Fear & Loathing for President
There is nothing special about the 2024 presidential election. It is a manufactured, high-stakes drama of unsavory characters. Since neither side can defend their forerunner with a straight face, the full weight of partisan antagonism is leveraged against the other guy. Whichever candidate wins is irrelevant, with the exception of a white knight whose defeat everyone has already decided is a foregone conclusion. This is an old, threadbare story that could accurately describe the previous election, the one before that, and the one before that, however far back one cares to go.
Reporting on the field is a dull affair at best, complicit at worst. I would suggest this is why I am so far removed from said field, but the truth is, I wasn’t invited to the party. My frequent letters to Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s headquarters offering my assistance (mostly consisting of graphic design skills) have fallen on deaf ears. Perhaps for the best.
Kennedy’s campaign won’t end well, but that was never the point. It’s the nobility of the martyr’s defiance. It’s a pool of blood in the Ambassador Hotel that cries out in judgement like the blood of Abel. For those of us with no illusions left to lose, it is a siren song, an irresistible call to all go down together.
Kennedy won’t lose the election because he’s lost his voice or even because of the mythological tragedy of the Kennedy curse. He will lose for the same reason Donald Trump won his first term, Bill Clinton won his second, and Richard Nixon won both. He will lose because it’s what we deserve. Our nation has the unprecedented privilege of choosing our leader, and our choices are a repeated moral indictment against not our society, or the mainstream media, or the enemy, but we, ourselves. This is a fact we remain hellbent on ignoring, no matter how impossible it is to do so.
Like his father before him, Kennedy is running against an incumbent. The incumbent is, with all due respect, a babbling geriatric idiot whose incomprehensible ramblings are either poorly fabricated lies or the product of late-stage senility, and it’s hard to imagine which is worse. There’s a rumor he is administered daily shots of formaldehyde just to stay lucid through lunch, but I don’t believe it.
The forerunner on the opposition’s side is an egomaniac – a caricature of pride and greed with a penchant for spectacle, and provocation in the place of intellect. He is a horrifyingly precise representation of we the people.
And let’s not forget the dozen other candidates cramming their irrelevant names into the conversation, whose only interest in running lies in financial contributions and a ghost-written book deal. Or rather, yes, let’s forget them.
These are bleak times. Yet no matter how far down the toilet our moral bankruptcy has flushed us, the American spirit retains an eternal sense of optimism and hope. We are a nation of true believers. We believe in the individual and the ideals of liberty and justice for all. We believe ours is the Promised Land and our best days are yet to come. If we get there, it will not be on the backs of corrupt politicians or moneyed interest. It will be through the daily actions of ordinary men and women.
Robert Kennedy, Sr. once said, “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.”
We believe that, too. We pick up trash, say a kind word, leave a donation, and play the blues. We nurse a bird with a broken wing back to health. We study the stars in wonder and teach our children to dream. Impeded by our own fear and greed, we take tiny, miserable steps toward being that city on a hill. Maybe one day, we’ll get there. But it won’t be this year or even the next. Because there is nothing special about the 2024 presidential election.
J.
Aug. 24, 2023