It’s a tribal question. Is this the end or the beginning? Is this a fourth turning like what Sasha Stone writes about or another election cycle promise that this time, the victors will get the policy correct and we can all live on a cruise ship with everything paid for?
Uncle Sam is a personification of the U.S. government that dates to the War of 1812; the familiar pointing “I Want You” image was drawn by James Montgomery Flagg in 1916 and issued as a World War I recruiting poster in 1917, then reused during World War II. Those are his facts. This space is lies, damned lies, and complaints about the news. So the Uncle Sam written about here is all three of those.
The Uncle Sam of this post is a fat old boomer. He isn’t the sleek, healthy Uncle Sam who is rich and will take care of us. That was supposed to be HRH Pimp Daddy Obummer, but… like, term limits, feel me? Uncle Sam has diabetes, can’t get it up, on heart medication, recovering from a stroke, and broke. He gets around with a walker. Personal hygiene is a challenge, so he smells. This is the Uncle Sam that will execute Trump and send us snacks. Truth, because Obummer said it.
I Smell Trouble
We were told the old boomer could take better care of us than private enterprise. Our lived reality has not matched the glowing propaganda. We still need government. My hope is that what’s next is smaller and more competent.
We vote tomorrow to elect the next Congress. I live in Richmond, VA. Our ballot has three constitutional amendments on it, Jennifer McClellan is up for reelection along with Mark Warner. Read DC Fight Card published October 13 if you want to know more about the amendments and the candidates.
It’s a recurring story. Campaign season comes around and we hear a few things. The incumbents did a terrible job. They made a horrible mess of things. The candidates promise that once they win they’ll fix the mess and deliver to us the safety, security and easy living we’ve been hoping for. Party affiliation doesn’t matter. If the incumbent is the same party as the candidate, well, the incumbent did it wrong, and the candidate will get it right.
A Century of Rinse-Repeat
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The first socialist to reach high office was Woodrow Wilson. Since he took office it’s been incremental swings back and forth from limited government to deepening Uncle Sam’s intrusion into our lives. Each cycle we are promised again that this new slate of candidates will fulfill the promise of a sleek, vital Uncle Sam who can take care of us.
With each election cycle, we get a fatter, more out-of-shape, and deeper in debt Imperial City that gives us side-eye because we are suspiciously bougie and self-reliant. We are too self-reliant, hold to much personal wealth, and our struggle session confessions are lame.
So we elected Trump. The first six months were encouraging. Until the Imperial City bureaucrats and politicians began fighting back. Salmon Voldemort must be stopped, we are told. He is an existential threat to everything holy. The horror that the populace could take care of themselves! What an evil thing to say!
Speaking Apostasy
If Uncle Sam were as sleek, healthy, and wealthy as we are promised, it might work to snuggle in his muscular arms and let him indulge us. But he isn’t. He is a fat, arthritic, out-of-breath, impotent, stroke-recovering old boomer. He needs a walker. He’s broke. The Social Security Trust Fund will be spent by 2034. Our two biggest expenses in the Federal budget are legislated entitlements and debt.
So… what are the McClellan and Warner campaigns saying about the next Congress? Is there any messaging that we have to be more self-reliant? Warner’s ad threatens the loss of your career to AI. He decries an affordability crisis that AI has worsened. It’s the same Maoist pitch, the oppressor wealthy people are stealing from the downtrodden poor. This hymn has been sung for 178 years. FYI, Uncle Sam is still broke and Warner is one of those wealthy people.
McClellan is harder to pin down. Her campaign page sings the “affordability” hymn. These lyrics say that the previous administration got it wrong and made life less affordable. She’s an incumbent, so she got it wrong. Doh. But! Reelect her, and this time she and the new administration will get it right, so vote for her. Yeah, no.
Another hymn worships science and policy. If we can just get the science correct and write the perfect policy, all these problems are be solved. Those evil, bougie, rich white men would read their Bible, realize that they have to give up their wealth, and become monks. Not religious monks who pray to the god of Isaac. No, no, pray to St. Marx and St. Mao. God is dead, remember? Jesus of Nazareth was a crackpot rabbi who got himself crucified. Keep your facts straight.
Liar!
The orthodox truth is that Uncle Sam is sleek, healthy, and wealthy. He is wiser than King Solomon and stronger than Samson. You owe your home shrine a naval orange and five sticks of incense. Make sure you buy the correct oranges and incense from the proper vendor with a federal license to sell sacrificial goods. Just so you know, whatever you buy and however you genuflect before your home shrine, it’s probably wrong.
The elephant in the room is that 178 years of war on imperialism hasn’t produced the promised result. The People’s choir screams at us that capitalism is evil and must be ended. They sing that a People’s Committee will govern more fairly, more equitably than either a king or a constitutional republic. Five countries remain that are still Communist: Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and China. Four of them brought back capitalist trade so the populace doesn’t starve. Also to combat black market trade. Uncle Sam, on his worst days, gets drug-sick.
Uncle Sam can’t do what he promises. The Social Security Trust Fund will be spent in about seven years. Medicare and Medicaid are about a quarter of the federal budget. Yet this year and every year I can remember the claim is that we need to spend more on entitlements because people can’t afford their bills. There is no dollar amount that is sufficient. Can we stop believing the lie?
Third
Fight or flee. Those are the two common options when pulled into an impossible fight. Fight Uncle Sam, even in his addicted, sickened state, is a path to prison or worse. People have fled and when they got to their new home discovered that the destination was worse.
First, it’s Election Day as I finish writing this. The polls are open. We have until 7pm today to vote. I’m not going to endorse a slate for you. Vote your conscience. All I will say is that given my choices, the Blue tribe worries me. Yes, MAGA is existentially evil and Trump is a long list of evils. This campaign from the Blue Tribe has been a litany of fear mongering that a MAGA win will mean apocalypse for us. It’s a little shrill.
Next, repeating myself. No matter how bad it gets, how many days it’s been since you got out of jail or rehab and moved your posessions to a shopping cart, there is something you can do right now, with what you have, to improve your day. The thunder in DC and Richmond is loud and frightening but it portends rain. You’ll be fine.
Why Bother?
I’ve been voting since I was eighteen. The mechanics have never been the hard part. Register, find the place, show up or mail the thing. The hard part is watching the same set of promises cycle through every two and four years while the results stay roughly the same: more debt, more process, more people whose job is to administer the process.
The argument for voting is not that anyone fixes any of this. Local and state races still decide how we spend the remaining money, who sits on the boards that write the rules that actually touch daily life, and which ballot measures move the levers that still work. In my district the congressional and Senate races are not close. Voting against the machine candidates does not flip the seat. It registers that the same hymnal has been sung for a quarter-century and some of us have stopped believing the verses.
250 years governed under a constitutional republic. We have been drifting toward imperialism for almost 180 of those years. The tea leaves I am reading say that we are experiencing an end of bigger, less competent government. It’s too son to say what we are beginning. The yougins have the baton.
We need to bother with voting because it is a better option than fire bombing government buildings. The problem with revolution isn’t the ecstatic event. It is the long, conflicting work afterword to govern. Word count met. I’m still in my pajamas and need to vote. ttyl.