This election year will be one in a long line of heightened rhetoric from both right and left ends of the spectrum. In fact, you will see a variety of voices and sub-spectrums: paleo-conservatives will challenge neo-conservatives on issues relating to Bush’s reinstitution of record spending and his open-handedness in regard to the great unwashed hordes on free trade, the Clinton Era democrats will be targeted by the Dean camp of the Democratic party for compromising, and Dixiecrats will defect to the Republican Party as they have been since the 1960’s. All in all, nothing new. I will still eat popcorn and, while listening to NPR, hoping that George The Third, or if you wish, Mad King Dubya will lose. I expect he will win despite my little vote. I know the electoral college system as it stands in Georgia has assured that my voice will have little resonance in my state full of rapid Republican sympathizers who proudly refer to themselves as NASCAR dads and think that the White Protestant Jesus will flame down upon them with a dirty bomb from Iran as the means of his holy wrath. It’s hyperbole, I know. Still, it’s truth.
I am voting this year for civic duty reasons, for reasons of righteous indignation, and for an excuse to skip a poetry workshop with its endless rambling about enjambment. I have been tempted to vote for Mad King Dubya just to spite the other liberal poets who expect me to always vote for racial politics, truth, and NEA.
When protesting the Iraq war in early 2003, I looked around and saw the other “activists” who were using this as an excuse to make wild attacks on everything from Fox News to blame 9-11 on Israel. When a local newscaster found me starting blankly at same girl who smelled of scandalwood joss sticks and looked like she had been force-fed Chomsky through a blender since age three, I sighed. I turned to the camera and said, “I am against this war, but I would be against these idiots in peace time.” Then I started talking about the dubious economics of such a war and how its basic assumption to bring peace to the region was more than likely exactly what Islamic terrorist wanted. I said something about Bin Laden watching Fox News broadcast with some goat’s milk after evening prayers to Mecca. Needless to say, my 15 minutes of Channel Five Action News fame was quick and in a blurb. So I quit protesting and merely watched the debacle of the RNC on C-span.
You see, gentle reader, I am a rare breed. I am a radical moderate and thus I vote. If there is a Democratic congress, I vote Republican. The reverse is true. If both candidates suck eggs with equal force and proclivity, I vote Reform or Libertarian or Green. Statistically speaking, unless my state switched over to a proportional delegate system, I understand my votes haven’t matter since I was 18.
Yet, practicality aside, an artist has got to have principles. Principles based in the muck of everyday reality. So I know, even if my vote did matter. If I was in a mythological swing state with was the one vote that gave all the delegates to Kerry, I doubt I would feel much elation. I don’t trust democracy much. To be honest, I never had. Democracy is the whore everyone wants and gets. All that comes from that is painful urination and a variety of viruses to keep you warm in the dead of winter. It is a whore not interested in facts and always persuaded by month old debates about South East Asia wars. Democracy has her charms if you are careful. She makes sure responsibility is spread out. No one is at fault and yet everyone is at fault. Her major competitor has one more advantage: monarchies and dictatorships can be drowned in a bathtub.
I could tell you why I will vote for Mr. Kerry despite the fact that I am fairly sure that I would vote against him in 2008 if the Republicans ran with McCain at the helm or the Reform party existed or the Greens ran with… anyone who mattered. I could tell you that I think Bush has pushed the nation closer to Fascist Italy in attitude and make-up more than anyone in American history since the mid-1960’s. I could mention that our economy is sliding despite a few peaks. I could say that Bush’s deficit has made it such that my state taxes have gone up every year and I will have to work in publishing or public secondary school if I plan on using my Masters degree in this new academic area. I could say that Bush’s military policies are based on a doctrine that stretches troops too thin and if anything were to happen with Iran or North Korea, a draft would be necessary. I could say that without a re-institution of the Monroe Doctrine, this country will no longer be the hegemonic power in a little under a decade. I could that I would like to be able to buy a glass of water in Europe for less than ten US dollars since our lovely deflation. I could say a lot of things. I could say that I would rather have a real sock puppet for President, instead someone who just looks and acts like one.
Kerry won’t change much if elected. He may save some face on the international diplomacy scale and he may try to push a health care bill and tax increases without congressional support. The tech sector jobs won’t come back under Kerry. The budget will be hard to balance correctly. Kerry will not pull troops out of Iraq overnight. In fact, if things develop the way some neo-conservatives think they will in regard to Iran or North Korea, Kerry may be the one taking the fall for a national draft. So I am just dancing with the beast in the otherwise slow year. If all you see is negative, you may as well invite negativity out for dinner.
I will tell you one thing for certain. This election day after I throw my vote at a machine without a paper trail, I will be glad that my misanthropy can calm a little. Nothing hurts your faith in man like an election year.
Derick sincerely believes that everyone needs to dance around their house naked at least once a week; in addition to that, being declared an ethicist has made him a general misanthrope. Most good ethicists are. He loves tomatoes and thinks that loving such fruit is profound. He does not like to speak in third-person because he understands that it is a sign of true insanity, but so is literature. He has vowed no longer to be witty in biographies that are included in literary journals of any medium.