I’m firmly in the “both major party nominees suck” category. Because that’s the only rational place to be. They are both horrible. The two worst presidents in my lifetime are Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and it really doesn’t matter which one is officially the worst, it’s been eight awful years for America, with another four years of suck virtually guaranteed.

And yet, despite the fact that both of these old idiots are, well, old an idiotic, there is this bizarre core of people who not only approve of their respective party’s nominee, but actually worship the stupid old POS.

I just… can’t.

Apart from the fact that the FACTS show that both these guys are flat-out terrible as presidents and human beings, the whole concept of hero-worshipping a politician is just weird.

There’s a great quote out there: “Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.” It’s right on the money.

I can understand promoting your issues and promoting the candidate who most closely represents your issues. That’s what representative democracy is about.

But that’s what we’re not talking about. We’re talking about people who are shamelessly giving away their power and dignity to an obviously flawed old man. That just doesn’t make sense.

Why would you do that? Why would you idolize a politician, ANY politician? And then why would you idolize either of these jackasses? Seriously, what’s WRONG with you??

Again, it’s not just these two losers. Idolizing some former bartender who spouts Marxist bullshit, or some old crank who also spouts Marxist bullshit, is also idiotic. As is idolizing some South American politician who claims to be libertarian, until he decided to not be libertarian in the way you think he should. Idolizing some diminutive, corrupt bureaucrat who shut down the country is fucking idiotic.

Maintaining a sense of dignity and skepticism is a critical part of being a normally functioning human being. We don’t owe politicians or bureaucrats anything. They work for us, they owe us. I can’t comprehend the whole following politicians like a stupid puppy.

But there are a lot of people who really don’t want to be fully-functioning humans. They want to outsource their critical thinking and personal responsibility to some “leader.”

I first saw this bizarre flaw in human behavior while watching the 1992 Democratic convention where some delegate was holding a sign “Lead Us.” It hit me as so… off. Why work your ass off, donate time and money and your gifts, to blindly hand them over to someone like that? Such a weird paradox, to work so hard to give away your personal power like that.

Most people don’t want agency. They want to follow. They really want to be sheep, they just don’t want to be reminded that they’re being sheep. “Get along to go along” is the low-friction way to live. But it’s not really living. It’s an externally-controlled passivity that robs us of our humanity. Because most people don’t really want their humanity, it bothers them to think about it.

So we end up with this large blob of semi-humanity that worships complete losers like Biden and Trump. And the rest of us are stuck with these shitty choices, and the shitty society that emanates from these crappy choices.

God damn sheep…