so poor and need government help in the first place.
Basically, voters believe that all poor people are lazy (even if they are
working two full time jobs) and that is why they are poor, and that all welfare
recipients are cheats. Furthermore, the reason that the federal budget is so
out of control is welfare…and not the fact that we are secretly (or not so
secretly) fighting five simultaneous wars, allowing corporations get away with
paying no taxes in some cases, giving wealth-aid to corporations who know that
they are not paying their employees a living wage (as in they instruct their
employees how to file for food stamps), and a bunch of other stuff that seems
to only aid the rich.
Ok, maybe not all voters. But enough that we will have to go
into a depression before anyone is allowed to fix any of the big structural
problems facing us.
My favorite example is the Florida mandatory testing of
welfare recipients (because all welfare recipients are drug abusers) where the
governor’s wife’s company got the contract and they did not even catch enough
violators to offset the cost of the testing program. In fact, they caught less
than a hundred. But people still demand it, despite the fact that all it really
accomplished was making a rich person richer…because everyone who gets
government aid is a drug addict.
These same poor people are accused of voter fraud because
they love welfare. This idea completely ignores the real and very legal voter
fraud in this country where congressional district maps are redrawn
periodically, so that congressmen can maximize the number of voters that
support them while removing those areas populated by those most likely to vote
against them. It also conveniently ignores the fact that voter id laws are
designed to remove poor people and minorities from the voter rolls. But
whatever because all poor people are lazy and welfare cheats.
But the most interesting thing I experienced this election
cycle is people calling me a traitor to the United States for talking about
these very things. We now live in a culture that believes, on some level, that voting
for the “wrong party” and the “wrong candidate” and for the “wrong issues” is a
form of treason. How did we get here? I am not surprised by this, for I have
seen every President in my lifetime be called the “worst President ever”—but I
am a little unclear when it became an act of treason to exercise my right to
vote for whoever the hell I wanted to vote for.
And the really sad part is that four years from now, it is
going to be worse. We are going to continue making the rich richer while
blaming the poor for all the problems, continue to ignore the structural
problems that will result in a recession, if not a full-blown depression. And
continue to call people who decide that they don’t like such things, traitors.
This election will have changed nothing, and is merely the warm-up act.
But then again, I could be wrong—after all, I am just a
happy little cynic.
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| We are all going to die...because Trump is the second coming of Jesus Christ. |
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