Finally, the Democratic and Republican national conventions are over. Mitt Romney, “Grand Duke of Stiff Collars,” has officially been nominated as the candidate of the Republican Party, with running mate Paul, “my ideas don’t even look good on paper,” Ryan.
President Barrack Obama, “The Savior of America and Totally an American citizen,” has been acknowledged by the Democrats as running for re-election, once again with Vice President Joseph, “Gaffe-Again,” Biden.
Now that everything is official, we can move onto the debates and cordial discussions that politics is normally supposed to be about.
There’s just one problem. Who the hell cares anymore? All the exciting stuff happened months ago.
Donald Trump proved you don’t need to be smart to get rich in America, Newt Gingrich proved that hypocrisy is a requirement to be a politician and Biden disproved Darwin’s theory of political suicide.
All the cool and exciting stuff is done. Now it’s just debates, which are only fun when idiots are involved. While the two presidential candidates are many things, stupid is not one of them. At least the vice presidential debate will be worth watching.
Apathy has crept into our politics yet again. After months of primary elections and political maneuvering, there’s no energy left for the actual election. There’s no enthusiasm for the candidates anymore.
While there is of course still interest in the election and the outcome, thanks largely to former President Bill Clinton proving that the 1990s were the heyday of the 21st century, in general, the passion and drive of this election is gone.
Maybe it’s just me, sitting here week after week, month after month, for five years, ranting and raving like Lewis Black on a bar crawl or Earnest Hemingway while at war. Either way, if one lone borderline alcoholic editorialist can’t give a crap anymore, what does that say about American politics in general?
The 24-hour news channels must have an entire department devoted to suicide prevention at this rate. The worst of it is that this is just the election for the president. What about all the congressional elections?
Every member of the House of Representatives is elected or re-elected every two years, and so is one-third of the Senate. That means roughly four-fifths of our legislative branch’s highest elected officials are basically running for election as soon as their sworn into office. Such work has got to be a contributor as to why Congress is so ineffective; they’re spending almost as much time running for election as they are actually working.
There is a cure for this apathy, but it won’t be easy. Either the election process needs to be made more exciting, or it needs to be made briefer. Since “more excitement” usually results in succession and Congressional canings, less time spent electioneering might be the way to go.
We can sit complacently in our apathy, twirling our thumbs in boredom as we wait for the next round of politics to pick up, wait for the next run of gaffes, for the next incompetent moron trying to prove his qualifications or the next hypocrite too blinded to see their own hypocrisy or we can change the system.
We can fight for briefer election periods. It’s the 21st century, if we can put a duck in a chicken in a turkey, we can make election periods shorter.
We have one clear choice and we must fight for it, lest America rot under the decay of indifference. Or, you can move to Alaska and become a bear hunter. I might do that.
