Anyone else burnt out on stupid? Burnt out on the depraved lowest common denominator BS that is being paraded around as if it were actually politics? Are these two people the best that the country can do in terms of leaders? If so, we should not really wonder at why things are going wrong.

Look, she’s worse than me.

No, He’s done way worse things than me.

Hunter S. Thompson, were he still alive, would have had a hard job injecting anymore insanity into this already Gonzo political situation. Satirists must be struggling to trump the Trump and outdo the Billary Circus, and reaching a point where they just sit back and shake their heads. It would be comical if the thought of having either candidate elected and in control of the most powerful country in the world weren’t so scary. Alex Jones has been saying they are demons who smell of sulfur all week, but they are something much more mundane – they are bad examples of how to live your life and conduct yourself. Seems like a small thing to say, maybe – but stand on a national stage and trot out bigoted statements and observe how long it takes for that to become acceptable for your average Joe. Or lie constantly, and make that an OK thing to do.

Not a great advert for the country or for the political process. It went downhill fast.

People in the media on both sides of the divide bemoan the general populace and their failure to engage in politics, but then they give the platform to the worst kind of mud-flinging possible. People are engaging in the way rubberneckers do – watch the troll comments scrolling past the live YouTube stream, and you despair a little.

Answering questions and debating policies, and outlining the direction they would like to take the country in takes a backseat to questioning each others’ qualifications for occupying the position of power in the first place. It ends up with neither of them looking suitable for the Presidency.

When you market something you would normally focus on the selling points of the service or product, instead of attacking a competitor. Preening is also not very useful – people want demonstrable benefits not constant dissembling and persiflage. How do you reckon whether or not someone wins one of these debates? Do you feel any wiser about where the country is headed after one of these people gets elected? Imagine them replicating this on the floor of the House Of Representatives. Is anyone watching these things and feeling better afterward?

You should be able to see a candidate and disagree with their policies and the plans that they have for the country, but should the way that they conduct themselves be so objectionable? Good manners is an important thing, and the way someone comports themselves, especially someone who wants to represent the country, is no small thing.

The way the whole game is marketed, and the focus of the media, and the candidates themselves is something that really doesn’t benefit the country; it really doesn’t advance the United States and the principals on which it was founded. I find it hard to imagine the Founding Fathers running campaigns quite like this – it seems to have hit an all time low in both the quality of the debate, and in the quality of the candidates. All the noise now seems to do nothing so much as confirm that this is a real Hobson’s Choice.


Hob·son’s choice

ˈhäbsənz ˌCHois/

noun
unpunctuated: Hobsons choice; noun: Hobson’s choice; plural noun: Hobson’s choices

  1. a choice of taking what is available or nothing at all.

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