As I listened to election coverage last night, I got as bored as a peg-legged pirate at a podiatrists' convention. While I'm not entirely sure what Long John Silver would think of that metaphor, I'm relatively certain of one thing–when it comes to politics, we've lapped ourselves in meaninglessness.
I heard a winning candidate talk about his glorious victory, but I didn't hear who it was. I figured it would become clear who from the speech. But as the dude rumbled about how his win showed the triumph of the free market and that people wanted something different, etc., etc., I realized it was an impossible task to divine who it was.
Maybe it's just the effect of having witnessed a good few political cycles as a voter (it's almost certain that it's always been this way), but I now see yet more of why it was so bloody hard to point out Bush's system-level transgressions. As far as most of us are concerned, all politics is just the same endless and endlessly monotone chatter. When a real Constitution-shredder comes along, it's a nearly impossible task to point that out and have it taken for anything other than more partisanship.
A lot of this, of course, is because the political landscape has become a tempestuous struggle between two silly camps–one a bunch of half-competents basing their actions on reality tempered by the rosy glasses provided by corporate lobbyists, and the other a bunch of half-competents bent on ignoring and trying to change reality to fit their preferences. That just can't go well. I trudge out to vote primarily to oppose the latter camp in the fond hope that someday there will be a choice beyond just the lesser misery. That clearly remains highly unlikely.
Which, I think, just goes to show that the free market works, and that when people want change they go out and vote for something different and it's going to be a new day in Washington again, and I'd just like to thank my supporters for, you know, supporting me.
