Opinion: The candidates are coming; the show will begin soon
I hear a mechanical whine in the distance. It's the sound of a pneumatic drill tightening the bolts in two dozen presidential candidates like new tires on a racecar. Stiffen the back, smooth the jowls, secure that loose tongue, and lock the face on sincerity. Next they'll be dipped in silicon to seal in the freshness, then draped in bespoke fabrics like a bottle of crown rum. They're so nearly ready.
In a few months the gates will open, and this pack of cyborgs will clomp through the American airwaves, onto your phone, and into your home. I can see the pundits stretch in the sidelines, making warm-up speculations before the starter pistol. Is Trump coming in? Is Biden going out? Will the governor-gladiators of Florida and California meet in combat?
Here's some early electoral math: A presidential term is four years. The campaign cycle lasts two years. So we spend two years of every four years in a campaign. Americans spend half their lives in an election season.
I don't think we deserve this, but boy do we love it. It's every good citizen's guilty pleasure – a 24-month political melodrama, dripping in pomp, bombast, and betrayal. We'd never admit it, of course, because there's a lot to grieve about the reality-TV-ification of democracy, about the wackos on stage, and about each of their political machines boring towards absolute power. And I'll add one humble objection to the pile: It's a shame the wackos fail to represent the diversity of American wackiness.
Where's the Green Party? The Temperance Party? The Party for the Peaceful Dissolution of Government? The party of theocrats, the party of homeopaths, the party of psychonauts – where are they? Where's the Drum Circle Party, and its vision of 300 million Djembes? I want to see monarchists, anarchists, and pacifists. I want to see pig farmers, head shop owners, UPS drivers, and paramedics. I am sick of lawyers with their red and blue parties.
A glance across Western North Carolina reveals that even our slice of Blue Ridge has more variety than all three branches of government. Start at the commune in Old Fort, with its cob houses and time-banking economics, and move West through the crunchy hippies of Old Asheville and the young progressives of New Asheville. Stand on Broadway and meet the penny-farthing nun and Black confederate. Move deeper into the mountains through Papertown and Maggie Valley and see tent revivals and pagan parties, Mexican restaurateurs and pig pickers, coon hunters and naked hikers, gun enthusiasts and beekeepers (some overlap in the last one).
These mountains are home to Blackalachians, Scottish decedents, and the nation of the Cherokee. Not to mention the thousands of Joneses and Owenses that came from the slate mines of Wales to dig American coal, who eventually meandered down Appalachia and became Carolinian. This is American diversity. Two parties of lawyers is not.
It's not for lack of entertainment value that no third parties ever make it onto the national stage. It's because (unelected) gatekeepers want to keep the American people from themselves. I believe the Commission of Presidential Debates's 2024 slogan is "No Riff-Raff." And if I remember correctly, the DNC's 2020 slogan was "No Andrew Yang." I guess even party outliers need to be shooed off from time to time. After all, we can't just let anybody run for the highest office in the land. But why not?
Because some folks would vote for a 10-monkey troop of circus primates. Though how much worse could that really be? If they were Democrat or Republican monkeys, then the party would still craft the platform, the advisers would still shape the agenda, the donors would still pull favors, and the faceless (unelected) administrations would chug along. And geo-politically, we'd be fine. Everyone knows you don't agitate monkeys, no matter the party.
A mainstream presidential candidate is like Tupac's hologram. It looks like the real thing, and it's guaranteed to be a good show. But if you try to shake its hand, you'll pass right through it. Because it's not real. It's a trick of the light; an illusion created by a team of professionals off-stage and in the balcony. Behind each candidate is a fleet of nob-fiddlers and specialists who make sure the program runs smoothly and the audience is captured. And if you pay attention, you can see them peek out from behind the curtain.
The election season premier is around the corner. Will you be able to look away when their cranked-up faces and amphetamine-infused smiles explode onto your screen? Here they come!
Shaun Cammack is a writer from Transylvania County.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: The candidates are coming; the wacky show will begin soon
