The Vote

This will be a very special year. Because it will be our last one.

Well, at least it will be our final year as a functioning democracy if a certain bigoted crime boss / cult leader wins the election this November.

Recently, media outlets have caught on to the fact — at long last — that an insane autocrat will be the Republican nominee for president, and he stands a decent chance of becoming the leader of a government that he tried to violently overthrow. 

Of course, he could not do this if millions of Americans didn’t think it was a good idea to support a narcissistic lunatic who almost destroyed the country when he was in charge. But it’s not really about the racists, conspiracy nuts, and authoritarian lovers who make up the GOP base.

As everyone knows, this election will be decided by that tiny sliver of undecided voters who are torn between a competent but uninspiring octogenarian and a slightly younger guy who faces 91 felony charges in four different cases and who once suggested that Americans drink bleach.

Yes, it’s a real fucking coin toss. Should they go with the man who dodders a bit or the raging misogynist whom dozens of former staffers, aides, and cabinet members say is a direct threat to democracy?

What’s an undecided voter to do?

Recently, the Washington Post looked at this strange demographic. In their article, they profiled an indecisive voter from my hometown of Milwaukee. The man truly didn’t know who to vote for, but he added that he thinks Trump is “hilarious.”

I must admit, I didn’t know that “hilarious” was a legitimate criterion for electing the leader of the free world. But even if it were, I fail to see the hilarity in a deranged old man who spews nonstop insults, lies, and hatred, interspersed only by delusional boasts about how great he is. It’s not exactly the foundation of a tight five for a solid standup act. But maybe I’m just not in on the joke.

And speaking of jokes, let’s consider the Electoral College.

Be honest. If you were building a country from scratch, would you even consider such a tortuous, bizarre, illogical, antidemocratic mechanism?

This “18th-century system — which is unlike anything used by the United States’ 21st-century democratic peers” is a preposterous contraption that “empowers a sliver of the U.S. population in a diminishing number of battleground states.”

In a nation of 330 million people, presidential elections now come down to “about 400,000 people in three or four states,” resulting in an infuriating farce where “more and more people feel that they don’t have a say.”

It also means that an easily persuaded guy in a battleground state who has no principles, concern for others, or awareness of real-world consequences — but who finds a particular candidate “hilarious” — has far more say than you do about whether or not an aspiring despot takes over the nation and grounds our society into dust.

Yeah, I’m still waiting for the punch line.