Time Capsule: The Worst Campaign Year Ever

There's a lot of pissing and moaning about how awful 2016 is, as an election year, as a campaign. How it seems to presage The End of Democracy As We Know It. The possible horrors of a Trump victory. The almost-unbearable drumbeat from the media, focusing on the racist, xenophobic elements of the GOP and how they're being enabled and encouraged. The appalling abrogation of its responsibilities by the Fourth Estate, in the tank for their corporate GOP owners, jumping on every conceivable opportunity to trash the Democratic candidate and ignoring every flaw in the Republican candidate.

It's pretty awful, alright. And it's in-your-face 24/7, in your email inbox, all over your search engine ads, in every social media feed, and oh, yes, the ads on broadcast and cable television... for those who still indulge the quaint habit of watching that.

I'll grant this ubiquity may SEEM to make it the worst ever. It certainly ups the irritation level to where most of us are counting the hours and minutes until the election is definitively called for the winner the way a short-time con looks forward to that metal gate sliding open...

But no, this is NOT the worst ever.

Not the worst election, not even the worst campaign.

At least, not in my experience.

Join me in the time capsule, and maybe it'll make you feel both a little more hopeful and a little bit grateful not to have been around in a time when...

American young men were being conscripted in ever-increasing numbers, to fight in Southeast Asia. There was no social media, no citizen-journalist forum readily available. The News, such as it was, came to almost ALL of us via three major, corporate-owned network sources on television, at suppertime and bedtime, and it fed us a relentless parade of war horrors and propaganda, mixed together. Even the hired help- the journalists, anchors, and news-readers- were starting to be sickened by the level of propaganda.

The FBI was under the control of a creepy, self-hating, power-mad lunatic who made no bones at all about his vendetta against all things and people leftward on the ideological spectrum. He had no hesitation about running domestic surveillance, entrapment, provocation, and dirty tricks against his enemies list, and that list stretched to infinity.

At the end of March-- with primary/caucus season already well underway-- the sitting Democratic President read the signs of his own growing unpopularity, especially in a South seething with racist backlash, and removed himself from the primary ballot. That left three major, credible candidates in the race, bitterly dividing the left, with passionate followers injecting vilification and negativity into every Party meeting, and sniping from 'outside' to bring down a Democratic establishment perceived as sold out to the military-industrial complex and tools of conservative repression.

America had finally, reluctantly, had basic voting rights for black people pried from the clutches of Jim Crow, over the virulent (and violent) objections of nearly half the country. And in April, when we were well into the caucus-and-primary season, the most prominent exponent of peaceful change and equity for minorities and the poor was gunned down in cold blood by a racist prick. Riots erupted across the nation.

13,600 Federal troops were required to restore order in DC after four days of looting and violence. Three days of curfew and more than 6,000 National Guard brought an end to Chicago's disorder... for the moment. Baltimore burned and Maryland governor Spiro Agnew saw a chance to burnish his law-and-order cred, throwing gasoline on the fire by requesting 5000 paratroopers, artillery, and combat engineers from Fort Bragg and deploying them to the streets with fixed bayonets and chemical dispersers.

In June, with the Democratic National Convention barely two months away, the charismatic, idealistic, anti-war candidate won the California Primary. For a few short hours it looked as though leadership was emerging, and unity was possible. Then the candidate was assassinated in a hotel kitchen after giving his victory speech.

The anti-war activists blamed the Party establishment, and their rage spilled into the streets during the Party's national convention.

The Party's reliable backbone, the "Solid South" turned its back on the nominee, who'd worked actively for civil rights throughout his career and had served as Vice President to the "traitor" who'd signed the Voting Rights Act into law. But that was okay, because they had their own third party to support.

The American Independent Party campaigned on a platform of overt, explicit racism, offering a pro-segregationist platform and promising to restore Jim Crow laws and "respect States' Rights" to make their brown citizens second-class. Their nominee was a law-and-order demagogue whose rhetoric pushed every right-wing button, repeatedly and forcefully, and collected hours of air time and reams of press coverage for a campaign evoking copious comparisons to Germany in the 1930s.

The American Independent Party ended up carrying FIVE states in that election.

And the GOP candidate, who looked 'moderate' by comparison, won election... and went on to consolidate enough power (with the help of the FBI director and plenty of other stooges in Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies) to win re-election in spite of the body count in the ongoing undeclared war, widespread domestic surveillance activities, and a swelling tide of barely-concealed cronyism and corruption, using the final illegal and unconstitutional dirty trick that would end in his resignation not quite midway through his second term.

It happened.

I was there.

There is practically NO nightmare from this campaign (except the social media weirdness, which wasn't possible back then, without social media,) that didn't happen first and worse, during the campaign of 1968.

So, this hot mess of a campaign comes to an end, one way or another, tomorrow night. And no one's gladder than I am, believe me. Particularly since I'm genuinely hopeful that we'll have a historic victory for America's future to celebrate.

But don't ever let anyone tell you it's "the worst EVER." It may well be the worst you youngsters will ever live through, and godz know I hope it is that.

But no matter how this one ends, America has endured worse, and survived.

(No, don't try to scare me with the Trumpocalypse, please. I know *exactly* what happens when an outsider, even a politically experienced outsider, gets elected to head the Executive Branch (see: Carter, James Earl, Jr.). Pretty much the entire rest of the government will conspire to shut him down, keep him isolated, and eventually force his resignation. Will it be harmful, painful, and disastrous? Yes. Would it be as disastrous as six years of Richard M. Nixon, or even eight years of Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush? Not bloody likely.)

So what makes THIS election unique?

Not the bad stuff.

The GOOD stuff.

We have a chance to make history. We have a chance to elect the first woman President, and she's not only female, she may well be the most qualified, experienced candidate who's run in my lifetime. A woman who knows where all the string ends are and what all the buttons are connected to.

Not only that, if you're not convinced by what we've learned of her during one of the most grueling campaigns I've ever seen, that she's a person of extraordinary commitment to the well-being of the least-advantaged of our society, with the deep caring and moral strength to act on those principles in spite of overwhelming opposition...

...you have NOT been paying attention.

So. Make history. GET OUT THERE AND VOTE.

Bringing an end to this horrible ordeal will be a nice side effect, though.

historically,
Bright