There is no longer a lesser evil

I am by nature a dour and pessimistic man–a mindset that has led to an eerie ability to predict American politics. Always assume the worst and dumbest possible outcome, and you’ll typically be right and never be disappointed.

But never, even in the darkest and most hateful depths of my cynicism, did I think the US presidential election would come to a choice between Donald Trump and Mike Bloomberg. And as much as I’ve realized that most establishment liberals are full of shit, as much as I bitch about them in private and public, as plainly obvious as it is that they don’t actually care about the stuff they claim to care about… even then, I never thought I’d see them lining up en masse to lick the feet of one of the shittiest and most racist men alive. Never did I think they’d be so gormless as to pull the “come on guys, we gotta work together to beat Trump” line while caping for one of the very few politicians who is objectively worse than Trump.

Americans are polarized. That’s the truism, I’ve been told. And while our mainstream political establishment actually agrees with each other about quite a lot–the virtue of austerity and endless wars, the need to protect the powerful from any chance of accountability, etc–we are quite viciously divided culturally, even if these divisions are much more piddling than they appear. And I think it’s the overall immateriality of our politics, our widespread but tacit awareness that the worst parts of this country are unchangeable no matter how much we all hate them, this is why we’re all so eager to become the worst possible versions of ourselves.

The process goes something like this: Side A paints a cruel caricature of Side B. Side B responds by saying “oh yeah, asshole? If that’s what you think I am, fine, I’m gonna be that but even worse.” Liberals say conservatives are idiots who worship cruelty and self-destruction. Conservatives respond by “rolling coal,” decking their trucks out with Punisher stickers, and adoring a President who drinks toilet water. Conservatives say that liberals are effete elitists who have grown powerful not from worth or merit but by gaming a system that has strip mined the wealth out of the portions of this country that actually produce things and/or kissing the asses of the sneering weasels who have climbed to the top of the finance class. Liberals respond by enthusiastically embracing Mike fucking Bloomberg.

A Bloomberg nomination would be an absurd validation of every bad thing conservatives have ever thought of you. It would completely ratify Alex Jones’ worldview.

What’s more, it would finally destroy the myth of lesser evilism. Liberals will no longer be able to guilt leftists into voting for a murderous corporate shithead simply by pointing out that he or she is slightly less bad than the other side’s murderous corporate shithead. The Democratic party would finally lose all claims of legitimacy to the groups they’ve long ago abandoned, the ones who still support them simply because they have no other choice. Because they won’t have a choice. Brand A represents war and hatred, mass policing and mass murder, world-historic cruelty toward immigrants, and the final collapse of what remains of our infrastructure. Brand B represents all that plus plastic bag bans and soda taxes. Bully for us. Bully for the world.

All I got to say is, if you support Mike Bloomberg you are a piece of shit and I hope you fucking die.