Absurdity in a surreal election year

Self-governance, the unique and revered earmark of the American nation, has undergone some dark and bizarre periods throughout its history. It has also been visited upon by some very unsavory characters whose public conduct run the gamut from marginally ethical to outright criminal. The concept that America is a nation of laws and not of men and women has undergone all manner of challenges since the ratification of the Constitution. The abuse it has withstood in the past eight years stands out head and shoulders above any other time in the history of the Republic since the late War between the States. Perhaps not a majority but a significant number of the American people living in 2024 seem to have been jaded by electing their leaders via the democratic process. For most of the past decade they have been enamored by an authoritarian celebrity that reliably tells them what they want to hear regardless of veracity or how far over the top it may sound. So long as he validates their prejudices and viewpoints, it does not matter that he was convicted on thirty-four counts of criminal fraud last month. While they, the MAGA mob, remain unshaken by his duly adjudicated criminality, this lends heavily to the electoral strangeness in which we find now ourselves. That said, despite the convict’s bogus claims of victimization by a weaponized justice system, the essence of the American ideal that nobody is above the law has shined through as the legal process worked as it was intended. Heretofore, it would be unthinkable that any person convicted of ONE felony let alone THIRTY-FOUR could be in the running as a viable candidate for the highest office in the land. America may be a fragmented nation divided by ideology and tribalism amongst other things, but the qualification and desirability of those in the running to remain in or ascend to the Office of President of the United States this November has become much clearer to determine. Welcome to the strange days of the 2024 Presidential Election cycle. We are living in a time in America that is every bit as absurd as it is surreal.

We did not simply arrive in such an odd and obtuse time and place just all of a sudden. The scenario shaping up for the November general election has been a long time coming. Probably the worst part of the past eight years is the failure by conservative politicians in high offices to abide by institutional traditions and norms thereby stacking the deck in their favor, so to speak. A lack of guardrails in the form of codified delineation of the SCOTUS Justice appointment and installation process as well as failure of ethical oversight on the court has removed any veneer of impartiality. Stalling on the replacement of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and ramrodding through the replacement of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has contributed greatly to a heavy ultra-conservative shift to the Judicial Branch of government. This has made possible the overturning of Roe v Wade alongside the appearance that separation of church and state and other core fixtures of American jurisprudence may be blatantly ignored at the least and outright banned at the worst. There has been strong evidence since the overturning of Roe that Conservative policies are gaining increasing disdain with a decided majority of the citizenry. Not only is their policy regarding women’s reproductive rights unpopular but their policies regarding book-banning and censorship, voting rights, energy and immigration are not yet finding enough traction to help them prevail either at the top of their ticket or down-ballot on Election Day. It is really sad a once great political party that in its heyday contributed so many positive things to a prospering nation is now devolved into a cult of personality dictated by mob rule. Sadder yet is so many of that party’s prominent members have opted to remain silent out of fear of retribution by the leader of the cult.

Partisan media has paved the way to where we now find ourselves surrounded by bizarre and once unthinkable possibilities and obtuse likelihoods. Mind you, alternative opinions and extremist doctrines, both religious and secular, came with the territory when the 1st Amendment was penned and ratified. However, one used to have to search far, wide and deep to find the purveyors of fringe ideas. The abolition of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 afforded those with then unconventional viewpoints the avenue to mainstream their ideas. They were able to expand the reach of their message via microphone and broadcast power to grow an audience of millions by appealing to their prejudices and arousing their worst doubts thereby stoking and playing upon their deepest fears despite of whatever factual proof and verifiable empirical evidence may have indicated. Fringe players, particularly those of the rightwing variety, reaped a huge windfall by being able to tell their target audience what they wanted to hear on a daily basis in addition to telling them how to cast their ballot at the polls and who to target with their scorn and open dislike. Alternate sources left of center had their place in the media milieu, but their audience reach paled in comparison to that of their Conservative counterparts. At the end of the day all of it was just the opinions of radio personalities, all of which was free speech protected by the First Amendment.

Regardless of the means of arrival to this place in time, we all now find ourselves confronting the reality that a convicted felon is in position to possibly be elected to our nation’s highest office. His chances are uncharacteristically good despite his legal woes. With sentencing still pending, any one of a number of scenarios may play out. For a candidate and party who have yet to articulate let alone produce any useful policy or even pass any significant legislation in the one chamber of the Congress under their control, the Cult of Personality is getting a lot of seemingly free mileage out of posing the query, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” It seems the only thing shorter than the attention span of nearly half of the voting public is their memory. Too many easily forget the pandemic of four years ago when we were on lock down, essential workers were the only ones not working from home, nobody went into a supermarket without a mask on their face, the body count climbed by the thousands daily while an effective vaccine against a lethal virus was still months away. How could anyone ever forget that hospitals were using refrigerator trailers for makeshift morgues well into 2021? Looking back, it is a night and day comparison. Today the Stock Market is at an all-time high, unemployment has been consistently below 4% and, thanks to the Build Back Better Act, job growth and economic expansion are consistently increasing with no signs of slowdown. Despite such positive indicators, these are not enough to convince significant numbers of younger voters that the overall quality of life is better almost halfway through 2024. With five months to go till Election Day, they have time to realize the choice is a binary one. It seems too many 20 and 30-somethings have indulged in the power of suggestion flooding their news feed and have embraced the idea that because gasoline is not $1.50 per gallon and groceries are not at their 2019 prices and housing costs are out of reach for first-time home buyers that the incumbent administration and everyone connected to it is somehow to blame, at least as far as they are affected by it. It is sobering to think how many of them may be adversely affected by the overturning of Roe and the subsequent draconian legislation limiting reproductive rights that has been imposed on women in Conservative-majority states. How long until they realize that if Roe can be reversed, so can anything else the pro-authoritarian rightwing sets its sights upon. It has been the stated goal of the extreme right to roll back all social programs of the 20th Century and they are well on their way to doing it. The fact that their party’s Presidential candidate has been duly tried and convicted on multiple felony counts with more indictments pending is among the least of their worries. Their man once stated on live TV, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and not lose any votes!” He was just convicted on 34 felony counts and it is uncertain if he has lost enough votes to matter in November. With sentencing coming up in July, the specter of a President executing his duties of office from a New York prison cell adds an enhanced degree of absurdity to the surrealism that is Election Year 2024. How much stranger can things get? That has become an existential concept that seems to have no bottom.

Thanks for reading.