Groundhog Day (without Bill Murray or a Heartwarming Ending)

By Sal Moriarty

Poll: 30% of Americans say they didn't care who won the election; their just glad it's over. KRLD Radio (Dallas)

The problem with the above headline is campaigning for the next election cycle cranked up on November 6, 2024. Now, every season is election season. The internet is already rife with speculation about the 2028 presidential race. Who will be the candidates?

Harris is obviously done. Trump could declare himself emperor, but I am skeptical his marbles will hold together long enough to form many coherent thoughts in the coming four years (best pay attention to the puppeteers).

One thing does seem abundantly clear: 2028 will be worse than 2024. Americans will hate each other even more. In increasing numbers, they will continue to look to billionaires and media figures to lead them around like dogs.

The next four years will be filled with ambitious, soulless human beings, telling us whatever we want to hear in attempts to become our overlords. That is as it's always been. It's the 21st century American's desire to wallow in their trash 24/7 that has changed.

There have always been zealots proselytizing for politicians. Reagan had them. Clinton, too. That said, my memory – perhaps clouded by age and alcohol – is of a pre-internet era when the average citizen simply went back to work after election day; neither absurdly excited nor gravely disappointed. The following weekend, some would go deer hunting, others hunkered down to watch football, minds uncluttered by the motivations of professional liars.

Back in the day, if some nut wanted to engage in politics daylight to dark, options were limited. There were newspapers, and non-cable news (national news clocked in at thirty minutes a day for most folks – about twenty more than needed), but it was difficult to find a TV personality blathering on about how your neighbor of twenty years was, in actual fact, the devil.

Now, there's no avoiding it. Even if you want to, it's impossible. It's difficult to enjoy the oldies station on the drive to work with a humongous (and often vulgar) pro-Trump flag flapping from the bed of the pickup in front of you. We live in a world where I know well the demagogue Rachel Maddow, having never watched her program. The grime of politics seeps into your system now from the culture at large. Depressing.

On the bright side, I suspect the percentage of Americans identifying as “nones” (people who have no religious affiliation) will have increased (perhaps dramatically) by 2028; already at close to thirty percent of the population, the group is a sleeping giant. By 2028, a great many could be awake. If so, it will be the zealots who shook them from their slumbers. Nothing grows old faster than the brain-dead sermonizing.

So, if today (November 6th) you're posting online, elated the once and future president is going to save the republic, or posting that his resurgence is the death nail of that same republic, you're both wrong. The die was cast some time ago for these United States of America. When authoritarians, idiots and technology merged, the jig was up.

I don't expect to be around to see 2028, and I'm not all that tore up about it.