Presidential Dinner Theater

Welcome, welcome! Please have a seat. I said TAKE A FUCKING SEAT.

Sorry, Trumping out there. Anyways, where shall we begin? Ah yes, let's start by turning off our cell phones, pagers and really any form of technology for the next year and a half. It's time for the Presidential Dinner Theater!

Every four years, our nation sits down, burns the popcorn and then bitches about this same fucking movie for an extended period of time we call the "election cycle." We see the same cast of buffoons (namely Santorum and Perry) say the same stupid shit and for some reason, we have the same gripes, as if this method has worked in the past. You get major news outlets publishing long-winded articles filled with all sorts of problems faced by one party or another. It's the same fucking drudgery every four years.

Bullshit. Bullshit never changes.

I'm not saying they aren't proper gripes. I mean by all means calling out Donald Trump and Jeb Bush for being misogynistic assholes is certainly proper; but is it worthwhile? The answer, as you may have guessed, is resoundingly: no. Because, quite frankly, the candidates, nor their affiliated parties, don't give a rat's ass what you or your cute little newspaper/Facebook status/blog think.

And, to make matters worse, the major news outlets (Fox News, CNN, etc.) also don't care what you think. If anything, they care even less. Because this is all one big fucking game and we're sitting at the losers' table in perpetuity. We are casting our ballot for entertainment politics night after night as we rage into our computers about how stupid Candidate 1 is or how out of touch Party 2 is. These people know what they're saying is bullshit, but they don't care because we eat it up. Whether we like what we taste is irrelevant so long as we chew and swallow it down.

Being politically aware is important, no doubt. If you want to sit down and spend days crunching the numbers and facts behind each and every presidential candidate (you'll be there awhile) then, by all means, go for it. This is a good way to handle the next year and a half. But if you're among the rest of us who just sit around and shout at the screen because someone said something that made you mad, you're never going to get up. You're going to sit at that screen forever, your angry spittle greasing an already well-lubed machine that lives off of your willingness to pay attention.

Stop listening to it. Stop watching it. Stop fucking caring about it. The controversy, I mean. Stop clicking on articles that start with "You'll never believe what so-and-so said!" Just fucking stop. Please, for the love of all this is holy, end the seemingly endless cycle of "mad as hell" pageantry. Every time you post something bitching about a candidate, all you are doing is giving them and whatever second-rate news outlet that published it free publicity.

The election cycle is supposed to be a chance for Americans to review candidates and find out if they're worthy of the office of the Presidency. It's supposed to be objective and it's supposed to be professional. It's not. I'm not sure if it ever was, to be entirely honest. But that doesn't stop us from complaining that it isn't. Even me.

If you care about democracy and America and all that howdy-doody shit, you'll step away from the show and form opinions based on facts instead. About both sides of the aisle. About sides that don't yet have an aisle. You'll go for a walk and think about what it means to be a leader. You'll come home and you'll do actual research and make decisions based on facts and figures.

For now, you can find the emergency exit doors to your left and right. Please use them.