America's Next Top President

When discussions turn to politics there is a well worn phrase that is often bandied about which states; "there are two things that you don't want to let people see how you make them: laws and sausages". It is a fun little comparison which invokes the notion that the drafting of, discussions about, and congressional votes on, the bills and laws which govern our nation is an inherently dirty and disgusting process. The phrase is one that I have used more than a handful of times myself when discussing politics and government amongst various friends and peers, but now, having stopped to think about it I am unsure why I -- or anyone else -- uses it. The answer to why this phrase is still so often spoken in such conversations is something to which I, due to a habit of watching too many news programs and my current profession, may have found an answer. 

You are probably thinking at this point, "Wait just one second, there's no problem with using that phrase. It's completely appropriate." But is it really? Allow me to explain; for the past nine years I have worked at a small family owned butcher shop and have made more pounds of sausage than I can count. So, while I may not be a law-making politician, I am  a sausage-making butcher with a well developed understanding of half of the phrase, and in a comparative analogy such as this, it gives me  a certain level of license to discuss it as a whole. Given such license I can put my knife wielding skills to good use by taking a firm hold of this raw phrase and carving it up; cleaving off its head and slicing open its belly, smearing its blood across the table and spilling its guts out all over the floor.

Hold on a second, that sentence is going to make me vomit.

Actually, I am not going to do any of that, because in truth the process of making sausage has come a long way since the heydays of the gruesome Chicago stockyard and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Making sausage in this modern era is a significantly more sanitary process than it once was, and with the development of certain pieces of specialized machinery doing so is only slightly more difficult than pulling a lever and can be done quite easily by a single individual. Nowadays, the process is so clean and simple that the worst part of it is that the casings -- into which the sausage meat is stuffed -- are only kept fresh if they are stored in salt water; and if you get salt water underneath a fingernail it can sting like hell for a few seconds.

No, you did not misread that, it is indeed true that the ugliest, most disgusting, gruesome part of making sausage today is a slightly irritated index finger. With enough time everything advances and becomes increasingly more simple, or cleaner, or unobtrusive or any possible combination of those things. In fact, if an individual was to encounter the act of a sausage being made today, he or she would almost certainly not even bother to give it a second look because it has become such a boring and benign process. The same must also hold true for the process of making laws then, at least according to the comparative conclusion drawn by the 'laws and sausages' metaphor.

 What the fuck does any of this have to do with media?!

Only the comparison does not hold true in the slightest; the process of making laws, of elections, of candidate speeches, and of everything even remotely connected to politics is publicized and paraded around to such an over-the-top extreme that it is anything but boring and benign. Just as sausage cannot be made without the casing, neither can laws be made without the lawmakers, and the process of just obtaining that one, critical piece -- the law makers -- is so ridiculously encapsulating and encompassing that it could not be any farther from making a sausage. Political billboards, radio spots, television advertisements, lawn signs, button pins, catchy soundbites, memorable slogans, bumper stickers, town hall forums, nationally aired debates, the list runs on and on.

Modern American politics has become so aggrandized because it has reached a point of mediocrity that rivals any reality television program currently airing. The political system in this country is little more than just that -- an awful reality show -- starring one-dimensional actors dressed up in the costume of their respective political party, constantly shouting at one another and generally operating with little or no coherence to a plot line, all while typically acting like a  horse's-ass in their attempts to make the other guy look like, ironically enough, a horse's-ass. All of it is simply pageantry and theater performed for the amusement of the voting public in the same manner as shows such as American Idol, Survivor, or America's Next Top Model, and depressingly enough also like programs in the same vein as (God help us) The Jersey Shore.

The political process is viewed continuously by the American public due in no small part to the advent of twenty-four hour news channels which broadcast during every hour of every day. These networks such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and various others make their profits by showing political stump speeches and rally events to the people if the nation and as such it is in their best interest to dress-up and glorify any and all political events. In making something like a presidential debate -- an event which during past eras was an actual debate -- a form of theatre, these various news (read: infotainment) channels are able to increase their viewership and thus their profit margins. 

If money is the root of all evil as it is so often said to be, then it would also seem to be the case that the pursuit of money is the root of all stupidity. In the desire for that next zero on their bank account statements, news networks have nearly ceased to deliver factual content in favor of a race to the bottom to appeal to that lowest common denominator of citizenry. What is arguably worse however is that we, the public, lap it up like a kitten at a milk bowl; all the while completely unaware of the fact that the milk turned sour long ago. Worse still is the sad reality that there is a significant percentage of the populace who, in their attempt to increase their knowledge, turn to these news networks for information and by doing so -- in a sickening twist of events -- are almost utterly mindless of the fact that by watching it they are becoming utterly mindless. 

The film that gave us two governors. Two.

Inevitably then, with the political stage being transmogrified into one of pageantry, the shift from politicians walking across it have become contestants in an all-too-real, reality television program. This change is not nearly as new as it would appear to be on its surface either, though it is certainly more prevalent and easily noticeable today than it has been in past decades; President Reagan was a former hollywood actor after all. A more recent example, the 2008 presidential election, brings the issue into an even clearer focus however and the actors who took the stage more closely resemble a casting of MTV's The Real World, than they did serious political candidates for the highest office in the land. 

Democrats

Hillary Clinton - 

The Yoko Ono of the democrat's roster, a woman of high intellect to be sure, but just as sure a candidate who was more than a little off of her rocker. Not to mention the fact that -- and let us be honest here as almost everyone believes this to at least some extent -- she was only a heavyweight contender due to her husband having been a former president, the same man who was also largely responsible for her being a bit crazier than average. (Having your husband cheat on you with a woman like Monica Lewinsky would be enough to drive most women crazy)

John Edwards - 

The seemingly normal, down to earth, typical politician. He came across as a man who stood for family values and a man who loved and cared deeply for his own family. Just which family of his it was though that he loved, cared, and stood for was the issue. 

Barack Obama -

The black guy, and I mean no disrespect to him (I voted for him after all) but he was supposed to be the sacrificial lamb -- or donkey as the case would have it -- to the impoverished sub-sects of the nation; proof that the party was still in touch with the people. He was only supposed to be the token candidate, killed off in the early primaries, but like L.L. Cool J in the film Deep Blue Sea he somehow and against all odds emerged after numerous seething attacks as the last man standing. 

Republicans

John McCain -

He was supposed to be your grandfather's candidate, a military veteran and long serving senator, the politician beyond reproach and the straight-talking voice of reason. What he actually was though turned out to be something else entirely; as during his run to the conservative right to appease the base of the party he sounded increasingly more like a crazed senior citizen who was yelling at the neighborhood kids for messing up his lawn. He certainly did not help matters either when he announced that the crazy cat lady of politics, Sarah Palin, was his pick for vice presidential nominee.

Mike Huckabee -

All politicians will take to the pulpit every now and again to preach their views on the issues facing the nation and the world. This one brought his own. The former arkansas governor and ordained baptist minister served the same role for the republicans as Barack Obama was supposed to do for the democrats; that of the sacrificial lamb reminding the party's base that it was still in touch with the nation. By the end Huckabee, having thumped himself in the head one too many times with his own bible, made the most evangelical of republicans feel like they were sinners and was ungracefully hooked off stage by the G.O.P.

Mitt Romney -

A mormon multi-millionaire former governor of Massachusetts, a state from one of the most notoriously liberal sections of the country, he was the head scratcher of candidates. No means to appeal to the christian base, too much money to re-run the "I'm a common folk like yall" which got President Bush Jr. elected, and with no serious appeal to the section of the country from which he drew his governorship credentials; the reason he was on stage was much the same reason that so many heavy metal bands have that one guy who just stands on stage next to the actual musicians excessively rocking his head and flailing his arms -- because he is entertaining and why the hell not have him?

These individuals define the state of affairs in American politics. A highly publicized media show that is highly entertaining, often violent, and carried out by an overflowing cast of incredibly mindless individuals -- all of which stands in a stark contrast to the act of making sausage. In this current age it is sad yet entirely plausible, in fact it is all too possible, that a celebrity like Jackie Chan would be elected before a political candidate such as Barack Obama. The even more depressing thing is that if the political status quo continues onward as it is, the blurring between the lines of the political stage and the stage of the professional actor will quite simply cease to exist. To paraphrase the words of the French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville; "a democracy ensures not that people get the best government, but rather that they get the government that they deserve", which if true, means this nation may soon find itself the laughing stock of the international community unless the status quo changes very quickly and very, very soon. 

Vote Chuck Norris in 2012. Because Bald Eagles nest in his beard.