A Frightening Tale of the Upcoming 2020 Election

The purpose of my website is to catalogue my points of view, mostly for my own sake but also for my children who may someday look back at what I write and change their own points of view.

Politics has frankly stressed me out in recent years. I have always felt distant from popular opinion and movements just because I simply don’t see good representation of myself in the political spectrum. However as of late it has been more aggressively against my ideals than that. If anything, you could say the political process is becoming unhinged at both ends.

When I was young I was naive in believing the political process was always moving to a better place, somehow, with or without me. I realize now that the whole of society moves to its own beat and sometimes that means it is going downhill. I do not after all identify as liberal or conservative and don’t have any real influence over this process.

To adequately convey how I feel I think the best thing is to tell you a story. The story is about two men…

Meet Doug Wood

Doug is a hard worker, who in a crisis would look to go find help before fighting through a problem. Even when fighting is invariably going to happen he would prefer to do it only when he has to. His participation in politics is largely based on platitudes which have a great meaning to him personally, but are not always internally consistent.

In short, he’s a liberal. He’s not a radical liberal, just your run of the mill average person who essentially self identifies as a liberal Democrat, or Democratic Socialist, or whatever the terms are these days. As of late his focus has been on issues like the Black Lives Matter and Antifa protest movements, health care especially as it pertains to the COVID-19 lockdown, the environment and gun control.

While looking closely at the type of people Doug follows online and in the media one stumbles into a ton of problems. There is an undue influence on Doug’s point of view from people who identify as Socialist or Communist, who don’t really believe the role of government in implementing plans should have any limits. That doesn’t mean that is Doug’s personal point of view. Honestly, Doug just watches his own biased news media sources and hasn’t thought far enough ahead to have much of an internally consistent view for himself.

Meet Bob Carter

Bob is a hard worker, who in a crisis would probably pull out a gun and start shooting. He knows the fighting will invariably happen, so might as well pull first. His participation in politics is largely based on platitudes which have a great meaning to him personally, but are not always internally consistent.

Bob, or as his buddies call him, “Big” Bob is a conservative. He’s not a radical conservative, just your run of the mill average person who essentially self identifies as a conservative Republican. As of late his focus has been on the exact opposite of Doug, often countering Doug’s protests, promoting unregulated gun ownership and mostly denying the human culpability in things like the COVID-19 pandemic or the environment.

When looking closely at Big Bob’s politics and who he follows online and in the media one stumbles into a ton of problems . A lot of the talking heads that influences his opinions are ultra-nationalists, possibly even overt Fascists. They will talk big about the freedoms they promote as Big Bob himself does but ultimately they do not support a government that is small. In fact the opposite is needed to ensure their very specific brand of authority remains strong and in place. Honestly, Big Bob just watches his own biased news media sources and hasn’t thought far enough ahead to have much of an internally consistent view for himself.

Big Bob is willing to share a ride and a holiday with Doug. He’s family with Doug but he does vocally disapprove. Doug feels largely the same. They probably argue from time to time about politics but there is a certain peace between their different points of view.

There is something neither Big Bob nor Doug know. Out there is another caliber of person that they are not aware of. It’s really only a matter of time before Big Bob and Doug can even do anything to protect themselves or their ways of life from these outsiders.

They may not know it now but…

The Hills Have Eyes

When I’m thinking about the Dougs and Big Bobs of the world, I’m not thinking about them personally. The average American is as well meaning with their points of view as much as those same views are ignorant and incoherent. I try to take the time to listen to different perspectives even when I don’t really have the time or patience to give. What I look for is patterns and I’m noticing a disturbing pattern.

Increasingly the people who influence the opinions of the “Big Bobs” and “Dougs” of the world are becoming radicalized. I may have mentioned this before on my blog but for well over a decade I have been very focused on the interplay between the political parties and how they tend to become increasingly polarized in response to each other. Like a Newton’s Cradle, the energy of one radical position transfers through the population to motivate a new radical on the other side.

This polarized mindset leads to increasingly radical propositions. Liberals and conservatives who generally only in their parties to be on board with a few key issues will find themselves looped in with dozens of other issues that they now must inherit. Ideas that are politically inconvenient become ignored or hyped up by the other side depending on how it suites the party platform, rather than being considered and contemplated by all in a nuanced way.

When political moderates are beginning to be pulled apart we run across a big problem. I believe one of the reasons the political process in the United States has stayed as stable as it has for as long has to do with the balance of power and authority within government. Internally, government branches have power divided amongst itself. Then superficially the government is divided into two largely equally influential political parties. While I differ greatly with both parties their interplay of ideas is one of the few genuine remaining boons our society has. It keeps radicals from running the show.

If one party were to unbalance the system, with the wrong leadership, it could lead to something worse for all of us. It could be the full cannibalization of the whole system.

The cannibal savages from the Hills really believe in only one political party, one that has control of the total power of the government.

“We’re gonna be french fries! Human french fries!”

It may sound like I’m being dramatic, but let me try to get to my point.

I guess I’m trying to say here is the balance of the two political parties is important to me and I think it is genuine cause for alarm when instability arises that shows a great imbalance coming. I consider differing points of view as being the best way to find solutions to problems that make sense within the confines of our current government, even when the solutions aren’t ideal. I frequently listen to dissenting points of view for this purpose.

I don’t really agree categorically with Democrats or Republicans but if one party were pushing really hard to an extreme and at the same time also taking most of the positions of power I would consider that to be a big problem.

In the past I’ve already vocally supported my disdain for Donald Trump. He is a liar, a con man, a bigot and not anyone who has any business being in politics let alone being the President of the United States. I think to think otherwise just shows that you don’t pay attention to what he actually says when he speaks or goes on Twitter. I knew that in 2016 which is why I refused to vote for him, and discovered nothing new about him in these last 4 years to dissuade me to think otherwise.

However during the last four years I’ve seen formerly moderate conservatives starting to shift toward extremist positions. Baldfaced doubling down of propagandist points of view, approval of blatant power grabs from the opposition and the willingness to have baldfaced beliefs in obvious conspiracy theory bullshit.

You can’t say liberals are not also susceptible to similar influences and some of the same criticisms apply there. It’s easy to find liberal nuts to point out and say they’re just as bad, if not worse.

However when the Democrat party sat down to determine who their presidential candidate was going to be to run against Donald Trump they nominated easily the most moderate person on their side of the table. The one candidate who isn’t all for universal health care and would even openly argue with the other candidates over it. He also largely supports the market economy as it is being more of a Wall Street oriented liberal.

Compare this to the views of candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders who I think anyone would agree are far more Progressive Socialist leaning. Fringe candidates like Andrew Yang and Cory Booker could not gain traction due to having even further radical leaning points of view, which shows that radical views were not the top priority in choosing a candidate. Only candidates like Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar were similar to Biden in terms of having any level of moderacy in their liberal points of view and these two did well comparatively.

If “radical” liberals controlled the Democrat party I would argue the ticket would not have ever been Biden/Harris.

On the other side of things, Trump’s jockeying for furthering his balance of power has been totally unrestrained. He’s pulling from a new, more radicalized conservative base and has largely pulled moderates in with them. These people openly distrust immigrants and minorities while believing any move which consolidates power on their side is good. Even if it’s flagrant power grabs like openly promoting voting twice, dismantling mail sorting machines to effectively throw away mail ballots or openly advertising his intent to not honor the outcome of the upcoming election if it isn’t in his favor.

If Trump wins under those pretenses, his radicalized base will double down on itself. This will lead to greater radicalization (rather than normalization) of the liberal base as well as a counter response. If this continues much longer we will absolutely see the country effectively become power imbalanced and start to transition into a one party system, where most power is consolidated in one place while the opposition is largely unable to influence.

I could go on about dozens of other things I see as problematic with Donald Trump, most of which applied to my thoughts in 2016 on his candidacy, but the above view that he is a source of increased division and radicalization is my worst problem with his re-election.

In the eyes of the Trump supporters in the crowd, I don’t see Big Bob out there anymore in that sea of red MAGA hats. I only see the soulless, lifeless, dull eyes of hungry cannibals.

It’s true the same in can be seen in some liberal leaders as well, but they’re not so centralized. The worst elements of the liberal movement are still very disorganized and divided, often at odds with one another. As controversial as liberal ideas can be there is still a lot of Dougs out there. If they lose this election though, Doug might not be around anymore.

All that will be left should that come to pass is a system where man eats man for dominance. Then we could find ourselves with one party with any practicing power, the other relegated to fight if it wants to survive let alone have any political say.

Thanks for reading.