Over It

I've been on the wrong side of the last two presidential elections. 2008 didn't bother me that much. I understood why people voted for Barack Obama. He had the silver-tongued skills of the slickest car salesman at a time when the country was floundering. People lap that stuff up even in the best of times, so back then as home prices were plummeting and layoffs (the polite word for "firings") were rising, it was a tonic that the majority glugged with glee. Obama being black certainly helped. It allowed guilt-ridden whites to show (to themselves ) that they weren't racist by voting the man in. I get all that. In a way, I was somewhat curious to see what would happened.

Nothing happened. Nothing's been accomplished. No. Nothing.

Yes, a sports metaphor is appropriate here. A football coach gets dumped and the replacement promises changes. Progress. Improvements. After four years the team is, at best, the same. What happens to a boss in the real world who flounders for four years? He's soon the ex-boss (NOTE: Notice I didn't say "she". Female CEOs have teflon. They'd have to be caught with a basement full of 14 year old boys, and even then, she'd probably get a Lifetime movie out of it). But this isn't the real world. This is politics. And, sorry to say, the general public is so monumentally stupid they fall for the same lines of b.s. every time.

Up against Obama was a proven business leader. His skills on the international stage were sketchy, but the Number 1 issue on the minds of the voters this election was the economy. Jobs. So naturally, the voters choose the candidate who'd never created a job before over the man who created tens of thousands. Hell, Obama even told people not to "blow a bunch of cash in Vegas" (TWICE!) and got 56 percent of the Clark County vote. How the hell did this happen?

People usually get what they deserve. Make bad decisions and you end up suffering for it. Dependent on drugs, pills, booze, gambling. Spending instead of saving. Babies out of wedlock. All of those things lead to a crappy life down the road, and there's usually no turning back from that death spiral. Unfortunately, it now seems like those that make the poor decisions have grown to such numbers that they're the ones in charge. The politicians pander to them, and it's people like me who end up having to bail them out. Based on what the last four years have wrought, I have no optimism for what the next four will bring. I hope I'm wrong. Usually I'm not.

I've never seen people so happy for a future of skyrocketing deficits, unemployment and general malaise as I did last night. Sad thing is, they don't know any better. The tired, poor, huddled masses have hit critical mass.