A Brief Introduction

This is going to sound weird,

but Greg was never really

my friend.

Greg was someone I knew,

who was in the next class up,

who was a fellow actor

in school productions,

and that's the brief summary

of what he really was,

in the grand scheme of things,
in relation to my life.

But more than that,

he ended up meaning

a great deal

to me,

and I will never let the name,

Greg,

Greg Lefler,

be forgotten,

if I have anything

to say about it,

which of course I do,

which is why

I'm writing about him,

again,

and will continue to do so

for as long as I have means

to do so.

The Popular Vote

So the popular vote

is what you get

when you go

to a polling station

or mail in your ballot

or fill it in early

at city hall,

the one that counts

every vote,

that shows exactly how popular

a candidate is,

and when a candidate

is a truly overwhelming favorite

I think no one worries

except the other party,

which redoubles its efforts later

to make sure that can't possibly 

happen again,

at least not next time.

The only time we elected someone

four times, we let that guy

actually die in office

we were so incapable

of imagining anyone else

(not that other presidents

didn't die, besides by assassination

while serving).

Somehow no one has ever really

been too popular

for the good of the nation

to move on

and find someone else.

Which is the point.

So that's another reason

to stop worrying

so much

about the one of two ways

we determine

who has the mandate,

because in the final analysis

it's always the American people,

which is the whole point.

Jerrymandering

Of course you've got to acknowledge

jerrymandering,

in which politicians

redefine

the lines

in which they're coloring,

just trying to find

some small advantage,

but unless people

are actually moving,

choosing where to live,

based on the results,

I mean,

who's really worried

so much as someone

who thinks such petty maneuvering

changes anything

but the goalposts

in a game with enough time

for the Patriots

in their best form

to pull of a victory

in the very jaws

of defeat.

It's just another stupid political tool;

if you can't work your way around that

you already lost.

Political Parties, VII

And,

most of all,

quit thinking

of elected officials

as the elite

even if they

invariably

are drawn from them,

maybe just imagine

them as Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith,

headed to Washington,

naive enough

to think they can get something done

because most of them

really do start off that way

and it's only the relentless pressure

that changes them

into something else,

a soundbyte

that existed

long before social media

where everyone else

could parrot the same lines,

with different thoughts

behind them,

a vicious cycle

and circle

that eats itself

like an ouroboros,

a snake in the grass

that needs tending,

the blood of patriots

(now probably metaphorical). 

Political Parties, VI

I've been registered

as an independent

for as long

as I've been a voter.

It's kind of a tradition

up in Maine

where I grew up.

Jesse Ventura

grabbed all the headlines

in his buckskin

and memories

of when he was

"The Body"

over in Minnesota

but in Maine

we had Angus King

who went from Augusta

to the Senate

and that was all a kind of affirmation

for someone

who still believes

there can be

a middle ground

in the battlelines

of politics

in the United States.

I'm not saying

it's a solution

for everyone

but I'm kind of tired

of the overpolarization

of society,

of the inability

to imagine

reaching across the aisle

much less 

just trying

to be a civil servant

and getting things done

every once in a while.

Political Parties, V

Third parties

haven't existed

in any real sense

since the two party system

was codified

in the wake

of the Civil War.

And this is

a kind of shame.

Anytime

someone has tried,

and here I think

of Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose,

the Green Party,

all the many small parties

that crowd out

the instant also-rans

every election ballot,

even Ross Perot,

whatever he was,

they forget

how hard it is

to compete

with the two conventions

that get all the coverage

the summer before

we vote.

To be effective,

I think,

you've got to participate

in both these things,

even if they can't vote for you,

you've got to appeal

to both parties

and to neither.

You've got to pretend

you really want

to find some way

to unite

the United States.

Crazy, I know.

Political Parties, IV

Now,

I have to explain

once again

that I don't hate

all Democrats

or the party itself

mostly because

the last time

I talked about them

in poems

someone took it

really really really

badly,

not just because

I called them Demagogs

but maybe?

To me the Democrats

aren't Jefferson

or Jackson

or Clevend,

Wilson, Carter,

Clinton, Obama, Biden

or even FDR,

but JFK,

whom I still like to idealize

as one of the greatest Americans

who ever lived,

whose ambitions for the country

were greater in public

than they were in private,

whose rhetoric truly soared

and is still unequalled

except maybe by Lincoln,

who was assassinated

at about a thousand days

and whose work

was completed by Johnson,

who would never have dreamed

of a great society

if not for that day

in Dallas,

who suffered

through the darkest days

of the Cold War

and brilliantly navigated

through tragedy and triumph

as no other president had before

or since,

and we all still live

in his shadow

and can't agree

how he was killed

mostly because

we remain

in shock

that it ended

so suddenly,

and so can't honestly contend

with his legacy.

That's the Democrats

to me,

what they've been so obviously chasing

ever since,

not just Clinton

but Carter before him,

Obama, 

the true myths 

of Camelot

held up by a stiff backboard

and a winning smile

and a brother

who could also

have been great,

helped him be great

and suffered the same fate

for it.

Political Parties, III

The Republicans

are called

the Grand Old Party

mostly because,

as far as I can tell,

due to their origins

under Lincoln

and the winning

of the Civil War,

although being in control

more or less

until Wilson

and the early 20th century,

tended to lump their achievements

under the dubious results

of Reconstruction,

in which politics

got in the way

of achieving things

as much as humanly possible

although you will seldom 

hear it described that way,

and more the litany

of Republican presidents

up to and including Grant

who couldn't get better results,

including the first impeachment,

Johnson, probably mostly because

he was going to try lenience,

which by the way

was also what Lincoln wanted,

but Johnson was in office

and someone had to make a point

and it kept getting made

and it's still being made

today,

and so Republicans

are now known

as the backward people

rather than literally the ones

who fought to make

today's America

possible

despite massive opposition

and not just from the Confederacy.

People forget

that the Democrats existed

in those days,

despising and working against

Lincoln all the way through,

that his election

was mostly because

the Democrats

couldn't find someone

they all agreed on,

but they certainly agreed

to oppose him

in the North as well as in the South,

and today we believe

thanks to Civil Rights

which became a legacy of JFK

that finally almost 

sort of actually happened,

because a few Democrats

became Republicans

during this time

it was believed

that all Republicans

somehow completely swapped places

with all Democrats,

who became the party

of the disenfranchised

so long as they could

get their votes

and keep them messed up

at the same time,

a proud tradition

that continues

to this day!

Political Parties, II

So incredibly,

Americans didn't always have

Democrats and Republicans.

We used to have the Whigs.

The Whigs!

I'm not politically savvy enough

with the history

to give you a lesson

about the roots

of all the parties

named and unnamed,

ahtough certainly

there were obvious allegiances,

divides,

all the way back to the beginning,

and I'm not just talking

Virginians

and everyone else,

or Bostonians,

who led the revolutionary charge

and were thus

the actual first party

in the country

(I heard they had tea!),

much less explain

what exactly

the Whigs

built themselves

around,

so this is just

an introduction.

How do you do?

Political Parties, I

Hey,

so why're they called parties?

No one seems to have any fun

at them.

It Doesn't Count If It Only Counts When You Win

I tend to be distrustful

of a party

when it complains about something

only when it doesn't win,

when it counts on its base

to trot out the same stupid argument

and the same need to explain

the same thing that has existed

for what is now

hundreds of years.

A Brief Explanation of the Real Origins

The genius

of American politics

that has proven

so difficult

to duplicate

let alone

comprehend

is the chaos

that is at its heart,

the chaos that is contained

in three branches

of government,

the concept

of checks and balances

that has so far

utterly failed

to actually produce

the kind of chaos

you will find

in the histories

of most other nations,

and here I'm including

the Civil War,

in which Lincoln's election

literally split off a piece

of the country

for a few years,

and most people

North and South

despised him

and yet he pushed on

and the North still fought

and ended up reconciling

even if we still seem

to be reassembling the pieces

some hundred and fifty years

later.

Now,

we have to start farther back,

of course,

in the aftermath

of another war,

in which thirteen colonies

which had banded together

on the battlefield

found themselves tasked

with finding some happy medium

in a single government

between them.

This was not a tidy

or swift

process,

no, not at all,

and even when Washington

took the lead

one more time

there was actual rebellion

that just continued

to happen.

The delegates charged

with coming up with a country

could hardly agree

on anything,

and even when they did

they had to come up with

a series of amendments,

a term so common now

we take it for granted,

and the reason for all this

was because the "united states"

still thought of themselves

as separate and each wanted

to be taken seriously,

not just the ones

with the loudest voices

but, well, all of them.

So they took the popular vote,

the one that counted all of them,

and supplemented that

with the Electoral College,

 a weighted, mathematical solution,

and declared this one,

where all voices could truly be heard

and said this was how

presidents would win office.

The term

"tyranny of the majority"

is what keeps getting bandied about

to explain the concept,

and yet it never seems

to get the job done,

because mob rule

always tries to legitimize itself

even when it inevitably

succumbs

to the rule of the few,

which is what representation,

which even when it never seems

to represent anything

but bickering,

means,

which is kind of

the whole point

of the United States,

and therefore

that pesky Electoral College.

Fake History

these days it's popular

to complain about people

spreading fake news

but i'm sorry to report

that this has been happening

probably for as long

as people had spoken language

and probably even before that

so to complain about it now

is a little disingenuous

but the real problem

is people being led to believe

fake history

not just edited history

but outright fake history

such as explaining

the real origins

of the Electoral College

were specifically

to codify

the institution of slavery

so that black people

could be counted

but not included

in the vote

which i cannot even begin

to comprehend

as a rational explanation

because of course

it's the complete opposite

of what the Electoral College

actually does

and this is not to complain

that there are people 

who actually believe this

or to judge them for it

but to illustrate

how easy it is

to let fake history

permeate

and even encourage it

so that you can get

the election results

you want

or at least hope you can

use it as a continual

bargaining tool

rather than

actually trying

to do the things

you say you will

when all you really want

is to win an election

with or without

the Electoral College