Yeah, Definitely Wouldn't Wanna Be A Yank

So, my rellies came and went, more or less without incident. Then I had a severe, prolonged bout of hay-fever. First one for a couple of months. Hope this doesn't turn into a regular thing again, like it was at the start of the year.

Anyway, I check in on overseas affairs the other day, and I see that the Yanks are now shooting each other in the streets over political affiliation. In the run up to the 2016 election, I said that if things followed their (then) current trajectory, this result would be inevitable. I think I likened it to the mini-civil wars that flare up every time the Thais go to the polls. To be honest though, I dunno if I predicted it was going to happen quite this quickly.

But here's something I find even more interesting: It has now become a common belief on both the far left and far right, that both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to lose the election on purpose. Allow me to give this theory some air …

Trump and Biden both want to be president, but they'd like to be a lame-duck president with a hostile senate and house of reps. Likewise, everyone in congress wants to keep their own seat, but would prefer to be in opposition rather than holding the reins of power. "Why's that?", you may well ask. Let me explain.

It's generally considered common knowledge that the American government has no interest in serving the masses. They exist solely to serve the interests of the wealthy donor class. There have even been a number of academic studies on this topic that you hear referenced whenever this theory comes up. Since a handful of billionaires has effectively bought up both of the major parties, from a policy standpoint it doesn't much matter which mob gets voted into office—the same neo-liberal agenda is going to get pushed through regardless. So, why would most elected representatives want to be in the minority party?

Well, why wouldn't they? When you're in opposition, nobody can hold you accountable for anything. You get to pretend you're against all the horrible policies you're secretly in favour of, and you get to make all kinds of grandiose speeches about all the things you'd do differently if you were in power. On top of that, it's where you get to make the big bucks. Republicans were raking in the dough, when they could fool their supporters into thinking Obama was a communist Muslim who was planning to abolish the constitution, and now the Dems are shaking down their base with a similar narrative of Trump being a Kremlin-backed Nazi who will refuse to leave office when he loses the election. Nothing gets a true-believer to empty their pockets faster than telling them they're in existential peril—just ask any evangelical preacher.

If this theory is correct, it doesn't bode well for our Yankee mates. If their political bodies have actually become that cynical and corrupt, then neither side has any incentive to try to rein in the violence we're seeing at the moment. In fact, the exact opposite is true, and this might just be the start of something much much worse.