People across the board have their collective panties in a wad over
this race for POTUS. I'm not sure that I've ever seen this level of
vitriol, disgust, straight up hate being flung around between the
various factions. Perhaps I never paid as much attention to this
process as I am now.
This election, the actions of the media and
the social and political implications of all of it have consumed my mind
since Summer 2015. At first it was a bit of a lark. Donald Trump was
running for POTUS? WTF? I'm almost positive that, despite being a fan of
his (not a crazy super-fan, but, as someone who lived in NYC and has
known the Trump persona for decades), I may well have laughed at first. I
know that I could never have seen coming what has transpired since last
summer.
This isn't an article about Trump though. There are
plenty of those, both pro and con. This is a rumination on lots of stuff
(because my train of thought is strong and beautiful and don't need no
rails), including what Trump now represents, to me, in the broad scheme
of things. He's a key - one of those big, old-timey iron keys with the
ring on one end, and the metal flanges or whatever on the other end, the
kind that you find in your yard when you buy a "This Old House" because
you're fucking bored and you need something to do with yourself -
which, in itself, is definitely a story for another time.
Trump's
candidacy has evolved into a key that unlocks the door standing between
perceptions of our electoral process and the reality of it. I've watched
this election cycle more closely than any other election in my lifetime
thus far and because I've been so singularly fixated on it, I've
experienced the discomfort and frustration of having many illusions and
preconceived notions utterly shattered, which is a drag, but I've also
watched some of the bullshit mud-huts that have been constructed over
the last 15 years or so (pretty much the insanely oppressive, current
version of "political correctness") start to crack, start to crumble;
and that elicits a strangely hopeful feeling. More on the mud huts some
other time. You probably already know what they are - the "triggery"
words that have become the molotov cocktails of the far left, when faced
with facts or beliefs that don't match their own.
For me, the
shattered illusions have been of the sort where, despite a belief that
the "game is rigged", going into this, I suppose I still believed that
somehow, some way, that the electoral process, the media, etc. couldn't
be as bad some would have us believe it to be, right? I mean, those of
us who can't contain our intellectual wanderlust in the "normie" box
frequently contemplate what the reality behind the veil might actually
look like. We're pretty sure that shenanigans of some sort
transpire behind the scenes (and honestly, how could they not - with big
money, Super PACs, strategists, dirty deals done dirt cheap, etc. in
the mix), but surely our elections - the sacred underpinnings of our
nation, are not actually as bad as those wacky conspiracy theorists make it out to be, right?
Wrong.
So, so wrong. I'm not going to lie, I feel as if I've been unwittingly
strapped to a roller coaster throughout this election cycle; sometimes
it's a wild, thrilling, adrenaline-eliciting ride, other times it is a
frustrating, depressing, soulless, vitriolic shit pile dumpster-fire.
This
is already too long, and for that I apologize. I find brevity to be
something frequently beyond my grasp. That being said, having my
1970s-vintage perception of the media completely and totally shattered
recently has been a very difficult pill to swallow. I didn't even start
out with a blind faith in the media - I've always known that there are
agendas, that it's all about ratings and money, and that if it's not
cold, hard FACTUAL information, it is opinion and nothing more than
that. But now the last vestiges of nostalgia that lingered, for me, for a
journalistic era long since departed, have been demolished and I can't
unsee what I've seen. I wish I could. I wish I didn't know that a
handful of uber-rich folks control the entirety of the US media; that
those same uber-rich folks also buy elections and candidates and fuck
the rest of us. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at rich folks at all!
Money's awesome! Not being poor is fucking GREAT! My issue lies with
the corporate overlords who use their wealth, their influence, their
power for EVIL instead of good.
The question that absolutely burns
in my thoughts is, "Once you've destroyed everything and inculcated
everyone to think the way you demand they think, do what you want them
to do, what are you going to do with a planet full of broken,
angry, frustrated, lost, controlled psuedo-humans?".
What is the end
game here? What is the goal? You've bought the politicians, the
lobbyists, the policy makers; you've vilified the poor, the disabled,
various races, religions - ALL of it - you've found insidious ways to
turn us all against one another for any number of reasons. But what now?
What's next?
Careful what you wish for, puppeteers. You probably
don't give any kind of a fuck when it comes down to it, but as you gain
more control, more say, more influence over the lives of all of us
minions, you also become responsible for us. Unless maybe you just
wanted us all to hate each other - and in that case, yay you. I guess
I'm just not quite diabolical enough to fathom why the fuck you want
this kind of discord, division, hatred, vitriol across the globe. What
is your prize when you "win" this game?
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