It’s Monday November 20th, and I’m waiting for democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to roll up to the meeting hall in his car. He’s supposed to give our crowd the going over, the opportunity to hear em speak’n’say his policy and his plans and promises, his mahfuckin doctrine of moral code, enunciated in what should have been an hour long discussion, offered up to the unlucky part of Harvard’s contingent that couldn’t get proper tickets for Hardball.
Kerry’s late though, and he continues to be until 5:30, when the atmosphere outside gets on my nerves for a minute too long and I hightail it, talking as I walk, saying things to my roommate like I DONT VOTE FOR NOBODY WHO DOESNT RESPECT MY TIME I WILL TELL YOU WHAT, in my head going over the twenty minutes of what I thought might have been insight I was fortunate enough to gather while I waited around for the sunofabitch to arrive...
I’m told that he did eventually show up, forty minutes late, and the young dems of Harvard, MIT, and I think BU undoubtedly gave it up for his middling, crowdpleaser go nowhere politics, writhing and hoping that yeah maybe just maybe he might beat Bush.
I should note, I’m only assuming these things. As I write this I’m listening to old Korn mp3s, drinking milk and getting hella emails from the New Republic, a liberally minded magazine which I’ve managed to avoid reading despite the fact that my free online subscription has almost run out. R Kelly’s Bump N Grind is on next and I’m not so worried about policy right now!
I’m part of the problem, in other words, and I loved Bill Clinton more than anyone.
Apathy everywhere and sure some people are excited about overthrowing Bush, while others are excited about keepin em in, but it seems like dialogue doesn’t go much further and that’s about as into it as most of us get. Indeed I’ve never seen politics be this quiet. The democrats seem to be keeping their heads down for the most part, afraid or simply reluctant to attack the shit out of Bush’s policies. The Republicans meanwhile have been sitting fat on a sure thing, understandably confident and thus mostly inactive.
Carl Weathers for President ‘04! Realistic! It’s obvious that the American people simply feel more comfortable having a leader who’s battled the Predator and that’s fucking understandable at least from this poor scared Midwesterner’s perspective (note: I’ve been informed since writing this that the Daily Show made the same joke a few weeks back. Regardless, me and my friends definitely came up with it independently so fuck all you)
Anyway, apathy’s running deep this year and like I said, it’s got more to do with who wins than with why. The weird thing is that there’s plenty to fight for, which theoretically should polarize us, give us the impetus to properly and profoundly develop ourselves into card carrying partisans. Instead we get the kind of scene I witnessed at the Kerry gathering, in which a handful of blonde girls stood in a double Red Rover line around the road down which the man was to arrive, pumping up the two hundred strong crowd and buying old Kerry some time, embarrassing themselves and sending chills down my spine, yelling and jumping and sporting their loose white campaign tees and their shining putcockinme smiles.
I think the first chant was the simplest, “JK ALL THE WAY!” uttered about a dozen times followed by a back and forth I wanna walk 500 miles chorus of “I SAY PRESIDENT YOU SAY KERRY! PRESIDENT! KERRY! PRESIDENT! KERRY!!”
It got worse though catdogs, so much worse. After the most creative, albeit most humiliating and indeed quietly pathetic couplet of “Bush is scary, we want Kerry!” the vamp got desperate, with a round of “WHO’RE WE FOR? KERRY ‘04!” resounding far too many times for us undecided folks to ignore the inherent flaw in the rhyme scheme.
This is a political rally then?
Admittedly, the only other one I’ve ever been to was an anti-war demonstration during the height of the Iraqi crisis, but sure enough they had signs at that one, and unless I’m accidentally remembering something I saw on TV, a keynote speaker even came out saying somethinh about how the Bush administration was heralding a new era of monarchy. This time around though all we could muster was some sad little cheers, devoid of all meaning and focused entirely on the win, not the means. I asked the main man behind the whole thing, a certain Brian Laughlin, what his impressions of the rally had been so far. “I think it’s great,” he answered. “I think the students here are showing a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the Senator.” It’s the spirit we’re after, then, not the reason. The rhymes not the times! Shit yeah!
I kept standing by and I got approached by a girl giving out campaign posters for spectators to hold up. I declined her offer, and she, noticing my taperecorder, asked with an accusatory tone in her voice if I was “just there to take pictures.” Reminded me of fucking summer camp, where if you didn’t sing along to the songs you were deemed a nogoodnik and a commie. “I’m just here to hear him talk,” I answered.
“Oh.”
She continued down the line, and I continued wanting to sock her. I watched as she proceeded along the road and thought about what I must look like to her. A cynic, no doubt, and a Republican one at that probably (“aaah yes he must have been the one chanting Bush’s name earlier on, yes”). Stood there like a judgmental jerk, I did, stood there and refused to take part in Kerry’s great plan, refusing to help or bear my heart or express my cause, pouting and smirking like the fella in the sweater vest who never danced at Homecoming. Here I was, in other words, refusing to treat this shit like a football game, and I was the one without any ideals. Hell.
I turned back to the rally just as a new leader emerged on the road. “You have to prove what you are standing here for,” he said, in broken English and a nervous grin on his face. “Because you want Kerry to become the President. Only one more word now, folks. No more Bush.”
And there you have it folks! A clear enunciation of the new politics, the new war, the new call to arms. One more word now! STAND FOR NOTHING AND COME OUT ON TOP!
Maybe it’s because we’re finally facing just how corrupt our personal politics are that we’ve stepped away from the nonsense about issues and finally adapted the presidential election into a gameshow and a gladiatorial match. We’ve done it with most other things, after all, and twisting politics doesn’t even seem like much of a challenge really.
Back in November I thought Dean would get the nomination, and after a push and pull of support the Bush administration would announce the capture of Osama Bin Laden and the Republican party would clinch it by a landslide. Instead it’ll just be Kerry in his place, middled from the start, and from here it looks like it’ll be one hell of a win for Bush. Even I’ll appreciate the strategy, in the same way I appreciated my Chicago Cubs self-destructing in game six of the NLCS. Yeah, I’ll appreciate it. And I’m a Democrat!
-- Leon Neyfakh
