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Wednesday, July 13, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
represented in a govern-
ment body. And let’s be
honest, the best thing about
the Libertarian Party is their
convention, which reserves
a few seats for the Church
of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster and its adherents,
those crazy Pastafarians.
Just once, I’d like to vote
for somebody that actually
wins.
This year I was all set
to vote for Jim Webb, who
claims one of the more
impressive résumés in the
field, is capable of writing
— and reading — his own
speeches, hasn’t foreclosed
on little old ladies or enjoyed
wink-wink windfalls in cat-
tle futures, and who seemed
to best represent my per-
sonal points of view across
the broad spectrum: He likes
guns and women, too.
But Jim doesn’t look
great on television; a bit
too laconic, perhaps, and
anyway the Democrats
had already anointed Ms.
Clinton, who appears to
have magically escaped a
stretch at Lewisburg, where
she might have manicured
lawns with the ghost of
Martha Stewart.
Bernie made a lot of Ms.
Clinton’s fans — a blinkered
crowd if there ever was one
— nervous for a while, but
his effect on the Republicans
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
No decision
The political parties, for
many of us, are increasingly
irrelevant.
The problem is, they
don’t seem to represent the
very many of us who feel
that certain planks of the
platforms on either side
could be combined to make
a much more interesting,
relevant — and moderate —
political party.
For instance, I’m for
guns, lots of them, but I’m
also for women’s reproduc-
tive rights. Under the cur-
rent arrangement, I don’t get
to have them both. Isn’t that
just stupid?
If I want to have my ARs,
and also want a woman to be
in charge of her own deci-
sions, I have to become a
Libertarian, which means
I will never actually be
was probably worse, as they
watched even moderate
Democrats become hand-
wringing Bolsheviks in the
space of only a few months.
And nobody really likes
Trump. Not even the mil-
lions who will vote for him,
who hopefully harbor some
degree of fear that he actu-
ally is as appalling and nar-
cissistic as he sounds, a kind
of lunatic Mr. Toad rampag-
ing around Toad Hall with
bright orange hair.
I’d love to figure out how
we got here, this mess we
are still, in all seriousness,
calling an election — though
it’s a big smelly onion. A
nation of 323 million people
it seems ought somehow to
arrive at a set of candidates
less obviously corrupt, self-
obsessed, arrogant, or just
outright annoying.
Strangely, we know
exactly what we are getting
with the Clinton, which is
problematic, but with Trump
we actually have no idea
what we are getting — no
less of a problem. The par-
ties have gone bipolar, and
to drill down on that diagno-
sis, with psychotic features.
Alexis de Tocqueville,
who was probably the fin-
est observer of America
in its infancy, publishing
“Democracy in America”
in 1835, saw the same
problems as he travelled
the country. “I do not know
if the people of the United
States would vote for supe-
rior men if they ran for
office, but there can be no
doubt that such men do not
run,” he tells us — and it’s
hard to escape the notion
that we have the same prob-
lem now, 181 years later.
If anything, one might
suppose that the problem is
actually worse.
I blame Facebook. I
would also like to lump in
CNN, FOX, and disgraced
anchorman Brian Williams,
though in fairness, his
“rocket-fire” claim was
not substantially more out-
landish than Ms. Clinton’s
Bosnian “sniper-fire” boast.
I hold them all equally
accountable, and in equal
disgust. Facebook because
it has memes, a veritable
tsunami of them, which fin-
ishes the lousy reporting
job — and by lousy I mean
miniature — done by all of
the others. As if we could
somehow understand com-
plex issues or the character
of candidates between com-
mercials for Pampers and
Viagra — the target demo-
graphic, apparently — or
by listening to the shouting
matches between pundits
with too much makeup.
Surely, somehow, we can
do better than this.
I still don’t know who
I’m going to vote for —
but it won’t be one of the
cartoon characters who at
this very minute are angrily
Twittering each other to
death.
On the last ballot I wrote
in General Mattis for every
position, but that was my
protest vote. I don’t really
want the Warrior Monk in
the oval office. What I do
want is someone reason-
able, untainted by criminal
investigations or unsavory
business dealings, a rep-
resentative with integrity,
strength, and intellect who
understands that their job is
to defend the Constitution
and the individual liberties it
guarantees, and who is able
in some way to help re-unite
our increasingly angry and
fragmented country.
Maybe that person exists
in politics, but they won’t be
on this year’s ballot.
Year-round
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