Election 2020 Fear and Beyond

Well. We managed to make it three months into the year, and despite threats of WW3, a dangerous new pre-pandemic, Brexit, stock-market bullshit, Mike Bloomberg’s shitty “memes”, and a slew of natural disasters — we all seem to be holding on to this out-of-control bus for the time being. Unfortunately, we now seem to be slowly tiptoeing towards something that is nearly as divisive as “The Dress”: The Presidential election, and boy howdy is EVERYONE pissed at everyone.

Twenty years ago, the collective world came together and decided to be better under a single unifying vision: The Willennium was upon us (or were we already living in it? Source material unclear). Things were supposed to be better! We were supposed to join hands around the world, go to Mars, fix the drug epidemic(s), find a way to deliver ice-cream without it melting, etc… Yet, here we sit, like a bunch of fucking monkeys flinging shit around at each other while all the truly bad shit going on gets ignored or forgotten — LIKE THE FACT THAT DISNEY IS TRYING TO MAKE A HOCUS POCUS SEQUEL UNDER OUR NOSES, WHEN WE ALL FUCKING KNOW THAT MAX AND HIS CREW STRAIGHT FUCKING MURDERED THE SANDERSON SISTERS — THEREBY ALLOWING THACKERY BINX TO REUNITE WITH EMILY. THE MAGIC THAT BOUND THEM TO THIS PLANE WAS SEVERED — END. OF. STORY. YOU BASTARDS *cough* um. Yeah. Some truly bad bad stuff out there. So, in true Minimally Useful fashion, we’re going to fix everything (eventually) — and we’ve got our eyes on fixing the Presidential election process. You can thank us later… or now. Now works too.

In order to fix something, you must first understand how that thing currently exists and functions, so here is a synopsis over how we understand the current process for electing “America’s Next Top President”.

1. Congrats! You’ve decided that you’re going to run for President. You likely fall into one (or more!) of several categories of insanity — since you know — you’re trying to be President. You do you, you beautiful insane unicorn. Anyway. Now that you’ve made the decision, you should probably check and make sure you meet the qualifications. Based on our analysis of previous people who have run for or won the presidency you must have an IQ of 45 or greater, you have to be older than 35, and a US Citizen. That’s pretty much the “must-haves” for your resume. Some optional things that you might also consider — being able to read. Some of our Presidents haven’t had the time to decipher the hieroglyphics of English — they’ve got to make huge decisions — no time for wordy.

2. Hot dog! You meet the requirements. Now you need to pick which side you’ll be on. You’ve got a multitude of options. Red, blue, green, the whole damn rainbow. In reality there are only two real options if you want to poll above -3%, so pick red or blue. Your choice. Some people believe that beliefs exist on a spectrum, and that they can be nuanced — like a NERD. Or you follow our happy little bullet list below:

• War bad, soldiers good
• We gotta give everyone more money
• W̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶l̶o̶b̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶g̶e̶. We have to be recognized as a country by some people outside the country.
• Business good, unless it’s bad
• Jobs good
• Terrorists bad

3. OK! You’ve got your platform/party on lock. Now, you’ve got to enter your party’s primary. It’s like a mini-Presidential election! Remember, don’t be a nerd during the primary. Just have some sweet one-liner clap backs. Real debates don’t exist anymore. Current debates are basically Twitter in person without the gifs. So like, a shitty Twitter. You’re going to have to do a lot of schmoozing, but remember: You can only kiss so much ass before your face starts smelling like shit. Just do whatever it takes to win that and hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass later. Bonus points for telling everyone taking corporate money is bad while taking a mountain of corporate money.

Also. This is the point where you start promising shit to everybody.

4. Spend an ASSLOAD of money on commercial-time. Have some person on the screen that the average viewer would think: “that person looks trustworthy. I should listen to what they have to say.” Say something along the lines of “I trust [you] to make everything awesome, and you should too… unless you support hunting babies for sport. Vote for [you] in the upcoming primary if you’re against hunting babies for sport.”

5. You’ve won the primary! Now you have to do the same thing all over again, but with different people! Although, this time you get to crank the personal attacks to 11 and really just lay into the person you’re debating.

Now that you’ve got your core belief rhetoric, your party decided, and the primary won — let’s revisit your beliefs (point 2 above). Anything else you believe beyond those points can be thrown out the window because it’s not ultimately about what you believe — it’s about the stupid dummy things your butthole, puppy-kicking, littering, dipshit, good-for-nothing opponent believes. Your ideas are way better — even if they’re the same (because you believe your beliefs harder than your open-mouth coughing, loud gum-chewing opponent, WHO IS ALSO KNOWN FOR HABITUALLY drinking nearly all of the milk but leaving just a little bit even though it’s not nearly enough to justify returning the milk to the fridge).

At this point you should probably pick a Vice President. We suggest Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. If DTRJ isn’t free, uh, throw a dart at a board. Maybe Ellen?

6. Isn’t politics fascinating?

7. “Write” a book. Find a good ghostwriter (spooky!) to write your book. It’s got to be memoir-ish. It’ll be a New York Times best-seller for sure. You’ve got to humanize yourself to the public, so make sure Casper the Friendly Ghostwriter writes about how much time you’ve spent helping the homeless and less about how you spent half your trip to Mexico pantsless. No judgement here — it’s certainly an achievement, but SOME people don’t see it that way.

8. It’s time to strategize. You’re probably thinking, “Wow MUI, I’ve got a lot ahead of me — I’ve got to convince every American I’m up for being President.” You sweet summer child, you couldn’t be any more wrong. Popular vote is about as useful as a two-legged donkey in a three-legged donkey race. You want those sweet, sweet electoral college votes. So, ignore most people and really focus down on states that give you a shitload of electoral college votes.

9. Huzzah! You’re President.

Now wasn’t that just a fun little journey. You got to do a bunch of pointless stuff that really didn’t prove to anyone that you were President-worthy and at the end of all of that, you don’t even have to be liked by the majority of the people. What you did get to do is call people names and spend 100’s of millions of good ol’ American greenbacks. So at least there’s that.

For those of you going “Wow, that’s a lot of bullshit.” WE FEEL YOU. That’s why we’re here to help. Here’s the issues that we’ve identified with the current process:

Each candidate running spends a lot of money to:

1. Barely get any time to explain their beliefs, values, and how all that is transferable logic to them doing a good job as President. No one gets to truly understand the person behind the persona.
2. There’s a distinct lack of transparency about the nature and behavior of a candidate. They opt to tell you whether or not they’re fiscally responsible, emotionally stable, and in OK health. We’re not saying all these should be a requirement, but it sure would be nice to know how the potential President tested on this Psychopathy Checklist.
3. Interrupt our 10 minute bathroom breaks (watching videos on the toilet) with their shitty commercials. LOOKING AT YOU MIKE BLOOMBERG — the only thing Mike is getting done is interrupting us enjoying our brief video-based respite while we take our log shipment to the sawmill.
4. Be subject to snap-judgements based solely on their age, gender, weight, race, etc…

Now we love standing up in front of a crowd and podium pounding as much as the next guy or gal, but we can’t help but think there’s a better way. Stay tuned for part one of our solution!

Next part can be found here

XOXO

Minimally Useful Industries