Well here we are, on the eve of Election Day. For all the ubiquitous noise we've been bombarded with for what seems like fucking forever, less people will probably vote in this election than did for the last American Idol winner. But no matter who wins, nothing is going to change that drastically. I honestly don't know who falls for campaign speeches that are so obviously full of distortions, lies and vagaries on both sides.
Romney, if he wins, isn't going to fix the economy any faster than Obama has tried to. The office of the President of the United States of America isn't some kind of kingship where our leader issues commands and suddenly there's a million more jobs and gas is 88 cents a gallon. Don't these idiots who clap and cheer whenever some politician promises them everything they want realize that if it were possible, every President since the dawn of the republic would have done it, if for no other reason than to get re-elected? No one person is to blame for the Great Recession, no one person is able to fix it. If you think the problem lies solely in the fact that there's not enough regulation in place on Wall Street, keep in mind that half of the corporations responsible for the collapse were breaking the regulations that there were anyway, and have yet to be held accountable in any meaningful way.
Romney also isn't going abolish Roe Vs. Wade as people are screaming about either. This is an hysterical impossibility fanned by the flames of the media. Even if he had any principles (at all) and wanted to make abortion illegal more than anything in the world, remember that congress is still deadlocked, and will probably remain in roughly the same condition after the election.
In short, no matter who wins, neither candidate will do half of the things they've promised while campaigning, and they'll do four times too much we won't know about til the files become declassified in seventy-some years.
But for those fearing the apocalypse if their guy doesn't win, keep in mind, no matter who wins, the following things will still happen:
- We will continue to spend more on our military budget than the next 26 countries combined. Spending will increase each year regardless of wartime or peacetime. An enormous portion of our tax dollars will go to for-profit military contractors to build weapons that will likely sit in silos and bunkers for the rest of time.
- We will continue, overtly or covertly, the War on Terror. We will continue accepting the death of innocents as collateral damage in a war that has no ending and no borders. We will continue sending machines to assassinate people with no trial or due process.
- We will continue to condemn (mostly black) people to a life in and out of our prison system for crimes no greater than local marijuana distribution, while in the meantime allowing alcohol and cigarette companies to target teenagers with sexy advertisements.
- We will continue to allow lobbyists and corporations to control our lawmaking and leadership selection process. After all, money is speech now, and the richest people are the loudest.
And since that's what will happen, let's also not forget what has happened.
- 6 billion dollars has been spent on the 2012 presidential campaigns, shattering by a landslide all previous records. That's 6 billion dollars that has been spent so that not a day would go by without you hearing someone telling you for whom to vote, whether it be via radio, TV, billboard, or asshole with a clipboard. That may not be that large a figure in context with our entire economy, but how many cops, firefighters, and teachers would 6 billion dollars have hired? How much more of a difference could we have made in this country if we'd bought schools instead of ad space?
- Barack Obama, our sitting President, Commander-In-Chief, and "most powerful man in the world", has just spent the last 6 months doing nothing but trying to keep his job. For half a year, the President's job has been to keep his position by going around in a tour bus to give empty promises to suckers in middle America. Fuck, we might as well elect Motley Crue. And we wonder why nothing gets done in this country. Is that really the best use of anyone's time?
So, enjoy casting your entirely symbolic expression of freedom and democracy tomorrow. Let's just get it over with so we can all go back to caring about reality TV shows while business returns to usual.
