What is this "election" of which you speak?

Inspired by Disgusted Beyond Belief, I have to say that I'm so monumentally uninterested in the upcoming elections, both primary and general, that I can barely imagine dragging my sorry ass to the polling place and voting (I will, though; force of habit).

The bottom line is this: Nothing less than severe reprisals — and I'm talking explicitly about due-process trials for capital treason and crimes against humanity — against not only many Republican party and elected officials, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney but also against a considerable number of journalists and publishers (such as Judith Miller), will be sufficient to wrench the United States back from the brink of authoritarian tyranny.

Absent such reprisals — and I see no indication whatsoever that anyone advocates such stern measures, not even Kucinich or Gravel — the best we can hope for is four years of a weak, constantly harassed, off-balance Democratic party government which will end up taking all the blame for the Bush administration's blunders and outright evil. After that, we can look forward to a Republican party government so savagely evil it will make the Bush administration look like the model of propriety, moderation, competence and civic virtue.

Look... Richard Nixon actually tried to rig an election and lied to cover it up. Four years later, we had Ronald Reagan. Reagan runs up a deficit of hitherto unrealized magnitude, gives hundreds of billions of dollars to criminals Savings and Loan investors, tortures and murders his way through Central America and is implicated in actual treason (providing aid and comfort to Iranian terrorists holding actual Americans hostage. Eight years (of peace and a booming economy, marred by a few blowjobs) and we get George W. Bush.

But Barack Rodham Edwards is going to change everything. Yeah right, and monkeys are going to fly out my ass and drop gold coins on Market Street. Not even Dennis "impeach Cheney" Kucinich or Hillary "has a fucking good reason to hate the Republicans" Clinton has the will or the political ability to round up the latest gang of criminals and their accomplices, and try them in a court of law.

Bush fils was worse than Reagan; Reagan was worse than Nixon. (Nixon ended the Vietnam war and opened China; at best Reagan happened to be napping in the Oval Office when the Soviet Union imploded of its own internal contradictions.) Nixon was worse than Eisenhower. Clinton was (a bit) better than Carter who was better than Johnson (who was frankly a good bit better than John F. "Who needs policy? I've got Vigah" Kennedy). Who causes the problems? Who gets blamed? Are you seeing the trend here?

The idea that John Hussein Clinton can change anything — much less everything — is predicated on the ability of the American people to keep a thought in their heads — that the Republicans are responsible for the Iraq quagmire and the shitty economy — for more than three weeks. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. (I can also get you a great option on a busload of Spanish Prisoners. Email me.)

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Hillary Clinton really does hate the Republicans enough to actually round enough of them up and show them the business end of due process of law. Maybe Barack Obama's passionate neutrality really can erase decades of Republican authoritarian amorality. Maybe John Edwards can... um... do whatever it is he does and have it work.

I hope I'm wrong. But I'm sitting with my back to the wall and keeping a clear path to the fire exit. I don't think 2012 will be a happy year in American history.