Snark Fatigue

It has occurred to me recently that I don’t write as many blog posts about politics and politicians as I used to. It’s not that they have all suddenly become reasonable and it’s certainly not the case that they have stopped doing moronic things. Rather, it’s like every time I think to rip into one of them, I sigh heavily and move on to some other topic. How many times can you lampoon a buffoon before it becomes unnecessary?

Listen, I could sit here all day, every day, and never run out of hilarious things to say about the likes of Al Gore, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Joe Biden, and Michelle Bachman. I mean, those blogs practically write themselves! But the reason that Vaudeville disappeared was that after a while people got bored watching people tripping over ottomans and face-planting into the green bean casserole. Sure, a pie in the face is funny, but after 100,000 pies, it gets old.

Sure, I could rail against President Obama’s latest extra-constitutional shenanigans, or ridicule his latest bone-headed policy proscription, or even make another crack about those ginormous ears, but to what end? Besides, he’s a lame duck and soon the Republic will be free of him.

Basically, I’m sick of making jokes about my country’s governmental dysfunction. It’s starting to become embarrassing. We are the United States of America, for Pete’s sake. I’m getting a little tired of feeling like I turned my back and now suddenly I live in Uruguay. Who are these people running my country? Where did they come from? And what the hell happened to my television? Every channel I flip to features the worst examples of human depravity among us, celebrated in the form of a reality show. So, you hoard every scrap of paper and piece of garbage all of your life until you drive away everyone in your family and your house is stuffed to the rafters with filth, the stench so foul it hangs like a cloud over your entire street? Don’t worry, there’s a TV show in your future. You can become a star. Who says the American Dream is dead?

Unfortunately for those of us tired of politics, we are about to enter another Presidential election cycle. For the next two years we will be inundated with that Super Bowl of dysfunction, that World Series of pandering known as “the campaign.”  We will witness all of the primaries, caucuses, straw votes, straw polls and straw men that make up the candidate selection process. There will be Super Tuesdays and 16,000 televised debates. By the end of it all, I will be about ready to resurrect the Monarchy and install the Earl of Grantham as our King.

But, I am an American, which means that I possess a ridiculously inexhaustible reservoir of hope. Perhaps somewhere out there lives a man or woman who will step up to the plate and offer a sensible leadership alternative. Maybe there’s someone out there who can transcend the muck and mire of left versus right, someone who will run on a platform that promises, “First, do no harm!”

Hope springs eternal.