Send in the Clowns
Nov 05, 2015 10:30AM ● By Bryan ScottBy Peri Kinder
It’s a time of natural selection. A season of mass hysteria. Wolves, disguised as sheep, travel in packs, attacking the weak, the inferior, the less adaptable. I’m not talking about the latest season of “The Walking Dead,”—but it’s close. I’m talking about the presidential campaign.
Next November we’ll be electing a new president, then we’ll spend 4-8 years slowly pecking him/her to death. And while the election is still a year away, I’m already tired of hearing campaign speeches, bloated promises and intolerant views.
Welcome to the Reality TV show political campaign landscape that’s a combination of “Survivor” and “Hell’s Kitchen.” I call it “American Idle: Washington, D.C.”
Instead of selecting a world leader who won’t be ridiculed by the entire planet, we seem to be more focused on a celebridential popularity contest, electing a president who has the strongest handshake, the best suit or the whitest smile.
The fact that Donald Trump thinks he represents this country with his intolerant, puffy-haired self-importance and insane detachment from reality makes the back of my neck itch. I could list some of the dumbest things Trump has said, but it would be outdated before my column would be published.
In a circus act of national proportions, the presidential candidates twist the issues with the help of our frenzied media who jump on every possibly scandalous topic like piranhas in a bloody river. We watch in horror as blooper reels blast through the Internet 24/7, and citizens become too fed-up (or lazy) to be educated about the real issues.
The constant pandering to minority/women/young voters is nauseating and obnoxious. This pandermania has included Hilary Clinton appearing as a bartender on Saturday Night Live, and Trump interviewing himself on “The Tonight Show.” I’m still waiting for the “Chris Christie/Marco Rubio American Ninja Warrior Challenge.”
Candidates throw out terms like “equality” and “justice” in verbose sentences that make no sense, such as, “The idea of equal equality is mostly within our grasping fingers because justice.”
Backpedaling, recanting, denying and contradicting are commonplace in modern elections. Candidates often appear on news shows explaining what they “meant” to say. It seems voters don’t even expect ethical behavior from the president-to-be. Voters are nothing if not irrational—which is fine, because the candidates are also irrational.
It’s no surprise there is big money behind each candidate. Political action committees (inexplicably deemed legal by the Supreme Court) literally purchase the new president. Millions of dollars are spent on TV ads, glossy mailings and social media campaigns, not to explain why you should vote for a candidate, but why you shouldn’t vote for their opponent. Mean-spirited, hateful speeches spew into the air, clouding the issues with their hazy pollution.
As the presidential race continues weaning out the unpopular and the less pretty (leaving the populace with a candidate most likely to pose for a selfie with Kanye West), voters become desperate, feeling their voices are not being heard.
It’s like watching a remake of the “Wizard of Oz” with Clinton trying to prove she has a heart, Trump trying to prove he has a brain and everyone else screeching and flapping like a barrel of flying monkeys. If we’re lucky, a house will fall on all of them.
There will definitely be a winner next November. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the voters.