Politicians are washed-up rodeo clowns in used car salesman suits. If the pandemic taught us anything, neither side cares about you. They pretend they do to get your votes and stay in power, but care about your human autonomy? Forget it. Never happening. You're a vote, and they're a middle finger. 

I used to be a Democrat. I used to have hope. Biden and the Squad? Fart noise. They've had a couple of years to get shit done, and what do we have to show for it? Ain't much, and it ain't pretty. Post-pandemic, we're not exactly in Shangri-la. That's not to say I've gone right-wing, because folks, I've still got my marbles. Those people are flat-out fucking psychopaths. 

I've been girding my loins for the oncoming Red Wave as predicted by the history of all midterm elections. Joe Biden looks like a skeleton moved by puppet strings. The Democrats have been a carnival act since taking control. No one likes paying almost six bones for a gallon of gas, but that's not Biden's deal. That's this hellscape we've invested in: Capitalism. 

You know, the same game that let Elon Musk get close to buying Twitter and Jeff Bezos score the Washington Post. The same goes for Disney buying the Simpsons, CNN now owned by the parent company of HBO, because this shit is about mergers and acquisitions, baby. We've got dudes in suits ready to get paid, get laid, to fuck your family, your dreams, and your life in the process. If you don't believe me, go try to buy a house. Follow the money, see who's driving up prices. The whole state of California didn't dump out into the rest of the country. It's investors creating a renter's market and creating false scarcity and leaving you holding the bag. 

Capitalism, our friend who plays a mean game of "fuck you, that's mine," has also brainwashed millions that the Right cares about rights. No, they care about that big paycheck that the NRA slips into their pockets because gun sales mean fancy steak dinners and new yard signs, because that kid down the street in a Clash t-shirt has kicked over for the seventh time to make sure you know you're a fuckhead. We've seen black shoppers mowed down by a whack job in the last few weeks. And guess what? We've seen it again this week. Only children were killed—a whole classroom of them. 

And before that, it was Sandy Hook. It was some country fest out in Vegas where a guy brought a duffel bag full of shit that kills a lot of people. And then it was Sutherland Springs. It was Columbine, and it was El Paso. I think you get the point. And then they will look you in the face and shrug, "it's the First Amendment. We don't mess with those." Sure, just like we didn't give women the right to vote or ending slavery. 

Politicians are washed-up rodeo clowns in used car salesman suits.

It's amazing how people talk about "responsible gun owners" like they're a sacred cow. Fine, if you're so responsible, help make the laws. What are you scared of? That you can't shoot guns built for death and destruction down at the blow-up patch with the boys? Try not being mediocre and relying on base pleasures like a weapon meant for killing shit to justify shortcomings. Guns are fun to shoot. There are videos and photos of me shooting them. And the whole time, I was scared shitless. There is noone in this world that needs to hunt a deer with an AR-15. That's murdering them. Want to go kill feral hogs? Cool. Get a special piece of paper for it. 

You can't buy smokes or a beer till you're 21, so why a gun? At 18 you can’t rent a car or get a hotel room without a lot of questions. You can get a Costco card, work the deli slicer behind the meat counter and buy a lotto ticket, though. And before some jerk off says, "you can join the military at 18, so what about that?" That's because America wants you young and stupid before you have any common sense to join its death cult. By the time someone is 21, they've formed a couple of opinions, and likely, they're not about to suit up and bomb any more brown people. And while we're at it, we don't even take care about our veterans. They come home to an empty birthday party. If you're willing to die in a war of attrition, you might as well be compensated for it for the rest of your life, but instead, look on street corners around America and guess who's holding the signs looking for a buck? It ain't any Senator's son.

I'll play along with a Republican theory, and have an armed guard at schools. Okay, instead of hiring "police" or cops who turn tail at the sight of danger, hire these Marines or Army guys with combat experience to work on-site. They're not scared of gunfire, and they've been trained. But that'll never happen. Why? We gut school systems. We love to build high school football stadiums, but fund the math team? Better sell some candy bars. The same goes for paying a soldier's salary on the chance something "might" happen when a "good guy with a gun" could show up to save the day. All you have to do is look at the news in Uvalde. 

The same goes for arming teachers. What a load of horseshit. Have you met a fifth-grade art teacher? Yes, let's make Ms. Jessica hide a Sig-Sauer in her cute sundress. Just like the armed soldier theory, what are we supposed to do? Counties continually hack and slash teacher pay, they demoralize the educational system by giving idiot parents an opinion how their kids should be taught when the parent's most outstanding achievement is passing high school and becoming a worker drone at a job they despise and exist within a world they feel left out of more and more, so who else to throw stones, but a teacher just trying to read The Caged Bird Sings. So, we demonize teachers, which is why they're leaving the job at record rates. Most can't even buy markers, let alone pay for instruction and a weapon meant to kill. What if someone's having a bad day? What if life at home is rough, and that kid who absolutely fucking sucks has been ultra annoying, and the teacher snaps? 

We never know because we don't do routine background checks. We don't care if you're mentally unstable or on the no-fly list. When you want an abortion, you have to talk to doctors, fill out paperwork, and be resigned to feeling like you're making a grand moral mistake, but get a piece? Shit, Playboy, head to the gun show at your local Expo Center and wait about a day, and you, too, can have a machine made for murder. Children not even old enough to get on the big rides at Six Flags are in coffins today. Old white men still think they can tell a woman what to do with her body. And veterans who did their duty come home to a broken country that often doesn't know what to do with them. And all the while, the dinner parties in Washington aren't any less full, and the lobbyists have been calling their pet politicians, promising them, "it's you and me, baby. We'll make it outta here alive."