Politics

As the long fight for the Democratic National Party's Nomination continues, I am occasionally asked online or in person who I believe to be the best candidate.

I honestly can't even understand why this is a question.

I won't mention the Republicans, except to say that voting for John McCain is no different than voting for Stalin or Hitler. If you hate people, if you want to see death and destruction on an epic scale, if you believe humans have no right to exist...well then by all means vote for a Republican. I'm not kidding, and if you think that assessment is wrong, then you just aren't thinking clearly.

So as for the Democrats...

Every election year, at about this time, I realize I'm just going to have to take a step back. I have to take stock, and realize that there are very, very, stupid people in this world. I'm not talking about people who vote Republican...those people could be smart, they just have no desire for humans to exist. I'm talking about Democrats who want to vote for idiots.

Is it obvious that I'm referring to the campaign of Hillary Clinton here?

~6 years ago I would have estimated that a Clinton II White House was about the best option for the country. Gore obviously wasn't going to run again, Nader killed himself with too little success in '00, and I didn't even know anyone else worth mentioned. ~4 years ago I was coming around to the idea of open social anarchy as a last resort to save the country, then Dean and Edwards started talking as if they weren't total idiots.

Yet somehow Kerry got nominated. Edwards was the intelligent guy who actually acted like he cared about the rights of individuals, and Dean was the grassroots movement guy who seemed to be the people's choice. And then Dean yelled and Edwards admitted he was a lawyer and somehow we got stuck with the Kerry-Bot who somehow still made GW look like an idiot in the debates, and then lost because the Republicans stole the election in Ohio (yes, they did...again, this is a litmus test for intelligence).

This was not a good moment for my faith in humanity. In fact, I basically think this is the point in history where democracy revealed itself to be a failed proposition (in other words, that whole Nazi Germany thing wasn't a fluke).

Now Dean and Edwards weren't exactly one-man social movements. They were just guys who weren't complete idiots and seemed to actually care about things beyond corporate America.

Barack Obama is different.

Barack Obama is the first presidential candidate in my lifetime to represent a genuine possibility of the old guard being thrown down. This is evident both superficially and significantly. The mere fact that a black man named Barack Obama is a viable candidate suggests that the past 200 years are finally going to die, and perhaps the ideology of capitalistic greed might die with it. Obama's philosophy represents the reality that most Americans have come to accept: Not everything about naked capitalism is a good thing. This is the manifestation of the philosophy that people should care about other people.

This is a belief system that goes way back, but for some reason has become lost in America. This belief, in our fellow man, has been replaced by a belief in the truth of the free market, and capitalism, and majority rules. Free market capitalism and democracy have their place, but ultimately, the most important difference between humans and animals is our ability to empathize and respect other humans. George W. Bush and the neo-con assholes he brought with him have be trying desperately for the past twenty years to turn us back into animals who can justify any atrocity on economic grounds.

Yet despite the presence of Barack Obama on the candidate list for the DNC, the primary continues. Why? Because Hillary Clinton continues to ride the coattails of her husband. She has, over and over again, referred to herself as the experienced choice. Exactly what does that experience consist of? Watching her husband explain the difference between sex and a blowjob? People seem to be confusing Bill Clinton's exceptionally successful presidential term, with Hillary's credentials. Is she running as herself, or is she running as her husband? This fundamental problem ought to undermine her entire campaign, but for some damn reason it hasn't. Name recognition is more potent than actual policies.

And so my faith in humanity is tested again.

Barack Obama is the only person worth voting for in this election. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. I won't argue with you about it, if you believe otherwise, we have nothing to talk about.

Which is why I don't care anymore about this political season, and I am already sick of it. Only the result is interesting now, because if the people of this country do not elect Obama, then my lack of faith in humanity will be re-affirmed, and I will continue to have no particular reason to love all of mankind.

On the other hand, if Obama does win, then maybe there's something worthwhile out there after all.