The Cat in the Hat and Midterm Elections

It's nearly half-past five, and mom should be walking in the door any second. At this point, in either of Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat books, our protagonist would ride in on some Goldbergian contraption, or call on Things One and Two, and have the place spotless in a jiffy. This is what we imagine elections are for.

Problem is, this 2010 midterm is likely to be a rerun of Clinton's 1994 disaster, if not worse. The reasons are obvious. If the Republicans represent the party in power, they deny there is any mess to begin with, and let the brats fall victim to nothing stronger than the invisible hand. Then, the people get sick of infrastructure falling apart and American influence declining faster than Osama bin Laden's at a bar mitzvah, and they call upon those well-meaning Democrats to urge citizens to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

But as soon as Democrats haul out an infernal machine to do the work, someone screams that it represents socialism in America. When Fixers One and Two come in to conference committees to do their jobs, they end up making corrupt deals like giving Nebraska citizens a free ride. As a result, folks long for a candidate to tell them there was no mess to begin with. There's a mess, all right. Just as drones and extraordinary rendition squads tend to hide the blood, free-market denials of health care problems or global warming or deficits tend to hide the Cat-astrophic faults in the system. So Republicans move in, and the property values go down.

What we need is a candidate of either party (or dare we say it, a third party?) who will say, "OK, out of the pool, mom will be home soon. The USA is in a period of economic and military decline which just ain't fixable. The world's a mess (it's in my kiss). The financial system will not be fixed by new asset bubbles, nor will environmental problems be fixed by cap and trades or carbon taxes. Everything in the next few decades will hurt and require sacrifices, and the only option we will have is what means of cleaning up our mess will suck the least."

And will such a candidate have any chance of getting elected? Of course not! So we continue to alternate our lies between well-meaning machines of complexity, and moronic denial amidst shouts of "Drill, baby, drill!" And the shit gets deeper and things fall apart. This is called the government we deserve.