You Need To Read This About Midterm Elections

We’re all supposed to vote a week from Tuesday. And that’s great, just really terrific. But what a tease, an election with nothing at stake. I can’t wait until these phony elections are over, so we can start doing some serious politicking two years from now. Hell yeah, I’m talking presidential elections. They’re like the Olympics, or the World Cup, only they last for like a year and a half, and instead of focusing all of our energies toward faraway countries in a spirit of mostly benign sports competition, we get to wage personal warfare against friends, family, and strangers alike.

I’m serious, I’m talking all out war. It starts innocently enough. Sure, at this point in time we only have an idea about some of the men and women thinking about how they potentially might want to start considering setting up an exploratory committee to test the waters regarding the viability of a book tour to measure a theoretical dropping of the hat into the presidential contest. But in the coming months, once this midterm nonsense is out of the way, we’re going to start hearing from all sorts of people who think they have what it takes.

They’re going to start scheduling debates on both sides of the political spectrum, and sure, you’ll see the big names, I’m sure Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie will be standing out front. But there’s also going to be like all of these governors and senators and other random jokers that you’ve never heard of before.

And they’re all going to dig deep and start piling on the front-runners. It’s going to be a classic race to the bottom, with everyone trying to out-America one another, only talking about the most contentious of popular talking points: abortion, guns, taxes, Christmas.

By the time they narrow down the playing field, everyone paying attention is going to be foaming at the mouth, convinced that this is the year that the fate of our nation will be irreparably sealed. And even though every election comes down to these so-called “independent voters,” everybody already has their minds made up. Right now, right this second, even though nobody is officially in the race, I promise you that everyone knows exactly who they’re going to vote for come 2016.

Sure, everything looks calm now, but get ready, because this time next year, you’ll go on the Internet, you’ll log onto Facebook, and everyone you know is going to be putting up recycled headlines and overblown mischaracterizations about the other side. People you haven’t spoken to in years will be popping up on your news feed giving the world their expert two cents on why everything that you believe in shows that you’re an idiot.

I’m sure I’ll be doing it too. Right now I’m acting like I’m above all of this stuff, and sure, maybe I’ll pay some lip service to being respectful and keeping my opinions to myself, but there are always at least a few points during every campaign cycle where everybody gets caught up, a particular controversy or a quote taken totally out of context, and I’ll dive in, guns blazing, family lines forgotten, friendship irreparably destroyed.

And then the election will be over and nothing is going to change at all. Because look at what we’re dealing with today, Ebola, celebrity plastic surgery, none of this stuff has anything to do with politics. But whatever, like I said, it’s easy to talk like I’m above the fray when there’s nothing else going on. Midterm elections are boring. Nobody ever goes out to vote, and you wind up with only the most cranky senior citizens dictating who goes to Congress. I’m done ranting. If you need me, I’ll be outside, washing my car, polishing my bumper to get it ready for all of those inflammatory 2016 bumper stickers, hopefully I’ll get to really piss off some complete stranger behind me paying five bucks a gallon at the gas station.