Feverishly Elective: US Edition

Hoist the bunting, pop the champers and crank up Kool and the Gang: the US election is finally coming to an end!

And what a tragic indictment it has been of what US politics has become.

I've mostly avoided writing about his election because, really, what's to say?  Clinton is your typical Wall Street shill, as entrenched in the politics of greed as anyone else in Washington, but at least she's not Donald-Smegging-Trump!

Trump is not only every bit the typical Wall Street shill Hillary is, despite protests to the contrary (how else is he going to hold on to what little fortune he has left?), he's a sad, thin-skinned, neurotic, spineless, witless, crooked, cowardly, racist, misogynist hypocrite, who has survived his myriad failed business ventures through tax evasion and his sole talent of selling his own name.

And that's really all there is to it: one candidate who isn't great, and one candidate so pathetic, his own party have abandoned him.

So how has this even become a race?

Many have been citing what happened in the summer with the Brexit vote, suggesting people are voting against the status quo because of how ineffectual and unrepresentative it has become.  'Business as usual' hasn't been working for a while, so regardless of what the anti-establishment vote is, at least it's anti-establishment.

Unfortunately, much like the Brexit vote, this misguided 'protest' hurts only those already let down by the establishment.  Okay, Brexit got rid of Cameron and Osborne, but their legacy is being carried on by their like-minded peers, and the only change on the horizon is that lot gaining unfettered control of our rights, while having to think up new ways of directing funds into the pockets of them and theirs.

By the same token, Trump in the White House is going to in no way upset the status quo.  Perhaps if he had any savvy about him, he could enact some genuine change (though the change he'd enact is, in itself, a troubling prospect), but the reality is he's nothing but a spoiled, petulant child, wanting a go at being the big boss.  Handing him the presidency would be equivalent to handing him a toy phone and telling him the cow, sheep and chicken at the other end are Congress, Fox News and the Pentagon.

"When cow says 'moo', you've enacted a bill!  Isn't little Trumpy-wumpy clever?"

Meanwhile, the Republicans in office can finally do whatever they like without the president keeping their scumbaggery in check.

Make no mistake, how ever many Republicans have come out against the hamster-haired tangerine, you'll see few willing to vote against him.  They'll call him a disgrace, and unrepresentative of the party, but at the end of the day, they'd rather be answering to a weak-willed ignoramus, mistaking their empty platitudes for loyalty, than one of their opposite number seeing through every vapid grin, and kicking them in the nuts till they do as they're told.

And so they trot out the usual batch of braggarts, buffoons and blustering cretins, whose political careers are long-past ruining, to mindlessly defend every moronic soundbite he comes out with, while the rest can try to claim the 'Country Before Party' moral high-ground in an attempt to save their own seat, while secretly hoping the majority of voters really are that gullible.

The sad thing is, Trump really was one of the best candidates the Republicans put forward.  Chris Christie is a fat, simpering nobody, so lacking in self-worth and future prospects, he was the ideal first sacrifice to be thrown on the Trump dumpster fire.  Debating Hillary, Marco Rubio would've come across as a scared little boy getting a spanking form mother.  Ben Carson is so befuddled and out-of-touch, he'll be in a nursing home by this time next year, trying to rally the political support of his apple purée.  The majority of Ted Cruz's supporters would think today better spent in church, praying to God for the win, rather than actually voting.  And by the time of the third primary debate, the rest had already become 'the rest'.

Ironically, much like Ron Paul before him, the only candidate who'd have stood any chance of drawing some liberal support away from the Democrats, and making this a fight of principals and policies, rather than personalities, was John Kasich; the one candidate too sensible for the party base to ever accept.

Despite fears of Trump bringing the apocalypse down upon us all, I see very little being changed by this election.  This time tomorrow, the US will prove to be either not quite as stupid as we thought they were, or that mentally-deficient little nation that was big in the '80s, but now spends its time getting fat, ranting about greatness and shouting at a wall.