D-Day

I thought I might try something a little different and keep a diary over the last week of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign. I started dutifully enough, but rather quickly realized that in the absence of anything substantive to talk about I wound up writing a bunch of unconscionably long philosophical ruminations, and if there’s one thing you don’t need it’s more reflection on the election.¹ There’s simply nothing more to say, as one can readily ascertain with a quick glance at the papers each day. It’s not that things aren’t happening—we did have the spectacle of Jeff Bezos blowing his testicles off and the human circus peanut reenacting the 1939 Bund rally at Madison Square Garden. But these are “events” in the sense that a press conference is an event. It’s just people saying stuff—stupid stuff mostly. But in the final reckoning it’s all just talk. Nothing is actually happening. Nothing has happened in months.

Ok well that’s not entirely true. We had a world series. We had Halloween. My daughter turned 22. Those are real things and all three of them mean something special to me. But it’s impossible to escape the thrumming, massive presence of the election, the goddamned election, churning and whirring and flinging chunks of bloody meat in the background like some sentient out-of-control gyro rotisserie, grinding slowly and inexorably toward D-Day. Which is today. Get ready to eat.

The election has been hanging around like a guest who doesn’t leave the party when it’s over, or the next day, or the next week, eventually threatening to fade into the wallpaper… were it not for the continually rising stakes. In his desperation to win, Trump is throwing everything against the wall—let’s put the stridently unelected and virulently ignorant Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy Jr.—née Larry and Curly—at the controls of the nation; let’s, without any reflection whatsoever, eliminate all income taxes and replace the revenue with a ruinous national income tax; let’s task the U.S. Army with shooting all the Democrats. And so forth. So even if you wanted to live stuffed in your living room alongside a hairy, dirty elephant, you’ll still have to come to terms with each day’s fresh, steaming pile of elephant shit.

I wrote three entries in this putative diary before an overflow of responsibilities forced it onto the back burner. Just as well—every day’s writing was basically a variation on a theme: American elections last way too fucking long. Our election season is like a goddamn multi-season reality show. Week after week, month after month, literally year after year we sift through a very limited cast of characters wondering constantly whether we’ll wind up with the fat, naked guy in charge. (Thank the gods that Trump never appears naked in front of a TV camera—only his fleet of wives and prostitutes will have to suffer through laying eyes on his flabby, wobbling, sweat-glistening flesh.) Consider how terrified Democrats were that four months would not be enough to reintroduce Kamala Harris to the American public, and then reflect on this: France held an entire general election in less than half that time. With two rounds of voting and a last-minute popular front coalition no less.

What is worst about America’s absurdly long political campaigns is that they have a tendency—especially now—to paralyze the whole world. I engage in a fair sampling of British media, and a smattering of German media as well (with admittedly less facility), and I can tell you that both of those countries are transfixed in much the way you would be if you suddenly noticed you were engulfed in flames. And they aren’t alone. The stakes of this election for both Ukraine and Russia are monumental; for Ukraine possibly existential. The same can be said of Israel and Palestine, but so too the rest of Europe, Iran, China, Japan, both Koreas, most countries in Africa and many in South America—everywhere, basically.

Occasionally I find myself reminded that evangelicals still view world government as a sure sign of the Antichrist. It’s a pity that we allow the two-thousand year old anti-Roman and possibly psychedelic ravings of some guy called John of Patmos to provide a de facto veto over practical solutions to serious problems, but the irony is that we already have much of the worst of world government without anything in the way of benefits. There is hardly a person on earth that won’t be deeply affected by the American election, but precious few of us have the opportunity to weigh in.

I suppose in the wide sweep of the matters with which we now wrestle, the length of U.S. campaign season might be considered a minor one. And it’s unlikely to change—what political will we possess must be applied to the dizzying array of serious issues before us, issues that will affect life and livelihoods for decades or centuries to come. That said, the length of campaigns is, I think, related to another, more serious problem—the influence of money in American politics. This is a matter I don’t think the country can afford to avoid any longer, for reasons that could easily take up several pages on their own. I’m not terribly sanguine about the chances for real reform, but we have to have it. We must. And as a bonus if we somehow get it, like a fire starved of fuel, there’s every reason to believe publicly financed elections would tend to be fairly brief.

And brief would be a salve, I believe. Whatever emotional damage it does to listen to Trump’s inexhaustible voice puking up the daily outrage, that damage would be correspondingly lessened if it didn’t drag on like trying to cook a steak in an Easy Bake oven.

When you read this, the results of our long trek will probably already have been decided, though we might not know the outcome for days or weeks yet. It would be fitting, I suppose, for an election this lengthy to have a correspondingly bumbling, endless coda. But it would sure be a blessing to know by midnight whether we’ll be spending the next four years tamping down the embers of Trump’s wicked fires, or struggling to prevent the conflagration from swallowing us all.

I won’t dwell on the matter any further; I’m sure you have the pick of a thousand editorials about paths to the White House, sundry Senate and House elections, what the election could mean to Blacks, Jews, gays, Puerto Ricans, Ukrainians, Nazis, and the people of Guam. You need my words like you need a bag of bread mold. Best of luck to everyone out there at the other end of this wire. When it’s all over, tug twice to let me know you’re ok.

1. Though in fact the words on this page indeed constitute a philosophical rumination, albeit a short one.