The 2016 presidential election is nigh underway — just 14 short months until we all get to proudly wear badges indicating we’ve performed the most basic civil duty our country asks of us. Fourteen months until we get to complain about driving to the library, or waiting in line to vote, or the lack of adhesive lacquer on the back of the sticker — “but I voted, I swear I did.” Fourteen months until our votes are sent through the air and compiled into a small digital pot, from which the Electoral College will decide to ignore about 40 percent of us. All is well, though, in our republic, when lively debates and 24-hour news networks can turn even politics, the age-old prune of the entertainment fruit salad, into a spectacle WORTH watching.
For the uninformed: Politics are fun now. A panel of men (or, about 95 percent men) line up on a stage and shout at each other. They can lie, and hardly anybody cares. They can say bad stuff, and people congratulate them for their boldness and ingenuity. Being politically correct nowadays is far worse than being anti-politically correct. It’s like that old movie with Jimmy Stewart — “12 Angry Men” — except there’s never really any sort of consensus, and there’s certainly no Jimmy Stewart.
If you don’t believe the frivolity of politics has reached an all-time high, consider that our front-runners have made the political efficacy of their hair a legitimate talking point. Donald Trump, notorious for his outlandish comments, gruff political “style” and famously enigmatic locks, has proven he does not wear a toupee. Hillary Clinton, if you’ll believe it, colors her hair. Bernie Sanders just wants to talk about politics, but what’s a stick-in-the-mud got to lose when it rains?
But bravo, I say. Trump’s done it. He’s successfully derailed the train that’s carried American politics forward for over 200 years.The pieces will be used to build a wall between Mexico and us. Immigrants will be catapulted, nominally linked to their ‘anchor babies’ (deplorable), far up and over this wall. They will soar, like only drug-dealers can, into new places, to philander and cheat. This is where the vision ends, though one can, with a little imagination, picture a metropolis of Trump-themed towers and fifty-story embassies. A Camp David renovation on HGTV. Four to eight seasons of “The Apprentice: White House Edition” where interns compete for the No. 1 spot, pulling together charity galas and Rose Garden mixers. A black, smoldering pit where Iran once was and all the oil we could possibly steal.
Or else we could see this for what it really is — a publicity themed power trip. Don’t worry, though, his hair is real.