American politics has us living a dystopian farce

Who would have thought America would become a Marxist country?

I don’t mean one following Karl Marx’s teachings. I mean a nation following the Marx Brothers’ philosophy because our government’s become one big screwball comedy. It may not be as intelligent and witty as Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, but it’s just as ridiculous.

What’s happened in politics and government today once was the purview of writers. From their minds came tales of grand conspiracies, outrageous happenings, outlandish characters, and things we knew could never happen here in America. Whether cautionary tales such as “Seven Days in May” or comedies like “My Fellow Americans,” they were entertaining, but we knew that wouldn’t happen in real life.

A coup to overthrow the federal government? A president facing criminal charges? Buffoonish politicians making foolish statements? (Well, that one is credible in fiction and reality.)

Whether drama, comedy, or satire, it wasn’t real. Until now.

If you spent the last 30 or 40 years in suspended animation and awoke from it today, you’d be astonished by modern America. Oh, our technological advances are fascinating, and many of the cultural changes might surprise you. But the 21st century political landscape would dumbfound you. At the least, make you feel as if you awoke in the Twilight Zone.

Let me first say there’s no living politician, either Democrat or Republican, I truly respect or admire or support. The best I can do is vote for whoevernk will cause the least trouble. I’ve never cared for Donald Trump because he’s a narcissistic blowhard who’d push anyone in front of a speeding train to get what he wants. Joe Biden tries hard and means well but comes across as an underachiever who always won the participation award. The Democratic and Republican parties have no clues about reality outside of their fantasy politics game.

Our Rip van Winkle (or Buck Rogers for scifi fans) woke from suspended animation in a world of topsy-turvy politics. What was extremism four decades ago is mainstream politics now. People then considered extremists and kooks now occupy seats in Congress. Liberals endorsed sometimes offensive and tasteless behavior as free speech and expression when it skewered then-contemporary norms 40 years ago. Now they consider the same things as insensitive, inappropriate, and unacceptable for now-contemporary.

In years past, the two-party system rolled a few loose cannons across the political stage. Harold Stassen ran nine times for the Republican presidential nomination, plus several other offices in between. After the first two attempts, no one took him, nor was he perceived as dangerous. George Wallace and H. Ross Perot broke away and created their own parties. Even though they often said outlandish things, some people agreed with and had minor effects on elections, they never had a snowball’s chance in Phoenix in July of winning. Few, especially the two acceptable parties, took them seriously. No one takes anyone outside the Democrat/Republican club seriously.

Flash forward to contemporary America and the ascension of Donald Trump. After about 20 years of entitled politicians creating division, suspicion, and fear among voters, he tapped it all. He told a lot of people what they wanted to hear. Not necessarily the truth nor real, but what folks wanted someone to say.

Like almost every tax protester, conspiracy theorist, extremist kook I’ve encountered, Trump astounded reasonable and made some sense initially. Then he turned, crossed left field, jumped the fence, and raced into Wonderland. Trump came along after Instead of distancing themselves from him as they had others with his rhetoric, Republicans embraced him.

Political scientists (there’s an oxymoron) contend it was a form of populism that also brought forth many candidates who would have been unelectable in the ’80s and early ’90s. Both parties would have discouraged, or disowned, them because they had little in common with the mainstream parties. But now the mainstream GOP welcomed them with open arms because they had a strategy to control Trump and these young Turks. It didn’t work.

Ten years earlier the Republicans would have dropped Trump like a bad habit, but they acted as if he were their savior. Even with four criminal indictments in separate courts alleging a multitude of charges against him, Trump still is the Republican presidential frontrunner.  Mainstream politicians continue defending and kowtowing to him.

We have a former president who used gangsters and dictators as role models, incorporated their management styles into his administration, used the government as if it were his family business, and whose ego did not abide dissent nor accept rejection. Anyone disagreeing with him was his enemy and a threat. Yet supporters remain devoted and still follow him no matter how far out he goes. Even when he’s charged with inciting an attack on the Capitol Building they stay with him. They still believe he won and Joe Biden stole the election.

With the current state of the Democratic Party, it can’t steal a glance much less an election. Biden and the Democrats aren’t exactly a prize, either. Democrats have shot themselves in the foot so many times they’re running out of toes.

All of this could be laughable if it didn’t affect  us so much. It’s as if we’re living in a bad satire or a dystopian farce. Maybe we’re in a modern reboot, reality-based version of the Marx Brothers’ classic political comedy “Duck Soup” with America replacing Freedonia. Without the laughs and musical numbers.