I don't have to listen to any propaganda from the candidates
or prognostication from the pundits. For the 1916 election, there's a year of sturm und drang to be endured before its settled one way or the other.

You may find this difficult to believe, but except for my conversations on the Zone, some obsessive cable news watching and my vote, I have no involvement in politics at all. I don't contribute to campaigns, or work for any party, my interest is primarily a historical one, and strictly academic. I'm curious how these things evolve from a sociological perspective. This is how democracies operate, its an ugly and imperfect process, one too vulnerable to random chance and deliberate corruption, and ultimately dependent on the fickleness of the voter, the greed of businessmen, and the rampant careerism of the politicians.

Its not that I don't think the process is important or that I don't believe I'll be affected by the results. Its just that I have no influence on it at all. In fact, I must confess that sometimes I even feel a twinge of contrarian anticipation for the "other side" to sweep the table, win everything, just to see how bad they can screw things up if they're allowed to have full control. It would be disastrous, but it would be fun to watch. I keep on having a deja vu feeling, like I'm channeling the Weimar Republic or Republican Spain in the '20s.

No doubt you've noticed I've commented here frequently how much we seem to have in common with those times: a bourgeosie threatened by the specter of economic distress at home and military reverses abroad--a middle class feeling everything is slipping through their fingers, that their comfortable old world, economic and cultural, is fading away before their very eyes. They're desperate for answers, for a strong leader who will make things right again, and who will punish those they feel are responsible for it all. And there is no shortage of demagogues ready to exploit those fears and promise paradise and redemption while secretly working for the same old plutocrats and oligarchs. The age of the scapegoat is close upon us, if not already well underway.

Its not that I feel I'm too good or too smart to avoid the worst of these troubles, I was just born at the right time to be able to miss most of them. I can't help it if I'm lucky, and I'm old enough and smart enough to realize just how lucky I've been. And I'm happy I have no children.

I can't avoid the general bipartisan pessimism that we're heading for very hard times. Whichever party wins in '16 will have to face them, and it will no doubt blame the other for having brought them about. And you know, whichever party wins, it will be right. We all have an exaggerated sense of how much control we have over the flow of history.

Of course, I suspect what you really wanted was to needle me about the GOP victory in Kentucky. Well, there's nothing I could have done about that anyway, and I suspect those redneck peckerheads will get exactly what they deserve.