WAS What Adults are Saying about the Election of 2076
Our wacky Tricentennial election has much precedent
In celebrating our nation’s 300th birthday just weeks ago many of us reflected on part of our nation’s history—especially in Presidential election years. Recency bias leads us to think what we now confront in the election of 2076 couldn’t possibly have precedent in terms of either weirdness or the dirty tricks used to garner our vote. Of course, that bias makes us incorrect. Long before we hit the “big three double oh” America has seen some real electoral doozies we’ve termed “Presidential Elections.” Consider:
The election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden was so full of chicanery that 200 years later historians still aren’t sure what happened! For the record Hayes won by one electoral vote but only after months of wrangling, infighting and nocturnal quid pro quo about challenged electoral votes from southern states that’s never been fully unraveled. Only the informal Compromise of 1877 ended the impasse mere days before the inaugural. That political agreement (never codified as law or in any written form) resulted in what today we call “civil rights” being put into a deep freeze until after World War II.
The nation removed all Federal armies that remained in a vanquished South and cast a blind-eye about southern white’s treatment of newly freed blacks. What followed was a galling history with which we still struggle. Tilden had easily won the popular vote and to this day historians generally agree that no candidate (not even Al Gore v. George W. Bush in 2000) had been more wrongly cheated from Presidential office than Tilden. Hayes went on to serve one under-whelming term foreshadowing a long history of Republicans in the Oval Office.
The Election of 1972 was very weird in that it was both a landslide victory for the Republican incumbent Richard Nixon and also launched what was then the greatest Presidential scandal of all time. The ethically-challenged and former Vice President Nixon had nearly become President in 1955 when Dwight Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack. His narrow 1968 victory against Hubert Humphrey brought to the Oval Office slimy, divisive politics—having been learned years earlier from Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy and his lover Roy Cohn.
Despite that Nixon’s approval ratings were very high at the start of 1972. Forever paranoid and self-doubting but enthralled with political dirty-tricks, his Administration burglarized the Democratic National Party headquarters at Washington’s Watergate hotel. In pursuit of opponent’s campaign strategy, the break-in was bungled and forced an administrative cover-up directly touched by Nixon that would later cost him his presidency. However, in the run-up to the election the contours of the scandal were not yet known. In November Nixon smashed Democrat George McGovern, was given a strong voter mandate and then was almost immediately consumed by what had become the Watergate scandal. This culminated in the only Presidential resignation from office some 18 months into his second-term.
The Election of 2024 was also nuts. It was to feature the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden against the former President he had beaten four years earlier in Donald Trump. By early ‘24 Trump had been indicted on nearly 100 Federal and state counts on matters such as theft of national security documents, strong-arming state election officials to reverse vote counts and facilitating the famous “January 6th attack” on the nation’s capitol. In that the Republican’s could find no other national candidate any less felonious than Trump, they supported him for another term—this after he was scandalously acquitted TWICE on impeachment charges.
In his candidacy Trump was openly clear his election would result in self-pardon to any Federal convictions he faced and he would release hundreds of those serving sentences for their part in the January 6th mayhem. The sheer volume of civil and criminal defense Trump faced at the beginning of the year was overwhelming and made unclear how he might even campaign. Many in The Republican party quietly longed for the “controlled criminality” of Richard Nixon or even the juvenile intellect of George W. Bush—two Republican Presidents who left office as broadly unpopular—instead of the divisive Trump who had taken Goldwater/Reagan politics of “us vs. them” to dizzying extremes.
Despite first pledging to be a one-term President, Biden emerged as his party’s favorite and heavily moneyed efforts were made to re-elect him. An unusually early debate (even before either party’s convention) was held in late June where Biden performed miserably. Almost overnight an already jittery Democratic party lost faith in his candidacy and within three weeks, in an unprecedented move, had pushed Vice-President Kamala Harris to the top if its ticket.
Meanwhile the US Supreme Court took other unprecedented steps of first delaying, then granting to Trump as former President, immunity from some of the charges Federal prosecutors had levied. This effort was further coordinated with various US Circuit Courts who were also party to the various “Trump Trials” where sympathetic judges simply began dismissing cases against the former President. In what was an open and jaw-dropping case of judicial buy-off, all Trump Federal trials were either dismissed or delayed for the duration of the campaign—during which twice—gunmen attempted to assassinate him!
By election day Americans were exhausted from a mind-bending campaign that among others things has Trump assert “liberal doctors aborted babies after they were born’ and legal Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating a town’s “cats and dogs.” Most America breathed a sigh of relief when this ended with a clear Harris victory—making her the first woman ever elected to the Presidency.
Trump’s trials then continued resulting in multiple convictions. Continuing Supreme Court intervention kept him out of prison for awhile but by 2028 incarceration was at hand. In a surprising 11th-hour move, Trump sought exile in Saudi Arabia and—ever the performer—held one final tarmac speech adjacent to his iconic aircraft. Still raging, he sucked in an awkward breath, swallowed his tongue and ultimately choked to death on his own vomit. Nearby Secret Service officers offered a half-hearted revival (while carefully avoiding any mouth-to-mouth techniques) but failed to save him. As a fleeing, convicted, sentenced and disgraced President, Trump simply died there on the tarmac having never served a day in jail or paying any of the many penalties levied against him—drawing parallels with the final scene in 1975’s A Dog Day Afternoon.
So as crazy as we like to think the 2076 election is remember we have seen some serious batshit nutso before. The bigger question might be are today’s candidates any more corrupt or unhinged than was Hayes, Nixon or Trump? Well let’s look and see.
First off consider Atheist candidate Z24-17. Originally born in upstate New York with female genitalia, they and long-term male sperm donor partner raised six precocious children in suburban Buffalo. The coupling were successful in business after introducing a way that pizza topping preferences could instantly be transformed into human-like avatars. Licensing this technology to the entertainment industry made them fabulously wealthy and has led to some of America’s newest demographic groups including—the Pepperoni Mushroom people of Cleveland.
They entered politics after inspiration from the amazing ceremony associated with the 2042 state funeral of President Jimmy Carter. This led to stints on the local school board, state Senate and then as New York’s junior US Senator. They are well versed in Beltway norms including hermetically-sealed legislating that is permitted without EBAP (external, breathing apparatus). Two of they’s children have applied for Lake Woebegon status while the remaining all work in the longtime family business, Wing This Boomer.
Z-24’s 10-year rolling carbon footprint is a +2 in the inner circle and -3 and -5 respectively in concentric rings two and three. Their’s current sleep partner hold’s similar footprint ratings while the bedroom turnover ratio is .47.
Due to medical modification in 2059 of adding two chromosomes, they are subject to heightened national security checks when within the Washington, D.C. sector. Pending an anticipated Supreme Court decision in the coming term, they is currently regarded as a one-count under the rules of the Unites States Census.
They is a champion of a Constitutional Amendment removing the word “God” from all US currency and various state legislative efforts limiting full-employment to only those with an IQ above 125.
The opponent is the nominee from the Sino-NFT-Christo party Moses$x2—or more popularly known as “mo-doe squared.” He is the lone child born to two gender conventional Texas Energy executives who later, were among the first to be convicted and imprisoned on inter-planetary wire fraud charges in 2060.
Privately schooled he was collegiately trained at the Southwest School of Propaganda and Gaslight Arts. In his graduate studies he became an overnight sensation when developing the first reliable technique by which human sperm could be attached to an e-mail. His subsequent commercial venture—Digital Love Fly—built wealth that even exceeds his opponent. As of this writing his publicly-traded company has a market capitalization making it America’s 7th largest company falling between Cosmic Mining Group and Mcdonalds.
“Mo Doe” is a conventional heterosexual with a five-year practice purity rating of .83. He and his conventional heterosexual female partner Lars, reside in Northwest Houston behind a private seawall that reaches some 30 feet. There they have raised a family of four—all of whom work in leadership roles at Digital Love Fly.
His carbon footprint is a -7 in his inner circle and -34 and -57 in the next two rings. Lars’ values are similar. With a bedroom turnover ratio of 3.21 he is widely regarded by his country club pals. Lars meanwhile is reported in recent years as having taken up sewing and drawn to Annette Bening films.
Politically he opposes Constitutional Amendments that seek to standardize voting procedures for Federal office, the removal of the word “God” from US currency and opposes the movement seeking to provide transgendered individuals with double Social Security benefits. This is Mo doe’s first attempt at elected public office.
These candidates really don’t invite comparison with Lincoln, FDR or even Kennedy now do they? On the other hand they are not God-awful either. Sure they may both appear as underwhelming and reluctant to address the rapidly growing issue of discarded firearm and ammunition piles polluting our waterways. But they are serviceable! To both the Constitution is revered, all efforts to stop lobbying the Supreme Court are supported and both vigorously defend laws requiring white-collar convicts to pay their fines. Surely when we cast our vote in the coming days—one way or the other—we’ll have to hold our nose a little but it’s not like we risk choking on our own vomit! Get out and vote and may the best man/he/she their/woman/android win.