I hate politics. I think you’ll agree with me in saying, regardless of if it went in your favor or not, “THANK GOD THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS ARE OVER!” I try as hard as I can not to get too involved in politics; my reasons are twofold. One, I don’t trust politicians further than I can throw them. I don’t care how much one of them want’s to work for “the greater good,” there is no way for that to happen because our government is far too corrupt...that is another topic in and of itself. Two, politics frustrates and bores me and I, there for, have no desire to know anymore than I absolutely have to about it. Don’t get me wrong, I have my semi-educated opinions but that’s about as far as I take it. I did, however, find this mid-term election quite interesting and not because of the topics that were futilely being debated. Rather, the amount of advertising and campaigning that went into it is what hooked me.
It seemed that when a TV show went to commercial break the entire three minutes were filled with back-to-back campaign ads. You may have gotten one Empire Carpet or KFC commercial squeezed in right before the show came back on but for the most part it was all smear ads. Now, I understand that every time there’s an election there’re an unbelievable amount of commercials...I get that. But each time another election cycles through, the ads seem to separate themselves more and more from informing us about what the candidate has done to make us want to vote him/her into office and focus more and more on what their opponent has done to make them unworthy to share the air you and I are breathing. “Did you know that candidate John Smith didn’t go to his daughter’s fifth grade dance recital but thought it more important to attend a black tie gala in honor of his political party? Bad father = Bad senator.” Alright, that wasn’t actually an ad but it would have been a sweet one! After all of this, I still haven’t gotten to the part that really chapped my ass.
The 2010 U.S. Mid-Term Elections were the most expensive to date totaling approximately $3.98 billion. Again, 3.98 BILLION DOLLARS.
That’s right. The “for the people” politicians raised and spent almost $4 billion to tell you why you shouldn’t elect the other guy/girl. I know it’s a radical idea but how about putting that money into, oh, I don’t know, the struggling public school system? The same one they promise to help fix. Hold on, I don’t want to be greedy, maybe only use $1 billion. Listen, if we keep cutting our kids’ art classes there won’t be anyone who knows how to make all those campaign graphics for the 2026 election!
There is only one person who I came out of this election respecting and that is Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White. The reason is simple; I saw one campaign ad for him, I saw it air only twice, and the content was completely about what he had done while in office.
We need to demand more from our politicians. They are elected into office to serve us, the people, yet they are completely fine with unnecessarily spending billions of dollars on campaigns to boast about how great they’ll be for us.
But, what do I know, I hate politics.
If you have a suggestion or an observation about something, anything, please e-mail it to me at ducttapebacon@gmail.com or feel free to post a comment.
Cheers,
- Justin
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