I was only seventeen when Reagan won his second term in 1984. An unapologetic newly minted Republican by ideology, even if my date of birth fell several months short of the age needed to lend my support to the party. Not that the party needed me. Reagan won by a landslide. By the time Reagan left office, I was in college and already disillusioned with the GOP. Reagan had used his immense popularity to build a coalition with what would become known as the "religious right" and had effectively blackmailed all fifty states into changing their various drinking ages to twenty-one by threatening to withhold federal highway funds until the states complied.
From the perspective of a twenty-one year old, gone was the "new federalist" president, champion of states rights and small government and in his place was this moralizing old dude who was telling everyone how to live. That may seem like oversimplification, but history would will out my instinct, as Bush I won the election of 1988 and proceeded to legislate and moralize for another four years. By the time 1992 rolled around, from my vantage point, there was little discernible difference between the two major parties. Basically, each party would find a few causes to preach to the public about, in an escalating effort to tell everyone what to believe in. Animal rights. Fetal rights. AIDS. Africa. Farmers. Explicit lyrics in music (that's on you, Gore supporters) with each passing year, the list grew, seemingly endless in its demand that the American public stop being so selfish and care about whatever cause each party decided to showcase.
Political variance between our two parties with regard to morality is nothing new. But what was changing, was that the Republican Party, which had traditionally favored the idea of allowing states and communities to make decisions which closely affected them, was now asserting federal control in new arenas. "Conservative" senators were voting to pass helmet and seatbelt laws. There was bipartisan agreement about labeling albums to warn parents of vulgar content. Because, you know, it's too much to ask for a parent to do any level of research about anything themselves. Let's just turn it over to the Feds to set an arbitrary standard of decency for us! These concepts are so commonplace now, the idea of them being watershed in any way seems preposterous. These seem like small, common sense issues which are no big deal, so why NOT let the government regulate such behavior?
But of course this was just the beginning. Much like the recreational pot smoker who morphs into a full blown meth head, the federal reach has grown so ubiquitous, that people now get upset when any small annoyance occurs and the federal government doesn't have a regulation in place to "prevent" it. Such minutiae was never the design of our federal government. Ever. I left the Republican Party in 1993, became an Independent and then eventually a Libertarian. I was 25.
By now, it is clear to me that there are only minor differences between our two major parties. As my husband so eloquently put it last night, the problem with the fake left is that they lie about their self interest and claim to be anti business, when the truth is that they are every bit as interested in businesses controlling the government as the right is. They just want THEIR businesses in charge. Their unions. Their schools. Their media outlets. Their global warming policies. The fascist far left attempts to shame people and jam their morality down everyone's throats in exactly the same way the authoritarian far right does with their out of control religious demands. HOW DARE YOU QUESTION GLOBAL WARMING!!! ITS SCIENCE!!! Here's a newsflash. This is the exact same mentality that religion uses to force compliance. Fear. Shame. Coercion. Except the left does it in the name of ACADEMIA!!! BECAUSE NO ONE WITH AN IVY LEAGUE DEGREE HAS EVER BEEN WRONG!!!
Newsflash number two. This is the same thing that people once thought about the Catholic Church. SPOILER ALERT: They are both man made institutions and both fallible. Both claim to care a lot about the future. Both claim that they need your money in the form of tithes and taxes in order to help get the message out and to help repair the irreparable damage we are all doing by merely existing on this planet, leaving our giant fucked up carbon footprints and irredeemable unholy sins. Both rely heavily on guilt and shame. Both love to ridicule you if you don't agree, although the Catholics will at least pray for you whereas the global warming people seem to want you to go to the hell that most of them claim they don't believe in when you point out the smallest flaw in their "airtight" scientific models. Because, NEIL deGRASSE TYSON TOLD THEM!!! OK??? AND NdGT DOESN'T LIE ABOUT SCIENTIFIC MODELS!!! Because he's on TELEVISION, and as we all know, if you have a television show, you have a special sort of cache which cannot be ignored.
Which brings me to my point. Sort of. This election is, for me, simultaneously the most tedious and the most interesting of my lifetime. The tedium comes from the fact that both Trump and Clinton have been in the public eye for so long at this point, they are, for lack of a better phrase, "played out." They are old. They are tired. The colors of both Trump's "hair" and his face are so odd, you can't even find them in the 128 count deluxe Crayola crayon set. It's sort of like Marigold and Lemon melted onto Burnt Sienna and Tangerine. This is the guy who should be running against Kramer to become president of Del Boca Vista. Clinton's pantsuits are inexplicably bad for a person who has been in public view for so many years. Particularly when she goes mono color blue and the pants pull across the front of her lap to accentuate her vulva. If she was running for president of her local AARP chapter, those Depends huggers might get her somewhere. But this is supposed to be the leader of the free world. Not a throw down about who gets to use the "good table" for bingo night.
In short, I cannot and will not take either of these geriatric egomaniacs seriously. I think Trump is funny because he uses his own lies to expose the lies of all the politicians who claim that they never lie. There is tremendous value in that. It has been virtually impossible for Clinton to seem credible when she has Trump lampooning her for taking his money from one side and Sanders lining up the true party believers against each her on the other. It's like I always say about why no threesome in history has ever been successful. Eventually, somebody will become Trotsky. Sanders is Lenin, clearly. In the trenches, fighting for the principle. But too physically weak to see it through. Trump is obviously Stalin. Making no apologies for the throat cutting he feels he needs to administer in order to get things under control. And Clinton is Trotsky. About to be exiled for crimes she may have tangentially participated in, but had no ability to either justify or be forgiven for.
The bitterest irony in this paradox, which is what makes this election interesting, is that it was the Clintons themselves who paved the way for Trump's candidacy. Who can forget Bill dropping in on Arsenio to play the saxophone? His love of the media and masterful manipulation of the press? His blowjob in the Oval Office? Sure, all parties involved skated through that one, because who WOULDN'T want a hummer under the presidential desk? But in the process, the Clintons brought the office of the President to a level that had not been seen before in this century. They parlayed the concept that they were just like any other married couple, with real married couple problems, into public empathy. Bill was just like Donnie, the UPS guy who is always the last one back to the station because he spends a few extra minutes on his "route." Bill had regular guy problems, but the panache to sell himself through all available media outlets on the level of a movie star. People loved him. They loved to hate him. They hated that they loved him.
Sound familiar?
Two decades later, enter a different kind of boor. One who is a little less gentile, because, after all he is from Queens. He is also unapologetic about his indiscretions, and doesn't really even consider them to be indiscretions. They are just Trump being Trump. Kind of like Bubba was just being Bubba. His style is different. But he made his public bones in much the same way Bill Clinton made his. Masterful use of the available media. Becoming a reality television star. A household name. Never backing down from who he is, no matter the situation. Since Clinton left the White House in 2000, we have had sixteen years of presidential leadership free of personal scandal. Both the Bush and Obama families have conducted themselves with the utmost dignity and grace in all situations. Yet here we are again, the white trash hillbillies from Arkansas slugging it out with the thugs of Queens. And you know what? Without the Clintons anointing the Machiavellian concept that bad personal behavior is IRRELEVANT to the leadership skills of the office of the president, Trump would have had zero ability to be taken seriously as a candidate.
So my suggestion to all of you disgruntled Clinton fans who are beside yourselves that a man you consider to be a "buffoon" (despite his undeniable successes in various arenas) has thrown his hat into the ring and landed on top of the other lame ass hats, look no further than your own presumed candidate, who was a party to her husbands many lies and coverups. Who basically said...I am his wife, if I am ok with his behavior, you should be, too... Because the Clintons are the reason that Trump is taken seriously. A blow job in the oval office is straight up white trash. End of story. Once you have championed that? There is no reverence for that job! Get serious. Any thug can be president. Clearly. If the Democrats had even attempted to move a younger, scandal free, sophisticated candidate into the limelight in the past eight years instead of fulfilling whatever Faustian bargain they made with the Clintons two decades ago, Trump would be an old, loud mouthed ass by comparison, forced to yield to a new generation of thought and action. Instead, we are all mired once again in the baby boomer bullshit that has given us the last fifteen years of malaise.
Irrespective of their individual politics, the Bush and Obama presidencies were nothing if not classy. Both families restored some sense of dignity to the office. The Clintons' refusal to get out of the way has thrown us all a decade behind. Neither of these candidates has any reverence for the office, and as long as they are the nominees, neither do I.
It seems that these two parties have fallen, and they can't get up. With any luck, their Life Alert subscriptions were inadvertently cancelled. There is another choice. His name is Gary Johnson. Yes, I know. "Johnson." But believe it or not, he is the only one I this race who isn't a total dick.
BB
