Election season is the vilest time of the year in any nation that still allows for this most exhaustive of habits, to vote en masse, to occur. There is ample evidence all around that we are neck-deep in the foulest of recent modern elections, whether you, the reader, so happen to live in Mexico or in those United States that exist just a bit up north. Yet, if it so happens that the evidence does not seem clear enough, then allow me to attempt to shed light on them by way of brief, but heated discourse.
There are but two people now who have been campaigning for the better part of the year to solidify power in one sphere or another, spheres that are unreachable to the common man. And the common man is swayed by one vile method or another to subject his or herself to the whims of those who seek power in return for a comfortable mode of living filled with wonderful gadgetry and stupefying entertainment.
This most artificially sweetened mode of life is bitterly punctured every four years, in the case of the United States, by first unveiling a pack of monstrous figures, known as “aspiring candidates”, to fill the airwaves with rotten chatter. They decry all that is good with inflammatory statements in a brazen effort to, almost figuratively, paint the town red. They’ll spew into a willing audience the most feverish of speeches to hinder any sort of logical rebuttal. Once this has been thoroughly accomplished, these monstrous figures will unite in an effort to pretend that their differences have been completely ironed out.
The person then selected as nominee for President of the United States to quarrel with the incumbent for the prized seat of Presidential power will pander and even prostitute himself to the lowest common denominator until the coffers need to be replenished. He’ll then seek those with ample means and astronomical levels of suggestibility. And these wealthy and inexorable creatures will gladly part ways with large swaths of their fortunes if it means not having to rue the path of progress. For progress seems to diminish their notion and sense of power by the metric ton as each year passes.
From thereon the nominee for President of the United States will travel from sea to shining sea, and everywhere in between, to blow trumpets at political rallies filled with the cream of the crop that has been left in an open container and in suffocating humidity under direct sunlight for a prolonged period of time. This festering audience will cheer and chant until the nominee must go to a smaller, more intimate rally, in which he needs not his trumpets, but a lute to charm the ears of those who finance his battle for the Presidency; even if the nominee wages it in a colorful jester outfit. And then, of course, one must move to the debates.
Sound and fury! Fire and brimstone! Clouds of sulfur! These are the elements that come crashing down on audiences during those three crucial dates in which the debates are held. There must be no substance, but spectacle, a grand spectacle that terrifies, yet dazzles; because civility and tact be damned. The audiences demand that these pageants of the absurd continue up until the 11th hour, and then—a hand bursts from the very top of the mountainous pile of the worst flattery and chicanery.
This hand belonging to, of course, President Barack Hussein Obama. Hail to the chief!
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By: Andrés Ordorica
