I'm (not) mad

Disclaimer: this post is about politics, a subject that I hate. I’m neither a political scientist nor an economist so don’t expect any data to back up my arguments. In fact, you can just skip this entire post if you want and I’m sure that we will still be friends.

I’ve wasted several evenings lately watching the Republican primary debates. I could have spent that time reading or listening to “A Love Supreme” or jacking it in the bathroom, but instead I made a conscious decision to sit on my couch and watch the various candidates make their case for being the nominee for POTUSA. The results have been so dismal that it shocks me that any sane person could reasonably entertain the notion of voting for any of them.

On a basic nuts-and-bolts level I understand that Republicans are supposed to be in favor of limited government and lower taxes and all that, but I’ve been continually shocked and appalled by the candidates’ sneering disregard for many American citizens. Herman Cain blamed the unemployed for being, uh, unemployed, Rick Santorum told a gay soldier that he would reinstate “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” and Rick Perry claimed to have never lost a night of sleep over executions in Texas while he was governor despite the fact that at least one one of those executed was exculpated after he was put to death. I know that the candidates are trying to appeal to the hardcore Republican primary voters, but the level of petty meanness is dismaying to watch.

The candidates have also taken a perverse pride in disregarding simple facts. When Cain is confronted with mathematical evidence that his 9-9-9 tax plan is massively regressive and blatantly unfair his only response is to say, “You’re wrong.” Perry has doubts about both global warming and evolution. Evolution! Let’s give him a pass by saying that climate science is a fairly recent scientific development. Fucking Darwin published “On The Origin Of Species” in 1859! In the intervening 152 years science has pretty much made an airtight case for evolution, and yet Perry dismisses it as “a theory that’s out there. It’s got some gaps in it.” I’m sorry, but you can’t be the leader of the free world if you don’t believe in evolution.

This ability to brush aside facts would be laughable if it didn’t also extend to their economic policies. Mitt Romney wants to free banks to accelerate the foreclosure process. Every candidate wants to gut Medicare and Social Security and slash discretionary spending to the bone all the while pledging to not raise taxes ever. Every candidate stated that they wouldn’t accept even a 10-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. Look, I’m no Paul Krugman, but you cannot be a serious candidate for the Oval Office if you can’t even pretend that, perhaps, our country would be a little bit better off if, say, GE paid some fucking taxes.

There are roughly 3798 more primary debates left and to be honest I don’t want to watch any more, but I’m sure I will because I’m a glutton for punishment and I love yelling at my TV. Plus, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until Michelle Bachmann says we should euthanize kids with Down syndrome, or Santorum pledges to reinstate Jim Crow laws. In a sick way I want Ron Paul to beat a hobo to death onstage because it would finally tear off the mask and reveal this cadre as the small-minded, venal, petty, bigoted, anti-Enlightenment, misanthropic shrews that they are.