Heather Christena Schmidt

For the last few weeks, whenever I look on Facebook, scan the trending topics on Twitter, scroll through the TV, read the news aggregate, or just have any communication with other human beings whatsoever, I find myself pulling at my hair and resisting the temptation to chug whisky until I black out, sprawled on the ground with my legs spread and my cooter in the air. Like that one time I smuggled a fifth into the Yo Gabba Gabba concert. The urge to embark in my own personal debauchery is especially bad right now on account of political season.

As I see it, there are four very compelling reasons why political season needs to be over, and now.

#1 The political memes have gotten old

The political memes have all gotten old at this point. There were a few that were pretty catchy at first. Obama drinking in an Irish pub with various captions. Mitt Romney laughing with Big Bird’s bird shit all over his head. But around the 294,532,197th meme depicting the same fucking message, the memes got old. Really, really old.

As I said to someone recently about memes in general: there is nothing wrong with being clever and making people think through the humor of an Internet meme. There is, however, something wrong with the same thing being done over and over and over and over and over again until it has lost all its meaning and become nothing but a cliche.

#2 The hype over single issues has become a little frightening

I think the Sesame Street-Big Bird thing is what really killed it for me. Within minutes of that stupid comment Romney made about shutting down Sesame Street and PBS, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. The memes started. The ads started. The Save Big Bird Twitter accounts began and all of a sudden the Huffington Post was passing up publishing me in favor of Big Bird pictures yet again.

These elections seem to move from issue to issue in terms of popularity and public awareness, now, and I see so many people change their allegiance accordingly. It scares the shit out of me to see how many people I know that don’t sum up all the issues anymore, but rather make impulsive decisions based on what is in the news right now. Romney is anti-abortion, I’ll vote for Obama! Obama didn’t create as many jobs as we wanted, I’ll vote for Romney! Romney wants to kill off Big Bird, I’ll vote for Obama! Obama wants to crack down on gun control, I’ll vote for Romney!

Voting for the issues is definitely the right way to vote. Voting for the issues in the limelight right now (rather than all of them, together as a well-thought out whole) is not.

#3 All the things neither candidate will do a goddamned thing about being shoved down our fucking throats to try and make us angry enough to vote

Democrat or Republican, neither candidate is going to be able to snap their fingers and undo the damage of all the years of misappropriation and poor leadership this country had. Obama or Romney, gas companies will still get kick backs, health insurance companies will still be pulling their usual bullshit, this country will still be unrelentingly divided. This is the beauty of living in a country that is both staunchly capitalistic and stuck with just two parties for us to choose from come election time.

Some things will not change for a long time, no matter who is elected. It’s the reality of running a country.

So it makes me feel like shipping myself off to the planet Neptune for the rest of my life every time I hear about things that neither Democrats nor Republicans will ever be able to change instantly. The other day I saw a picture on Facebook about how much gas prices cost and how much Exxon got away with not paying in taxes last year. This did nothing but upset me. It doesn’t make my vote sway either way because no matter how many candidates have promised to eliminate corporate welfare for oil companies, none have been successful in doing so. It didn’t compel me to vote for change, in fact in sort of compelled me to sit at home on voting day eating donuts and wallowing in the depression that comes with getting the gas card bill every month.

#4 Campaign signs junking up my town

Is it just me, or are campaign signs getting uglier and uglier these days? Whatever happened to the old red-white-and-blue act? The traditional font and a simple logo? Now I’m being blinded with neon orange and pink. Candidates want to stand out from the crowd, so they use purple and photographs of themselves.

I’m going to tell you all this right now: I will never vote for some dumb motherfucker that uses Chalkboard for their font on their campaign sign, which I saw the other day while driving to the grocery store.

It could just be that I live in a place where local politics are a complete and utter joke in the grand scheme of things. Or it could be that politicians are appealing more to the common people than just the elitists that used to be the only voters. In any event, it’s fucking ugly and doing nothing but junking up my town.

I am so ready for political season to be over with. I really, really am. I am sure you all are too, or maybe your only reason is that you are tired of hearing me bitch about it. Whatever the case may be, I would love for us all to be magically transported to the second week in November. Then we’ll all know what the fate of our country is. We’ll all be ready to return to our traditionally apathetic selves until the next campaign season comes along. And we’ll have a few years to seal the wounds our previous political diatribes may have caused in our interpersonal relationships. That last one is something I know I’m really looking forward to.

I’m tempted to ask who you are all voting for. But then again I don’t want a debate on my page to erupt. I’m also tempted to suggest we all grab a fifth of whisky and go to the polls wasted, then we can all write me in – sprawled out on the floor with my cooter hanging out, and all. As compared to the other candidates, my stance is pretty clear: abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. And fuck yeah, ‘merica!