I stated last night on Twitter that this had to be on last Monty Python prank being pulled on America.
"Two dipshits run for political office"
The debate going on with Python staff (one dressed in drag of course) providing silly answers to questions asked by John Cleese. Suddenly, he turns, looks at the camera and says:
"And now for something completely different"
*Cue Music.*
As we all are aware by now that's not what's going on. America, perhaps once the greatest country in the world (debatable I know) is stuck with a horrific game of "would you rather" to determine who will occupy the office of the Presidency from 2017 to at least 2021, barring tragedy.
Would you rather: Be subjected to Donald Trump's blustering idiocy for the next 4 years or Hillary Clinton's shrieking foolishness? This is really a loaded question because, no matter who ends up winning this game show, America is going to lose badly.
It's easy to look at the surface of things and blame the 2-party system with which we're saddled.
Yes, it limits choice and the Republicans and Democrats both have gamed the system to severely restrict the ability of other parties to enter the fray. From draconian ballot access rules to exclusionary debate standards everything in America is not designed to establish Democracy, but to protect the two parties that benefit the most from the sham that we currently practice.
Yes, Congress has become an incumbency protection racket with the two parties only arguing around the margins of gerrymandered maps hoping beyond hope that one or the other will make a monumental mistake (like the GOP nominating Trump [or, in a normal year Clinton]) that will turn off the electorate to temporarily upset the balance of power allowing them to have majorities in both the Executive and Legislative branches that allow disastrous laws like the Affordable Care Act to pass through on partisan lines.
But that's not 'quite' the root cause of the problem, although it is a symptom of it. Neither is it that all politicians, and by all I mean all, at every level, each and every one of them, are completely and separately a breed of their own.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a politician? It's like talking to a auto-quote generator. If you meet them at a bar they *might* have a single beer, which they will sit on the table and nurse like a cancer patient while regaling you with their policy priorities and (this last bit is inevitable) "what you need to do" to help them get over the finish line. Politicians don't have conversations, they have sales pitches. They view every.single.interaction with constituents as either an opportunity to gain a vote, or (more importantly) gain a donation. If the media is there then you become a prop in their minstrel show. At no point do you get the feeling that they are a public servant and you are an important part of their constituency.
We're long removed from the fantasy of "citizen politicians" who spend the day working on the farm, or in the city, only to be pulled away for a few years, to serve the country and make sage, wise decisions on the matters of the day. That America ever was there is a fallacy that probably needs to die.
What we have today are people who spend a lifetime preparing to run for office, who spend their lives surrounded by the ruling class, so removed from the serfs that they soon lose all ability to socially interact with them. On the Left you have Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. On the Right you have Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez. People who spend their entire lives running from office to office just trying to find a way to glom onto the machine so they're don't have to try and cut it in the private sector.
On the other side are the gadflys. The hangers-on to the political class who act as political remoras, sucking onto the political class and basing most of the business dealings on them. In Houston we have people like Marty McVey, a man who has, as near as I can tell, no remarkable business acumen except for the innate ability to latch onto the local Democratic political machine and make profit from the largesse of it.
Occasionally, as in the case of McVey and, more notably, Donald Trump, these drains on society decide that they too should make a run at public office. After all, they've grown up their whole business lives around politicians, they view themselves as having the gift of gab and the feel the same way about the commoners as their politician friends do. It should be a wash right?
Except it's not, and in the case of Donald Trump I'd say there's a better than average chance his campaign was always intended to be a raging dumpster fire in order to aid and abet his life-long friend Hillary attain the office of her dreams.
But the politicians aren't the root-cause of the problem either, they are only a symptom.
Finally we have the media. So far in the tank for Clinton they think the fake chest at the bottom with the air hose running through it is filled with real gold. The media have become blinded by their intense desire to be included in the types of parties their lobbyist friends are invited to. Why else do you think the President attends the White House Correspondents dinner? It's to throw the sycophants a bone.
To be clear. There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything closely resembling an "unbiased" media. There was never a "good ol' days" where all we got was a solid dose of Walter Cronkite truth. Hell, even Sir Walter the Revered himself didn't give us that. There is not a person on this Earth, not one, who is capable of 100% repressing their personal beliefs when writing on a topic. THERE.IS.ALWAYS.BIAS. Always. There are no exceptions to this, either on the left or the right.
But still, we're not talking about the problem, only a symptom of it.
The root cause, the Pater Familia of where we are today, stuck in the worst election cycle ever with the two single worst candidates to ever be nominated for office by a major party, is because we, the people, the so-called "backbone of the Nation" have stopped thinking, stopped paying attention, and have outsourced our political discourse to the three groups above.
And I'm not just talking about the 2/3rd of Americans who can't name all three branches of government, I'm referring to people who consider themselves "politically clued in". I'm talking about party activists, people who stay up late watching FoxNews and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, People who spend their Monday nights at county party committee meetings, their Saturdays phone-banking or block-walking instead of watching College Football as God intended.
I'm referring to people who can name the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, both Minority leaders, the whips, their Governor, all of the State elected officials, their party chairman and their local politicians as well.
Or, as politicians like to call them: useful idiots.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties could have spared us from this mess. The Republicans could have shown a backbone and not allowed a life-long Democrat, and Friend of Bill (Clinton) take over their nomination process and, through open primary votes from non-Republicans, become the parties standard-bearer. And the Democrats could have decided that no, they're NOT going to run interference for Hillary, forcing her to face some real competition instead of just crazy Bernie and...um...that other guy that ran, for a minute...ah never mind, you don't remember him either.
Even after the nominations it could be stopped. If only people would be willing to call out their own party when they're wrong.
But they're not. They can't be. Because so many political types have based so much of their self-worth on whether or not their chosen party wins we're to the point that policy doesn't matter. This is why politicians can "evolve" on issues and suddenly a vociferous pro-defense-of-marriage Democratic blogger pivots and writes (without a hint of self-awareness) that anyone anti-GLBTQPI(Z? We need to find something different, I'm getting lost) thoughts is a bigot who should immediately be ran out of polite society on a rail.
We either don't think, or we don't care. The result of this is that the ruling class has successfully convinced us that the real threat to the Republic, the number one danger facing us, of changing our way of lives and taking away all of our freedoms, is.....us.
And we thank them for it, begging them to take over more, empowering them with more and refusing to see what is going on right in front of us each and every day.
"And now for something completely different."
Except.....it won't be.
