Let me tell you a little story. Perhaps it won’t be very compelling or important, and perhaps the opinion of one slightly unhinged free lance writer means nothing, but the truth is I never voted in my life until 2008.
Everyone at the polling place knew who I was voting for, due to my age and demeanor. There were a shit ton of us, all there to put a vote in for Barack Obama, which really rubbed the old folks raw. These were the people who voted every election cycle without fail, and now had to contend with a wave of urban hipsters and other artsy types. A man walked in behind us and barked ‘Bliss, Republican!’ at the little old ladies working the polls, all of whom puffed up their chests and yelled back that he needn’t be such an ass about it.
Come on, we were all excited. It’s not that I thought racial harmony would dawn or that Obama was anything other than a politician. I just thought that his election was a sign of things to come, i.e. people finally abandoning all the nonsense ideas about the completely bullshit concept of race. Also, Sarah Palin scared the fuck out of me.
So I did it, and I only felt good about it for a little while. Because things went bad soon after. Obama was about as predictable as any other politician, meaning he sold out everyone who put him in office almost instantly, which is depressing enough without taking into account the way most people reacted to him.
He’s a Muslim socialist. He’s a Muslim and a socialist, say the people who have no fucking idea what either word means. He’s in a sleeper cell! I saw him snort a whole baby off a hooker’s ass! He’s making Lil’ Wayne Secretary of State!
Anytime you support anything it becomes your problem. Now, just because I voted for Obama (also, please consider that a working class atheist with psychotic tendencies has no business voting republican), suddenly it’s like we’re talking about sports; ‘your boy’s really tanking in the play offs, your team sucks.’ Everything he does is my fault.
They’re not my team, OK, I don’t have a team. I’m trying to affect that whole lone wolf, out on my own image, and it doesn’t help when I have democratic fundraisers calling my house asking me to help them out again. Seriously, it was just that one time, I was drunk, he told me all kinds of nice things and I foolishly believed him. My voter registration card says ‘no affiliation’ which I am irrationally proud of. It doesn’t say democrat or republican or independent (which actually means ‘democrat or republican who has pissed off their respective party’).
But as the presidential election swings around again, I’ve begun asking myself what I should do this time. I stayed away for the midterm elections, because I wouldn’t elect most of those people to municipal dog catcher. But this time I feel obligated, if only to prove everyone wrong who claimed that those who voted for Obama last time will stay home the next. So I’m voting for the dead guy.
Not Aleister Crowley, thought it’s tempting. I’m writing in Hunter S. Thompson. He has prior political experience, he’s progressive, he’s a doctor of divinity. Did I mention that he’s dead? Oh who gives a fuck, republicans would posthumously nominate Ronald Reagan if they could, and he was dead for most of his two terms.
We need a man like Hunter to sort us out. Someone who can espouse the level headedness of progressive principles while also not taking any shit from anyone. Because, let’s face it, while democrats most often are on the right side of the argument, they tend to lose ground to the mewling hordes of conservatives and their well practiced indignation. We need a man with an elephant gun and a machete on his hip, a man who takes a cattle prod to a casual setting and isn’t afraid to use it. We need a man who says things like, “Play your own game, be your own man, don’t ask anybody for a stamp of approval,” (from Fear and Loathing in America: The Gonzo Letters, Volume II, 1968-1976) which are words to both live and die by. We need an artist who also appreciates high power weaponry and fortified compounds, a patriot in the true sense of the word.
Thompson didn’t espouse that stupid ‘my country, right or wrong’ brand of patriotism that is so popular in this one note world. He despised the government and figures like Richard Nixon, whom he considered repellant. But he recognized that those of us who are lucky enough to be birthed on American soil have a responsibility to uphold the principles of the democracy. Which are sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Well, they should be.
This opens up a whole new world of voting. My spouse and I have considered voting for each other. I could write in Bill Hicks or Socrates or Rowdy Roddy Piper. I could write you in. What about it, would you like to be president? If enough of us get together we could vote in a table lamp or a hunk of cheese. Surely this would be preferable to whomever the tea party picks.