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The Election: a Referendum on the End of the World

A few more hours, that all the time we've got!

 That, of course, is almost what Lerner and Lowe wrote for Alfred P. Doolittle, in My Fair Lady.  Alfred P. was facing his own end time--that is to say:  marriage.

We, three hundred million of us, are at election day, and it is clear to many a religious pundit that having to choose between Alfred P. Trump and Eliza Clinton. . . .   ("No!", I am saying to myself, "Stop!", but I cannot.  I am mesmerized by this deep understanding of what an election is.)

People like Michael Brendon Dougherty say that this election is God's way of pronouncing judgment upon us .  I do not know who Michael Brendon Dougherty is, but he seems to represent a Band of Believers who say that when God wants to condemn a nation, he gives them a Presidential election, or something like that, and Boom!  Kawhop!  The end of the world is upon them!  Armageddon!  Judgment Day!  Orange Hair!  Ticks and fleas!  Pants suits!  Uppity women!  Higher taxes!  A single-payer health care system!  A big man with small, groping hands!  Endless e-mails!  Everything evil!  The end of The New York Times!

A few more hours!  That's all the time we've got!

Now, I am an ordinary man, resting easy with Doomsday predictions, having already cast my mail-in ballot, but I did that before I understood that God was just setting me up for the end of time; for judgment; for a final ballot count.

Sneaky!, is what I think.  All I was doing was choosing between the best that the Republican and Democratic Parties could give us, for which I will be held eternally responsible, which is like being condemned to hell for choosing between charred hamburgers off a runaway grill, on the one hand, and mom's meat and potatoes, on the other.

But I can tell you this:  the ways of God are mysterious.  I voted, fearing the results, I will admit, but not knowing that it was some kind of cosmic, end-time affair.  I thought that maybe the Republican Party had lost its mind, but, oh well, it had given evidence of that, anyway, in Congress, where it had not voted anything but "Nay" for eight years, except maybe to send Obama back to Kenya, and Hillary to jail, and to repeal health care to be replaced by something they would think of later, when they got back to thinking again.

I shall not go easy into that good night.  We are going to join friends tonight, to watch how the election goes, how the end of the world happens, but I am bringing a magic potion to soften the blow.  Maybe it won't be the end of the world:  maybe it will just be the end of a long, dark day in America.


Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 8, 2016 at 1:10 PM

    No matter the outcome, when these two are the "best" our nation can offer, America is in sad shape. Only my opinion--not speaking for the masses. Conrad, I do enjoy, though usually disagree, with you. I admire you as a person who loves baseball, and as a person with a different filter by which you see the world. Keep writing!

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