election 2016

Ugh.

What’s up Mouse?

I’ve been a US political junkie since the early Bush years and, as a junkie, this election has proven to be my Requiem for a Dream. The thing I’m addicted to is making me ill and may quite possibly be killing me and I am just about ready for this rampaging shit-beast of an election to finally drag its filthy carcass over the finish line. But, with a mere five more days until November 8th, I feel it’s my duty to try and convince as many of my American readers as possible to…

Blaaaaaaaaaradhlakhsdjklahkjhasdjhasdjkhadsljha!!!!!!

I know. I know. I know. You’re sick of this. You’re sick of the constant reminders that “this election is different”. But here’s the thing. This election is different. Radically different. Why? Because this election can get you laid.

Go on…

Picture the scene. A few years from now you’re in a bar in Paris, or Rio, or Dublin, or anywhere else where legendarily beautiful people are known to congregate. You get talking to a particularly gorgeous member of your preferred gender and the conversation goes like these:

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: So tell me about yourself Meester/Mademoiselle American, so that I may decide eef you are worthy of my beautiful time.

YOU: Aw shucks pardner, I’m just a simple American who likes apple pie and baseball and workin’ down on the ol’ farm.

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: (silently deciding not to have sex with you) I see.

YOU: Oh yeah, and one time in 2016 I helped prevent a fascist takeover of my country.

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: Zut alors! We must make love immediately!

YOU: Okay. My place or yours?

BEAUTIFUL FOREIGN HUMAN: No time!

BAR PATRONS: Ooh la la!

Guys, I don’t think you understand the gift that’s been handed to you. You get to stop Trump. You get to stop an actual fascist. This opportunity will not come again in your lifetime (dear Christ I hope it doesn’t). There is nothing sexier than defeating fascism. Look at the Greatest Generation, do you have any idea how much action those guys got when they got home?

HINT

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A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Donald Trump where I called him mean names and mocked the size of his tiny, tiny hands. It was fun. We all laughed. Good times.

He’s now the nominee of the Republican party.

Also, around a month ago I wrote a post on the results of the most recent Irish general election and how it was going to be damn near impossible to form a government. Let’s tie those two together almost as if that was my plan all along. *tents fingers*

Trump. What? FUCK.

Trump What FUCK indeed, amigo. There’s a whole squirming nest-of-naked-baby-rats mess of factors that have brought us to this point and account for the appeal of Donald Trump.

Like racism?

This is a big part of it, no question. Some of it is just the general home-grown racial tension that’s been apiece with the American cultural landscape since…oh, Columbus. But more specifically to this moment in history is the fact that vast swathes of white America is in full on demographic panic. Current US immigration policies have led to a huge shift in the size of the Hispanic population relative to non-Hispanic whites, something encouraged by both main parties. The Democrats, obviously, because Hispanics form a core part of their coalition, but the Republicans too because, while they make political hay from coded racist appeals to white voters, having more low skilled workers than there are low skilled jobs helps keep wages depressed which is good news for the Koch brothers and other corporate Republican donors. Throw in lingering post 9/11 Islamophobia and a candidate who promises to deal with all of the above in short order, and presto, you have a Trump rally.

So Americans are just racist and we can all go home?

No, and here’s where I think it gets scary. Because I think the rise of Trump means that we’re seeing the final days of American democracy as we know it.

To counterbalance the grimness of that last sentence, here is a picture of a kitten wearing a jaunty little hat.

Now, I don’t mean that Trump is going to win (he probably won’t) or that once he won he’d abolish democratic institutions and declare himself dictator*. Any president who tried that (particularly one whose support in his own party is as tenuous as Trump’s) would very quickly find himself impeached, arrested or shot in no particular order.

No, the problem is built into how America actually votes. Sooner or later, Trump was going to happen.

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