Eight Things From The Presidential Primaries That We Won’t Miss One Bit
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty
Good God, is this grim death march of a presidential primary season OVER yet??? The waste, futility and escalating irritations of American democracy are starting to make the world wonder if absolute monarchy was really such a bad idea after all.
But no, it’s not over! As of this writing, we’re still 2.5 months away from the national conventions, and we still have more than SIX MONTHS left until Election Day in November!
Here are a few things we won’t miss when this interminable, internationally humiliating slog of a primary finally grinds to an unsatisfying halt:
1. Donald Trump OR Ted Cruz. Holy shit—do you realize that we’re about to be done with either Donald Trump or (more likely) Ted Cruz ? Soon we won’t have to see (one of) their stupid faces in the news all the time! Of course, the downside is, whichever one of them is the Republican nominee is going to be that much dangerously closer to having his hands on the nuclear launch codes. But still! No more Cruz/Trump! (Until four years from now, when Cruz or Trump probably runs for president AGAIN. Because that’s the way to get ahead in the Republican Party—keep losing at running for the nomination until the party gets worn down by your sheer persistence and gives you a chance to lose in the general election.)
2. All the never-ending debates. Remember when the Republican Party had like 17 different candidates running, and there were so many delusional no-hopers in the race (like Bobby Jindal) polling at 0.5% that they had to cram half of them into a separate televised-at-5 p.m. “undercard”/kids’ table debate that preceded the “real” prime time debate, which also was full of delusional no-hopers like Jeb Bush? That was amazing. I’m actually kind of impressed that the Republican Party has managed to produce THIS MANY candidates for national office who are either 1. Unqualified, 2. Self-deluding, 3. Dangerous to democracy, 4. Totally clueless, 5. Totally disconnected from reality, or 6. All of the above!
3. Robocalls. I live in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, so like everyone else in Iowa, my land line was ringing off the hook for MONTHS with sleazy, disingenuous robocalls from push pollsters and political operatives and shady organizations representing candidates for both parties. To hell with these people for interrupting my day and wasting my time with their phone spam. And yes, I know: It’s 2016 and I still have a land line. We use it so our kids can talk on the phone with their grandparents more easily, and also because our cell phones don’t get great reception in some rooms of our house, and also because I’m an unfashionable middle-aged Midwestern dad. I’m not like you hip Millennials, with your Snapchatty, Internetting ways!
hitches up Dad Jeans
makes contribution to Roth IRA
eats oat bran
4. The Republicans’ Impotent Efforts to to “Stop Trump.” The Republican Party is incompetent as hell. I’m tired of these hilariously desperate, bumbling attempts to stop Trump when they can’t even stop him at the ballot box. Kasich and Cruz joining forces to stop Trump is like treatable gonorrhea-of-the-throat joining forces with penicillin-resistant chlamydia to stop inoperable penis cancer. At this point, the GOP needs to do the dignified thing and just admit defeat. Go ahead and let Trump be the nominee. Let Trump lose in a landslide in November and burn your party to the ground. This is what you deserve, Republicans. Come take your whoopin’.
5. Ted Cruz saying incredibly bizarre things. While campaigning in Indiana in the very same gym where iconic, inspirational sports movie Hoosiers was filmed, Ted Cruz referred to a basketball hoop as a “basketball ring.” Even if Ted Cruz was not a rat-faced right-wing Christian/College Republican supervillain wearing clothes that he pilfered from corpses in funeral home caskets – even if Ted Cruz was the second coming of Bobby Kennedy – he still would deserve to lose the election just for this unforgivable gaffe.
Who calls a basketball hoop a “ring?” Was Ted Cruz born on another planet? Has Ted Cruz ever watched sports or played sports or had a conversation that wasn’t about cutting taxes on dividends or eliminating funding for food stamps? I love it when badly out of touch, expensively educated, hyper-ambitious political careerists like Ted Cruz try to slum it with everyday regular folks. (“Hey there, working class whites! Let’s have a domestic draft beer and discuss the latest basket-ball contest! I’ll bet those ‘Indiana Hosers’ are going to ‘dink’ the ball through the ‘ring’ very much!”)
Ted Cruz is a Man of the People: the People of Planet Zebulorg 45.