In this election cycle, just like the others before it, the establishment media is telling us that this is the most important election of our lifetime. They repeat it over and over again, as if to convince themselves. But is this really the case? Let us thoroughly examine this idea.

First, it assumes that elections have importance. This is an idea that most Americans take for granted, as it is part of the civic religion that people are indoctrinated into from an early age. But this does not make it true. In fact, this should make it highly suspect, as the truth requires not indoctrination; only discovery. For the ruling class in a democratic state, elections are just tools of social control that provide the populace with meaningless participation in a process in order to convince them that criminal conduct performed under color of law is legitimate because “they voted for it.” The widely perceived differences between the two parties are just an illusion, and the heart of government policy remains the same, regardless of what the people want. Regardless of who wins in November (barring a miraculous victory by a third-party candidate), there will be more fighting against terrorists but no serious push to defeat them, military spending will stay at absurd levels, the Federal Reserve will not be abolished or even significantly reined in, a large illegal immigrant population will remain, regulatory agencies will continue to inflict great harm on small businesses, civil liberties will be further imperiled, the welfare state will be preserved, and Congressional gridlock will likely continue. With this in mind, elections do not have importance in the sense that the establishment media is describing. If elections do not have importance, then one cannot be more important than another. The idea that the upcoming election is the most important of our lifetime fails a fortiori.

Second, it requires impossible knowledge. In order for the upcoming election to be the most important of our lifetime, it must be more important than every future election in which current voters will vote. But the future is unknown and unknowable until we arrive at it. As such, the claim that the upcoming election is the most important of our lifetime cannot be proven until all current voters have died and all of the elections they will live through can be evaluated for their impact.

Third, it contradicts physics. Let us assume that it is always true that the current election cycle is the most important of our lifetime. It follows that each successive election is more important than the one before it. As the entire population is not replaced between election cycles, there are people who vote in successive elections (in fact, most voters do). Thus, we can carry this idea back through history as far as the first advent of elections in the place being considered. The conclusion of this line of reasoning is that changing an election result farther back in history would cause less change to the present day than changing a more recent election result. But it is known that altering a system at an earlier time gives it more time to develop differently, resulting in greater changes. As such, at least in terms of how different a counter-factual world in which a different candidate took office might be, the most important election of any person’s lifetime should be their first one.

Each of these logical and philosophical problems is enough to render the phrase inert. But given all of these fallacies, no rational person should be calling this election, or any other, the most important election of our lifetime. So then, why do politicos do it? The answer is that it is a way to psychologically manipulate the masses. Immediacy is an important feature in human psychology because nothing is more important in terms of what can be acted upon than the present; the past has already happened and cannot be changed by available means, and the future has not yet arrived and therefore cannot yet be acted upon. But it is not only the case that the present is unique; it also feels unique. Only in retrospect can one see that an election is really not so different from previous elections, with the amount of time necessary for this being dependent upon how many minor differences there were between the candidates.

It would be reasonable to conclude that the phrase “this is the most important election of our lifetime” is a combination of pleading, manipulation, and crying wolf. This, of course, leaves us with three important questions. When will the American people ignore the pleas of the politicos? Is a wolf really out there? And if so, who or what will be his meal?

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