Making myself sad

A few weeks ago I was taking a shower and thinking about the sorry state this nation is in, and I tried to cheer myself up with the thought that we were now on the downward slide of the Bush term in office (until the next Bush decides to buy, lie, cheat, and steal his or her way into the White House.) Suddenly I realized: The second Bush term hadn't even started yet. We weren't even at the halfway point. And this realization made me sad.

Coronation Day* is next week, and already the stratospherically wealthy are lining up to celebrate their complete victory over the American people. I'm beginning to think that if you can't beat 'em, you should profit from 'em, and I'm trying to dream up business opportunities that would help to redistribute the wealth of the nation in a a manner beneficial to the nation - like, say, draining some funds from the wealthy Republicans and donating them to non-Republican candidates who have a fighting chance of winning Congressional and Presidential elections. I'm thinking something along the lines of the "star registry" companies, which have managed to convince people to exchange their hard-earned cash for a certificate that is essentially meaningless. Hmmm...for a nominal fee of, say, $10,000, you too can be listed in my registry of "America's Most Influential People"...

Such schemes aside, it's not too early to begin thinking about the next elections. The major loss for the Democrats - and the nation - was not the loss of the Presidency. No, it was the shift of the Congress even deeper into the pit of Republicanism**. I have always mused that if Gore had won (or rather, if Gore's win had been officially acknowledged) in 2000, we would have seen non-stop impeachment hearings and obstructionism from the Republican-dominated Congress - and possibly a coup in the days following September 11, 2001, the blame for which would have been laid squarely on Gore's shoulders. If Kerry had won in 2004 it would have been the same but worse, as this Congress is far more radical and far less experienced than the ones we have been graced with these past few sessions.

So radical and so rancorous is this new Congress that it seems to be turning upon itself and its idiot God-King, like a mythical snake gone mad and swallowing its own tail in its writhings. Or, perhaps, more like a cartoon vacuum cleaner sucking up itself, and like that vacuum cleaner it will consume itself entirely and be gone.

But we can't count on it. So even as we watch the bitter spectacle of Coronation Day, we must hold onto the glimmer of hope: we still technically live in a Democracy, and the next elections are always just around the corner. Even when the end of George W. Bush's reign is still more than four years away.

*This would normally be considered Inauguration Day, but word on the street is that the preparations are so elaborate and opulent that the event will be far more like a coronation. Somehow it seems fitting for, to paraphrase Don Henley, "this tired dumb man that we (and by we, I mean they) elected King..."

** Not to be confused with The Pit of Republicans, a level of Hell not yet constructed when Dante dropped by for a visit. It is located directly below Satan's bowels.