My father’s opinion of politicians was that they are just failed lawyers.  I say, failed something.  You know this country’s in trouble when the most profound statement in that GOP debate came from our inimitable and mostly absent governor, Chris Christie, who has only been eclipsed as a barking attack dog because Donald Trump is around as a noisier barking attack dog.  This acerbic jerk and not a NJ favorite son said that focusing on Fantasy Football was absurd when there are so many other more important problems around.  Wow!  Of course, he was attacking both CNBC moderators and Jeb?, but even from the blathering mouth of this governor the occasional spittle of truth will spew forth.

Continuing with the governor (and forgetting about the Donald, the other aficionado of insulting rants), Christie actually mentioned ISIS and al Qaeda.  The rest of the GOP anointed mentioned terrorism only peripherally as part of that never-ending Benghazi fixation that they’re using to attack Hillary (that last whole grueling one-day session was a three-ring circus, with GOP inquisitors ending with rotten eggs all over their faces—the wannabe House Speaker had said it’s a witch hunt, and he is right).  While I might be giving Mr. Christie far too much credit, he nailed it: terrorism is the number one issue of our time.  All politicians should realize that; every citizen should too.  And it’s not something to analyze in short soundbites on a debate stage—it requires profound analysis and multi-dimensional thinking, both sorely lacking in this electoral season.

Maybe politicians think that they’re impervious to terrorist attacks when they’re sitting in their cozy little condos and houses in Washington?  They have $150 million dollar blimps loaded with electronics to protect them, right?  They have Pentagon experts at their beck and call, experts who have done such a great job against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and ISIS, right?  The politicians figure that the Middle East is just another way for their masters in the military-industrial complex to make money selling projects to the Pentagon that don’t work.  Everyone’s happy as long as they’re making money, right?

Yet terrorism threatens the way of life of most people in the world, especially those in western democracies who run the risk of losing ten centuries of progress.  Religious, violent fanatics want to take the world back to the Middle Ages and instill a reign of terror where Sharia law rules, and those who disagree are beheaded, all western culture is destroyed, and darkness descends on the Earth.  If that isn’t a serious threat, what is?  If you can’t talk about anti-terrorism policies, you’re not qualified to lead anywhere at any time, an especially not in the U.S.!  But these candidates don’t talk policy at all, any policy.  They spout fancy titles for programs defining their solutions when these programs really don’t have any meat to them beyond the titles.  It’s embarrassing to see how people can be so shallow.  Of course, that’s just a reflection of their stupidity.

The Democrats aren’t any better.  Both sides now are harping on income inequality.  I guess it’s some sort of progress that all these stupid wannabe presidents have latched onto these buzzwords.  Coming out of GOP mouths, they’re a joke; coming out of Dem mouths, it’s hypocrisy.  Politicians have such small minds and lead such privileged lives that they can’t see beyond Washington to determine what those policy words really mean.  Most are incurable narcissists who don’t really give a rat’s ass about the struggles of the poor and middle class in this country.  Democrats and Republicans just steal from th people in different ways with different excuses.  Their bosses aren’t the people.  They’re the military-industrial complex, other lobbyists and special interests, and the big banks and investors on Wall Street.

Politicians are so stupid that they can bury their head in the sands and ignore what’s going around them.  In this election, we have a cast of clowns, from Bernie to Ben and from Hillary to Carly—the two women in the race aren’t the worst examples of ineptitude, but they hold their own.  Generally speaking, I don’t have coulrophobia (an abnormal fear of clowns), but I sure do in this coming election.  From the far left to the far right, all I see is clowns on those debate stages.  Their only defense resides in the fact that the moderators of the debates are clowns too, from Megyn Kelly to Jim Cramer and from Fox News to CNBC.  No specific policy questions allowed.  CNBC was the worst with its 30- to 60-second sound bites and machine gun Q&A.  The people don’t care about the issues, don’t you know?—they just want to hear you attack other candidates, so put spurs on those big clown shoes and let the cockfights begin (how do you like that for a mixed metaphor?).

This is one election where the whole electoral process has failed.  Out of 300+ millions of Americans, these are our candidates?  C’mon!  These bozos (literally, because they’re clowns) are the best we can do?  What a sad day for American democracy!  At least, the Trump clown makes me laugh.  All the others make me want to slash my wrists with the assumption that they’ll all be burning down below while I’m in that part of purgatory reserved for suicides.  Who wants to live in a country that is so bankrupt it can’t offer anything better than these clowns?  I do actually, because this country is still a great one, but these clowns will bring it down even more and hurt a lot more people in the process.

I’m being unfair to clowns, of course.  They’re generally hardworking folks who are taking up the slack in circuses because PETA has decided to destroy these events.  Professional clowns in the circus aren’t one-percenters and most have an innate gift for entertaining young and old alike and work hard to do that.  So politicians aren’t failed lawyers—they’re failed clowns!  Only Trump can make me laugh.  Every person on those debate stages can’t hold down a decent job, and every one of them has lost all touch with the poor and middle class.  They might say all the buzzwords their constituents want to hear, but they’re not any smarter than those bobble-head clowns you might put on the dashboard of your car.  God help us, please!  Rid us of this scourge!

[Note: The title is in quotes because most of the lyrics from Stephen Sondheim’s famous song can be reinterpreted to fit the situation we face in this electoral season—apologies to Stephen, of course, but titles aren’t copyrighted.]

And so it goes….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 at 4:00 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.