As I keep saying, on the increasingly infrequent occasions on which I update this musty, cobwebby space, I do not vote. This allows me to observe the political scene here in the You Ess of Ay with a certain amount of detachment, as well as a curious mixture of watching-a-train-wreck horror and low amusement. And, of late ("late" being defined as the past four years or so), the childish insanity of what passes for public discourse here in the land of my birth has been snowballing at a rate that has rendered me mute. It's a sort of paralysis, really: where does one even start? So I don't start at all. Perhaps I can turn that personal trend around, just a little.
We are currently being entertained by The Impeachment Show. It's easy to be distracted by the clownish performers: the self-parodying orange president, the pop-eyed and ridiculous Adam Schiff, and the incompetent calliope section which styles itself "the press," both the electronic and the shuffling-zombie paper types.
I cherish a wan little bit of hope that a few of my fellow Americans are reading the more-significant subtext: that it really doesn't matter if they vote for change, as the vast and ponderous permanent infrastructure that rules over us will see that the voters' foolishness will have no untoward effects. But, beyond the entirely reasonable response of avoiding the voting booth, I wonder what their choices might be. "Ballots, not bullets" is, I think, bad advice. It's a fully-reversible slogan, but I'm not convinced that reversing it improves it much as a guide to action.
My feeling is that, in one way or another, we're headed for the sort of rough ride that may prove difficult to survive.
