Raging Moderate by Will Durst

Raging Moderate

by Will Durst

So the conventions are over and we’ve entered the penultimate stage of this presidential demolition derby. Your muted murmurs of”yippee” and “hooray” have been duly noted. That’s enough, put the horns away, this is not an overly large celebration.

It took a year and a half, but the presidential field has winnowed down to the major political parties’ two anointed nominees: the Donald and the Hillary. Let us pray. More polarizing figures could not be found with the superconducting magnet at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

Thus far the process has been everything but pretty or boring. The fights to both party’s nominations were vicious, petty, puerile, perverse, depraved, savage, a slapstick parody and a sham with a little surrealistic burlesque thrown in for good measure.

The next three months promise more of the same on a larger scale with a smaller cast of characters. It’ll be like a daytime soap turned into a feature film, complete with plot twists and special effects and surprise cameos and reverse camera angles and pretty much everything but car chases. Although, with Bill Clinton involved, you can’t rule it out.

Expect multi-directional, laser-focused, cluster bomb attacks on two people whose outsized personalities make them targets the size of your proverbial side of the barn. And they will be hit. From 3 feet away. With pointy rocks.
The hardest part is figuring out which is scarier: that one of these two is going to become the next president of the United States, or the American people get to decide.

Politicians echo that refrain like hyperactive crickets in the summer dusk: “It’s what the American people want.” And “Let’s see what the American people want.” Nooooo. Let’s not see what the American people want. Have we learned nothing at all from segregation and the Civil War and The Real Housewives of Orange County? You want to know what the American people want? We’ll tell you what the American people want.

The American People want drive-thru nickel beer night.

The American People want to lose weight by eating potato chips.

The American People think louder is better and deafening is best.

The American People want to climb K- 2 in a Lazy-Boy recliner.

The American People want the Supreme Being to help their team beat the other team, totally oblivious that fans of the other team expect the same thing.

The American People require a warning label on their brake fluid to keep them from drinking it.

The American People want to win the lottery without having to buy a ticket.

The American People think any piece of clothing they can squeeze into, fits.

The American People want to make society safer with more guns.

The American People want to visit foreign lands and speak English.

The American People want better schools and roads by paying fewer taxes.

The American People would chew off their own foot if Oprah told them there was liquid gold in their ankle veins.

The American People want to look like George Clooney by getting $10 haircuts.

68 percent of the American People still believe professional wrestling is legitimate.

The American People have the attention span of tornado-strewn straw.

The American People think the laws of gravity should be repealed.

The American People love the Home Shopping Network because it’s commercial free.

God bless the American People.