I Voted!

Those who have seen my Facebook profile picture know that I have said I will be voting for Bloom County characters Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin, representing the Meadow Party. County strip creator Berke Breathed used the two for satirizing the American presidential election process in 1984 and 88, not realizing that 2024 would produce an election that defies satire.

At the polling place today, I wrote in those names. My state's election laws forbid write-in votes, so my choice to do so made my presidential vote invalid -- the conscientious poll workers explained that to me when I told them my intentions. Of course, the political realities of my state invalidate my ballot already. Even when state government was deep, deep blue we did not give our electoral votes to a Democrat, and have not since 1964. Since I will never vote for Donald Trump, my presidential vote is irrelevant. Other matters, such as judicial nominations, I took far more seriously -- I have no intention of letting our current governor have any say in three state supreme court justices, for example.

Some might wonder if the choice to vote for cartoon characters indicates I'm not taking this presidential election seriously. Indeed, I am not.

But neither major party did either. This election has been about vibes, memes, joy, couches, accusations of fascism, the Handmaid's Tale, who is and is not weird...and a full brigade of other matters that have nothing to do with the job of President of the United States. In the last couple of days prior to the vote, dueling billionaires told their supporters that an incorrect vote might make this the last election ever. Elon Musk assured people at a GOP rally that such was the case, and Oprah Winfrey told supporters of Vice-President Harris they face the exact same danger if they vote differently than she urged them to do. I don't remember much from high school math, but I'm pretty sure opposites cancel each other out and leave you with zero. Which is coincidentally the value of such statements.

The candidates mentioned things like foreign policy, border problems and a few other actual issues, but not in any way that suggested they had substantive ideas about how to deal with them. Former president Donald Trump suggested that wages earned from tips and Social Security payments not be taxed. Ms. Harris suggested large scale lending programs to help minority men start businesses.

Neither candidate addressed the recurring budget deficits and the ticking time bomb of our national debt. Neither candidate has a plan for what to do when money runs out for Social Security and Medicare, triggering deep and painful automatic cuts enacted in bills by legislators now retired or, well, buried.

Mr. Trump is a goof and an ignoramus, a man who is for any policy that gets him cheered for by whatever crowd he is in front of. Ms. Harris ran a failed campaign in 2020 that floundered before a single primary vote was cast. She became the Democratic nominee when her party took a look at the man behind the curtain of pretended mental acuity and found him napping.

Other people are voting for one of these two candidates or one of a handful of also-rans. Many of them thought about what they wanted from a President and decided which candidate most closely matches it. Many more took a look at what they didn't want and are voting for the candidate that overlaps that list the least.

Though I am holding to a banner that suggests neither two major party candidates are worth the ink it would take to check their names, I respect any voter who thought about this election and made a decision. Every one of them put in more intellectual work than either major political party has done all year.

In 1988, Opus the Penguin became the Meadow Party VP nominee because he had gone out for snacks when the vote was taken. He took over most of the campaigning because presidential candidate Bill the Cat had joined a cult (better than the '84 campaign, when he was dead. It's a long story). The storyline is of course absurd when compared to real life.

But if you close one eye and say, "Thppt! Ack..."