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CounterPunch
November
7, 2002
Voting With
Your Ass
by BEN TRIPP
What's interesting to me about the latest failure
of Democracy in the country is that for once it wasn't the fault
of the dirty lying Republican candidates or the shiftless invertebrate
Democratic candidates. It was the fault of the voters. Not
that they did anything wrong; rather, as usual they didn't do
anything at all, hence the title of this opus. The Republican
Party (or partying, as of this writing) spent $150 million, while
the Democratic Parthian spent $80 million, record-breaking sums
not including the money poured in from the coffers of special
interest groups (rich people). My money not only won't pour,
I have to scrape the bottom of the coffers with a knife if I'm
looking for more than sixty cents. The grand total for this
latest electile dysfunction may exceed a third of a billion dollars,
or thirteen bucks per vote. For all this money, they only convinced
around 37% of voting-age persons to head for the polls, which
is slightly more than the last time, but a hell of a lot less
than a quorum (a Latin word meaning 'who cares'). The corporate-sponsored
leadership of this country once again demonstrates it doesn't
know how to get value for money, but it does know how to spend
it in hogsheads and firkins.
Still, they spent a lot of dosh, so why
didn't people show up? (There's a joke in here somewhere about
how the Democrats threw a political party and nobody showed up,
but what with the hangover I can't quite figure it out.) Everybody
knows, especially the Repuglicans, that there are far more voting-age
Americans who agree with the historical position of the Democratic
Party, probably because most people in this country aren't angry
fundamentalist white Christian males. It's the majority of would-be
Democrats who don't show up at the polls, while the smaller group
of more disciplined right-wingers learned a thing or two from
the Nuremberg Rallies and vote to capacity, sometimes three or
four times a piece, and often even after they're dead. You look
at the election results, you'd think this was a nation of fascists.
Sure, sometimes, why shouldn't we have our moment in the sun?
But what you're seeing this time isn't fascism. For the most
part, it's apathy.
Certain cynics, such as everybody, would
suggest that the reason Democratic-inclined voters don't show
up is they are elaborately discouraged from doing so. In one
of the more egregious examples, black voters in a number of poverty-Strickland
areas were told by right-wing operatives that they had to pay
their parking tickets and back rent before they could vote.
Democrats attempted to woo these voters with offers of free fried
chicken at the polls. This backfired when the father of ex-congressman
J.C. Watts (R-Uncle Tom) suggested that "A black man voting
for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting
for Colonel Sanders." In 2004 the Democrats will offer
free watermelon. Other tactics included contesting absentee
ballots, ferocious negative campaigning (which is a bigger turnoff
than frozen underwear), and stealing the 2000 presidential election.
Still, to keep voters away from the polls all you usually have
to do is nothing.
The real problem isn't the effort to
not get out the vote. It's just that there's nobody to vote
for, especially since Paul Wellstone dropped out of politics.
On every issue from war to corporate crime, the apostatic Democrats
have fallen over themselves to avoid any ostensive difference
with the Republicans. They've abandoned the environment, the
poor, unions, and colored folks, unless they're in the entertainment
business. Looking at Congress, the main difference between a
Democrat and a Republican is whether they have Bush's cell phone
number. Obviously the Democrats need to embrace the sleeping
popular vote, get all progressive, and eschew without tergiversation
or palinody the right-wing agenda. On that great day, flocks
of pigs will darken the sky.
Here are the two reasons I remain cheerful
despite this crisis of American democracism. First, let's remember
that people like to stick with the real thing; an imitation is
never as good as the original. Vanillin versus vanilla, for
instance. True to form, Americans voted for real right-wingers,
and turned their backs on the Democratic imitations. Which would
you choose: someone with a position on the issues, or the next
guy in line, who has no position on the issues, but agrees with
the first guy? The second reason I maintain my equanimity is
training. I knew this day would come, and I prepared for it.
Starting the very day Bush was inaugurated, I've spent one hour
each morning strapped to a tree with three burly stevedores in
jackboots kicking me in the testicles. They're well paid for
the exercise, but I think over the last couple of years we've
developed a rapport, and now they throw in the occasional punch
in the neck for free. Once, on my birthday, they beat me with
flails until I was unconscious, then sang 'Deutscheland Uber
Alles' and 'Let the American Eagle Soar' and lit the birthday
candles, which were inserted in my butt for the purpose. Those
jokers! They were the trick kind of candles that don't go out.
Anyway, this regimen takes discipline, but it's been very effective.
I don't feel the least bit gloomy, and the webcam is making
a fortune.
And why should I be upset? Bush already
had control of the entire Congress. He got whatever he wanted-
his war, his tax cut, a new tricycle. So it's not like anything
will be different- it will just happen faster. The Democrats
were in lockstep with Bush before, and they'll be in lockstep
in the future. Or goosestep. I get so confused. It might be
both. Nothing has really changed in Washington- the only way
to tell a Republican from a Democrat is the Democrats have boot
polish on their tongues. I think it's boot polish. And
wait and see- these Democrats are so deeply attuned to the needs
of their constituents, the first thing they'll do is shift waaaay
to the right, under the assumption that's what the good volks
at home want. We'll see Judges to the right of Vlad the Impaler
rubber-stamped straight to the Supreme Court by chastened Democrats
with eager, shining faces. We'll see widows and orphans piled
like cordwood to be burned as a renewable energy source. Hilary
Clinton will switch parties and start dating Uncle Tom Daschle,
thus proving the right-wing rumors that she's a lesbian.
Jesse Jackson, are you aware this is your third strike? Down
with trees, up with Wal-Marts. But all of this is part of the
natural devolution that has been taking place in that swining
city on a hill for many years now. So stop acting like it's
a shocking bad thing- the fight goes on, whether or not the Champ
punched the Kid's head clean off in the third round. Keep swinging
anyway, Kid- the Champ's chin is out there somewhere.
I think what I'm trying to say- and I'm
not sure, because the stevedores worked me over extra-hard today,
and I'm a little groggy- is don't worry, be happy. I'm sure
the next couple of years won't witness America's rapid decay
into the blackest fascist empire in modern history, hated and
feared, fouling the waters and skies and hearts and souls of
this world with the filth and stink of unfettered industrial
despotism, a hope-shattering orgy of hatred, greed and cruelty
in which the red-eyed mercenary hogs of power rip each other's
throats out for a place at the trough, their cloven hooves trampling
the insect-like poor and powerless into the reeking jelly of
excrement spurting eternally down their corpulent thighs. After
all, most of this already happened under Clinton, whatever anybody
says to the contrary. Bush is just the merde fondant icing
on the cake, which is brown, but not chocolate. Luckily he clearly
intends to eat the whole cake himself, as M. Antoinette recommends.
I don't think we have to fret, as long
as we look ahead. Just relax, have a good time, and start stockpiling
ammunition and growing potatoes in your front lawn. Meanwhile,
I can pass on the number of a couple of reputable stevedores
for those of you who want to get in shape before 2004. There's
another election at that time, and we can try again. S'wounds,
they might even decide to cancel the election, and we won't have
to get out of our chairs on voting day- a method most eligible
voters already employ.
Ben Tripp
is a screenwriter and political cartoonist. He can be reached
at: credel@earthlink.net
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October 26
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