When Kellen Strauther, aka Keltronix, isn’t interviewing artists for his House of Guvera radio show, The H.O.Gcast, DJ-ing, or getting drunk in our office, he’s stoking his political interests, staying current on the shit show that runs our country. So, we gave him his very own politics column, Politics as Usual, where he can rant, rave and school us about whatever political issues he wants.
If you gathered the best comedic writers of all time and put them in a room for two months, with an unlimited supply of mind-altering substances and Chinese food, they wouldn’t be able to come up with the story line that is the current political landscape of this country.
For instance, Donald “You’re Fired” Trump is the leading candidate for the Grand Old Party, followed by a Black candidate, Ben Carson, who couldn’t win the black vote if he promised reparations and chose Oprah Winfrey as his running mate, followed by Jeb Bush. ANOTHER fucking Bush!?!? This just doesn’t seem real. Oh, but it is.
It seems that every election season the GOP has one or two characters that people on the left can just kind of write off as “crazies” i.e Sarah Palin or Herman Cain. But this season is more chock full o’ nuts that it’s ever been in recorded history.
With the majority of the republican candidates running on a platform of sexism, racism, homophobia, and what appears to be actual stupidity, you would think that none of them would have any chance of making it to the White House (I mean, come on. Even The Pope has gay friends these days.) WRONG.
The Right Wing wants to “make America great again” which apparently means “Bring back sexism, racism, homophobia and actual stupidity.” This isn’t a new stance for the GOP at all, it’s what they do, but this season’s Republican candidates lack the charisma, swagger, and all around likeability of previous presidential candidates. Granted, for the last eight years, we’ve been spoiled with President Obama’s smooth, pimpish, almost stand-up comedian-like disposition, but let’s be honest, as much as we hated George W. Bush, we all kind of wanted to have a beer and smoke a joint with the guy, and Mitt Romney had a real “Mr. Steal Yo Girl” aura about him.
We’re just not seeing that with the candidates for the 2016 election, and that’s the scary part. Hilary Clinton is so out of touch with whats actually going on that she asked students to describe how they feel about their student loan debts with emojis. She also did the Nae Nae on national television. Way to be relatable, Hillary. Whats next, ass shots? #MileyWhatsGood. While Democratic front runner, Bernie Sanders has a great stance, if elected, he’d be the OLDEST PRESIDENT EVER. He still writes checks at the supermarket, and Jay-Z probably won’t be at his inauguration ceremony.
All in all this is shaping up to be a very bizarre presidential election season. But the question is, do we really care? Or are we just pretending to care so we can seem relevant, or have something to tweet about? We live in a society where we care more about our iPads than we do our civil rights, because we don’t use them all the time. If they were to tell us that we could end racism, sexism, and homophobia, fix the deficit, and have health care for all, but we’d have to go back to flip phone … would we do it? I don’t even know if I would. #Guilty.
