Why I'm Not Watching the Debates…

As I type this, Kerry and Bush are debating. Actually, I can’t say that definitively because I don’t know what time this debate is starting. I missed the Vice Presidential debate on Wednesday, too. I’ll probably miss the next one. Is there one after that? I neither know nor care.
I do stay up on this election through the papers, but I can’t make myself watch a single debate.
Why? Because it doesn’t matter a lick. Unless Kerry says something to the effect of “thirteen is an unlucky number, so I’m repealing that amendment,” the debate will not change who I vote for at all.
So, outside of laughing at Bush bungle, watching the debates is a waste of my time.

Now, let me start by outlining my marriage of convenience with the Democratic party. I don’t think the Dems have my best interests at heart as a black person, and I don’t know if they ever will. And, in a way, I don’t blame them for that.
I blame the GOP for that.
For those of you who aren’t economists or political scientists, I’ll make this as digestible as possible.
You’ll read in many places that competition always benefits the consumer, and there’s something to that. Monopolists are able to charge higher prices for any good because there’s nothing to compel them to lower their prices. If there’s no one out there offering the same good for a lower price, buyers are SOL. If someone else enters the market trying to sell that good, price will go down because neither firm can afford to be the one with the higher price. They would then have lower sales (at least theoretically).
Now, let’s imagine that the good in question here is a political platform. Instead of paying money for that platform, buyers pay with votes. Whichever political party provides the platform most amenable to voters–and in the previous example, most amenable would mean lowest price–will sell more of the good–receive the most votes.
So, when parties compete for the votes of a demographic, they’re forced to shed some of their self-interest and do something to please voters.
(For the “unwashed,” this is falls under William Riker’s rubric of rational choice.)
Well, this year is the strongest example of the Republican party completely exiting the market for black voters. Bush didn’t even bother to show up to the NAACP convention this year (perhaps leery of his lackluster showing in 2000, which looked even worse when juxtaposed against Al Gore giving and taking hi-fives). Maybe that was just one move on Bush’s part, but for all its flaws, the NAACP remains the pre-eminent civil rights organization in America. Bush attending the convention may have only been for show, but he didn’t even bother to pretend like he gave a damn about black voters.
It almost makes me wonder if Dubya’s been taking classes in race relations from his brother Jeb who, when asked in 1994 what he’d do for blacks as governor of Florida replied, “probably nothing.”
Yes, that’s a direct quote.
Simply put, he Dubya has given up on us, as has his party. And since they’ve given up, the Democrats have little or no reason to even try to consider our interests. And since they don’t have to, they won’t.
After all, strongly considering the interests of black voters is outside of the mainstream and far left by definition. Winning the Presidency is usually about campaigning to the left in the primaries and moving toward the center as the big election rolls around. Well, there’s no reason for John Kerry to do little more than pretend to take a couple of us along for his ride. As long as Kerry’s not doing something to me, he’s a step up from Bush for me.
All he has to do is convince us to show up at the polls. If he does, he has us. He has to do just that little.
And if the GOP pretended like they gave a damn, he’d have to do more. But they don’t, so he doesn’t.
So that’s reason one that I’m typing this instead of watching television.
Reason 2…
Well, it’s really four reasons, and they go like this…
2001
2002
2003
2004
That’s right, we’ve had four years of Bush, and it’s impossible to imagine that anyone on this earth could possibly do a worse job as President. He’s been haphazard, reckless, uninformed, stupid, deceitful, dastardly, belligerent, obnoxious, smug, and wholly incompetent since day one. I can comfortably say that it’s impossible for any one person to do worse than Bush has since he took office.
There is nothing that John Kerry could say to make me not vote for him. I don’t mean there’s nothing he could do to get me to vote for Bush. I mean there’s nothing he could do to make me not vote for him. Simply not voting for Bush leaves open the option of not hitting the polls. I am going to vote against George Bush. Unless Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott find another X chromosome between them and spit out a child that comes out already old enough to run for President, there’s not a person that I’d take George W. Bush over. I’ve been his constituent for seven of the last ten years, and ain’t none of ’em been particularly pleasant.
And, to be honest, I won’t over intellectualize the point. Looking at reasons not to vote for Bush do not require much thought because he doesn’t give us much though. Combatting foolishness with reason is the recipe for a headache, and my brainpower is too precious. I don’t need an intricate knowledge of the cosmos to know the sky is blue. I can just hold a crayon up and make a comparison.
So why should I be watching this debate if mind is made up?
And the scary part?
Bush may still win. He really might still win. After everything…after watching boys die at war, after proof that the war was bogus, after seeing the losses of jobs, after watching the US become an international pariah of sorts, after hearing every lie that could possibly be told, he could still win.
Why? Because there’s a large number of people who like that shit. There are a lot of people that want the United States to be a reckless bully. There’s a heap of people that don’t care about folks losing jobs, so long as it’s not them. There are people who love this cavalier attitude. There are people who don’t mind being lied to.
I’d almost venture to say that some people like their President stupid, but I don’t think that’s the case. Instead, I think those folks are simply willing to deal with that foolishness.
It ain’t like that’s a good thing, either.
But they can keep the debates. They’re just not worth the time of me watching.