Captain Obvious

It's getting out of hand and I'm sick of it.

See, I've been living my life in Imaginary America. Sarah Palin, in an attempt to gain the all-too-important Small Town Vote, referred to small towns as "what I call 'Real America.'" Which, of course, implies that big cities are Fake America. I would say more, but I think Daily Show has me covered. So, moving on... Representative Robin Hayes of North Carolina, while kicking off a McCain rally, shat out this gem: "Folks, there’s a real America, and liberals hate real Americans that work, and accomplish, and achieve, and believe in God."

Goddamnit, this is unacceptable. Wake the fuck up. Do people buy this shit?

Since I was a kid, I always saw attack ads on TV and took them for granted. "Our Democracy kills 12% less babies than the leading brand!" It's simple marketing, and it makes sense. To a 12-year-old, anyway. Now that I'm 20 (and a half), and about to vote, I'm starting to see the crucial difference between laundry detergent advertisements and political smears, which is this: Laundry detergent does not shape your reality.

Democracy is founded on the basis that, as a people, we get what we want. These days, we're more concerned about what we don't want. And sure, I'm guilty of it too. I don't want a shitty economy, for example. But here's the thing about destruction: Thinking about what you don't want doesn't do anything. We need to eliminate the bad, yes, absolutely. Simplicity is king! But! When you destroy something, you need to put something back in its place, and that is the problem with negative thinking.

Here's how it works: People in this country have no fucking conviction. Think, what do ditzy girls sound like? "Um, I guess the economy-thing is sort of like, bad, you know?" Then she giggles and breaks eye contact as her voice gets higher, as if she's asking a fucking question. Entire conversations littered with qualifying "I guess"es, all so that we can say or think whatever the fuck we want and not be held accountable for it, not have to flesh the ideas out fully. And then nothing gets done. Well, guess what? That's how we're running our election. We don't know what we want. The parties don't care what we want, but they know what we don't want.

Telling you we need to end the financial crisis is safe. Telling you that Obama's plan probably won't work is safe. Telling you that mine definitely will? Well, that's a little more difficult. So, fuck it! I'll go the safe route. Might as well. It's simple marketing.

There's no doubt that negative campaigning is (a) worthless and (b) everywhere. But earlier I said that it shapes reality, and here's why: we (as in, everyone) are being told that what We (as in, the party of your choice) aren't, They are. We don't want abortions; They must fucking love killing babies. We don't want this war in Iraq; They must think it's a fucking blast. And so on. And so forth. You build up this Us Versus Them for long enough, you hear the right "We Won't Allow," and suddenly, you find yourself on a side.

So once you've decided to support a party on the basis of a shared dislike, you don't care (or even know) about the issues any more than you did before. You don't have any new solutions. You only know that certain things are inconvenient and you want them to go away.

And suddenly, you didn't get what you wanted.