Well, since tomorrow we pretend to select new or old leaders, change state constitutions, vote on issues of complexity which even the most intelligent sometimes go "duh" about because of arcane wording, and condemn certain US citizens and hard workers to second-class status, I'm calling today Horrowe'en.
It's an ancient, frightening holiday, stretching back into the dim mists of putative republics which, then as now, were almost always controlled by a small aristocratic group, all men usually, and all with a vested interest to stay there once elected. Precious little restraint was shown on the run up to Election Day, with Sejanus countering Rufio's pronouncement that he didst sleep and dine with swine. While Sejanus may damn well have, he couldn't APPEAR that way to the electorate, so he would post signs and posters indicating Rufio's mother hadst kept company with German soldiers. In the end, moeny tended to win, and if occasionally an upstanding rep was chosen-- they'd be killed not long after.
Fast forward 2500 years later or so, and let's peek now... in some places, the incumbent is asailed as "weak" on some "vital" issue, "incompetent", "the worst", "bad for our country", one whom "we can't afford anymore". In the last gubernatorial in crAZy, Janet Napolitano's dead in the water opponent hinted at lesbianism. Kyl hints Pedersen has hinky tax practices. Bonnie Garcia over in California "prefiere los perros", according to a recent Spanish-language ad, over "seres humanos".
Not that much has truly changed. Our unfortunate political victims of a warlike juggernaut are our soldiers, fighting without the things they need, our kids, struggling to pass a test which barely confirms they can read, or if they can they only have to read at a 9th grade level to graduate high school, only to fail or be told they need remedial work to go to college, the great potential equalizer.
Yet, we wake up tomorrow and hold our nose and hope that our representatives represent. I'll vote at 630 in the morning, before driving to work, as opposed to having the day off and my vote being compulsory as some other more civilized countries do. Many of us will scramble around at lunch to vote, curse and swear when we forget a picture ID and someone gets cranky at the polls, try to find time between kids and dinner to vote then sit down to find out some company in Florida that makes electronic voting machines screwed up (Like HERE or HERE)
Unfortunately or not, that's where we are thousands of years after the founding of the Thingvellir, the fall of Rome, the eclipse of the British and Japanese empires, and 3/4 of the way through the US empire.
What will we see?
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