A sermon from the wrong pulpit

Mencken was a cigar-chomping Baltimore newspaperman who hated everybody equally, which makes him the most balanced political analyst who ever lived. He wrote that line over 100 years ago, and it still hits like a fucking hangover. Today half the country woke up smug and the other half woke up screaming at a cable news anchor. Both are sure this was "the most important election of our lifetime." Funny, they said that last time too, and the time before that. Every 2 years democracy dies on Facebook and comes back for the next fundraising email.

Look at you, doomscrolling election results like they're your biopsy. You spent 3 weeks posting "I voted" stickers, fighting your cousin in the comments, and donating $25 to a guy whose name you can't spell. Meanwhile your credit card is maxed, your gut is hanging over your belt, and your "side hustle" is a Pinterest board. You've got more opinions about the Senate than you've got about your own fucking life. You know every poll in Pennsylvania, but you can't name 1 goal for next month.

Here's the joke: no politician is coming to save you. Not the red ones, not the blue ones, not the one with the good hair. They're too busy saving their own asses and their stock portfolios. Voting is fine, do it, that's your civic duty. But your 1 vote counts as 1 out of 150 million. Your vote in your own life is the only one, and you've been skipping that election for years. Your rent, your body, your bank account, your relationships, that's the district you actually run. And right now it's governed by a lazy, half-drunk fuckwit of an incumbent who keeps promising change and never delivering. Hi, it's you.