Unserious, But Dangerous
Calamitously awful, in my opinion.
Before I get into it, I want to make it clear that the only bit of information you need to know about Washington state’s slate of initiatives is they were formulated, funded and pushed by a California immigrant hedge fund manager. His motivation is simple. It can be boiled down to this — leave me, my money and my business interests the fuck alone, so I can do as I please, regardless as to whether it negatively impacts the community.
That’s it in a nutshell. VOTE NO across the board! Write in HELL if it’s possible without negating your ballot — as in Hell, No!
Two people within the last week told me voter apathy stories.
I don’t know how people can still be apathetic but — there are about 350 million Americans — and Americans are notoriously hardheaded. There are going to be ‘outliers’. I’m going to write it off as that…
One story featured a twenty-something service worker, that I heard secondhand, admitting that he had no intention of voting. He’s trying to ‘make it’ in a small tourist trap of a town. From what he could tell, neither candidate or party represented him.
The other story I heard firsthand from a sixty-something neighbor who escaped southern California seeking the solitude of the mountains and wanting nothing to do with politics. His job — whatever it may be — is stressful enough for him. He favors neither party in this election. Neither candidate give him enough of a reason to vote.
I was too stupefied to give him coherent reasons for why he should reconsider.
These two anecdotal stories about disinterested and disengaged citizens are music to the ears of the authoritarians chomping at the bit to take over the reins of government. And then run it into the ground.
They are flooding the zone with bullshit in the hope that everyday citizens will throw up their hands in despair and refrain from voting.
Refrain from the simplest duty you have as a citizen.
Casting your vote.
My physical being has been on this planet for nearly seven decades, I’ve paid attention to politics from a very early age and I can say — unequivocally — this election is the most consequential of our lifetimes.
But those who will certainly create the dystopian hellscape we all fear don’t want you to vote.
One party’s candidate said so point blank. He didn’t care if anyone voted for him. Or so he publicly opined. (Of course, with the next breath, he cites favorable polls that point to him winning plenty of votes.) Mind games? Gibberish? Foreshadowing? Who the fuck knows?
The next thing you know he’s on tape telling Christian zealots that, if they vote for him, they will never have to vote again. Some people believe this would be an improvement in our society. Presumably, they’re envisioning a post-politics era where they’ll never have to be burdened to think about politics.
I think my neighbor would say that would be fine by him.
It feels like we are on the verge of the end of the American experiment. It’s been fragile from the beginning. The experiment in melding cultures while maintaining a democracy and policing the world — whether the world likes it or not — is just as fragile as ever.
What’s driving the rise of authoritarianism?
Concentration of wealth the likes of which the world has never seen.
Politicians stoking the fires of hatred because, depending on where they are, it gets them reelected. Simultaneously, garners popularity and clicks from people who cannot even vote for them.
A weirding climate, growing weirder with each passing decade.
Media magnates striving to keep the political playing field level — by redefining and re-toning what’s considered “normal” — in order to keep their flailing business model solvent. (You’d think the ten million ads we are forced to watch, or scroll past, these days would suffice.)
The technological means with which you can share your crazy ass ideas readily with people you don’t know (and will never meet) who have the same crazy ass ideas. Conspirators collect online like trash piling up in the Pacific gyre.
Migrations of people due to civil unrest, destabilized economies, foreign invasion, environmental collapse that threatens the ‘world order’ and paves the way for populism and strongmen.
I think I read democracy, throughout history, but even at this moment in world history, is the exception, not the rule.
I don’t think apathetic Americans and their daddy-issue, Republican cohorts would like autocracy as much as they think they would. I think they would chafe under the loss of freedoms — reproductive freedom, sexual freedom, marital freedom, freedom of speech, journalistic freedom, privacy freedom. Freedoms I can’t think of on the fly…
It would be Mad Max, except the bad guys would be wearing ill-fitting blue suits with excessively long red ties, or khaki pants and white polos while carrying a tiki torch.
If you’re under 26 years of age and you’re still reading this, you’ll definitely lose rights granted to you under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). Pre-existing conditions will — once again — preclude you from affordable insurance. You will not be able to remain on your parent’s health insurance to the age of 26.
In case you have amnesia, the authoritarian running for the highest office in the land said this during his tenure as president:
“Who knew health care could be so complicated?”
“I will have a health care plan in two weeks to replace the ACA.” He said this on multiple occasions throughout his presidency. It ranks right up there with his “infrastructure week” plans which didn’t come to pass until Biden/Harris pushed through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021.
More recently, at the lone presidential debate where Vice President Kamala Harris mopped the floor with the Orange Mussolini, he muttered this gem about his health care plan:
“I have concepts of a plan.”
Vote. You don’t have to vote for Kamala Harris. Vote for the American Experiment.
In case you need a reminder about which group of Americans tried to overthrow the government and which candidate STILL says he will not abide by a peaceful transition of power…
Also, in case you want something else to worry about or obsess over…
Or maybe you’ll be delighted to be educated about any topic imaginable by two congenial, talkative AIs…
