POLITICS ARE THE REAL 'SPORTSBALL': ELECTION AS PSY-OP

by Andy Nowicki

Three Presidential elections ago, I wrote an article for The Last Ditch entitled “I Loathe Democracy.”

In that piece, composed just days prior to the W. vs. Kerry throw-down of ’04, I noted the “elementary error in logic in the very notion of trusting the majority,” which is after all the principle upon which democracy is predicated. But, I added, the dimensions of my vitriol wasn’t limited to a mere quibble over an unsound calculation:

…on a less theoretical level, I loathe democracy because I hate elections. Election time always puts me in a sour mood, but not so much because of the crassness and phoniness of the various candidates vying for positions of power, since that is only to be expected. And not so much, either, because the state holds elections, although I do oppose them on a fundamental, philosophical level. No, what truly gets under my skin are the relentless commands to hold the "democratic process" in such high esteem.

Put simply, I'm tired of being lectured by pompous celebrities about the importance of voting. I'm sick of slick, hip, youth-oriented MTV "Rock the Vote, Choose or Lose" campaigns, telling stupid and impressionable people that it's their civic duty to report to their precinct on Election Day, regardless of what they know and don't know about politics or anything else.

No matter where politicians stand (or claim to stand) on "the issues," they all declare their firm belief in the importance of voting. That's never an issue. Media types likewise furrow their brow over the growing numbers of people who don't take advantage of the sterling opportunity they have been given by the grace of God to "make a difference" on Election Day. Heaping abuse on people who have the temerity not to vote has become the safest, most non-controversial kind of rhetorical bullying imaginable. Non-voters are slammed as worthless for refusing to participate in the ritual; and every talking head, whether a mouthpiece of the Left, Right, or Center, can be counted on to hector others to "get out the vote," regardless of party affiliation, IQ, or general level of interest in the subject.

A dozen years later, my views on this subject are still essentially the same, though considerably more extreme. I no longer see the chattering class and its coteries as merely a bunch of self-important nags and busybodies, though they are surely that. Instead, it seems to me that there is something altogether more intricate and sinister at work in the so-called “democratic process.”

"Vote or die, muthafucker!"

An essential aspect of this process, after all, appears to involve the relentless bullhornish broadcasting of a scurrilously hyperbolic species of apocalypticism, which, once internalized by the recipient, becomes an intolerable infestation of unease deep in his gut, prompting him to become nearly mad with anxiety, jacked up with inchoate and ultimately impotent rage. That is to say, at every four-year interval, as another Leap Year leaps upon us, there is again an unceasing trumpeting of the notion that everything good about America is about to come to an abrupt and untimely end, unless the “right” guy wins and the “wrong” guy is sent packing.

Every four years, that is, we are treated to a new edition of the same ol’ hustle. namely, that this is “the most important election ever!!!” That “so much is at stake!” That we must “choose or lose,” and if we abstain from this supposedly all-important “choice,” then we are indeed losers who deserve nothing but scorn, even when the so-called choice is between two generally repellent options, or as a memorable episode of "South Park" would have it, between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich.

Twelve years ago, I tended to interpret this altogether obscene state of affairs as a generally spontaneous occurrence. The orgiastic rancor, the onanistic tribalism (“Hooray for our side, boo for their side!”), the petulant propensity towards Sturm und Drang-esque outbursts on the part of the self-appointed guardians of normalcy, (“If X wins, I’m leaving the country!” etc.) the seemingly irresistible compulsion of all involved to lose all perspective, to fixate upon what is essentially multibillion-dollar beauty show as if it were a titanic struggle between Good and Evil—all of these responses to election year politicking just seemed to me to be natural, if overwrought, human responses to the contrived display of intense conflict that is the presidential election season, even if it the season in question indeed proves to be a time “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” as per usual.

Such, again, was how I used to view this regularly scheduled mega-event taking place with Leap Year regularity in the land of the screed and the home of the knave. As I grow ever older, however, I find myself ever less inclined to believe that our real rulers—not the mere mandarins we see on the campaign trail, but their string-pullers from way on high—would allow such a massive ritual to develop spontaneously. Rather, such occasions seem like an ideal opportunity, for the umpteenth time, resume their ongoing campaign of “Operation Divide and Conquer.”

In short, elections are a uniquely opportune occasion for our would-be masters to conduct a massive psy-op upon us, to play upon our fears and hatreds, and in so doing, ultimately render us more pliable and easier to control.

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Think about it. Have you not lately noted that familiar, unwelcome sensation in the pit of your stomach? The feeling of your soul being under siege, of your heart engulfed in a desperation of fear?

Have you not felt yourself roiled into a rage against the stupidity and moral turpitude of at least half of your fellow citizens: that is, towards those who are apparently going to vote for the “other” guy instead of “your” guy?

Do you never wonder, while in the midst of enduring such interior strife and self-induced angst… if someone out there isn’t doing this to you on purpose, to advance his own ends at your expense? And does it never strike you that maybe, just maybe, there exists out there some version of you who’d rather see the “other” guy win, for whom your guy is the “other,” yet who is enduring the exact same psychological ordeal that you are experiencing at the notion that “his” side just might lose to “your” side?

Finally, consider: whichever candidate wins the election, do you honestly think that the architects of the rigged system (and hats off to the current candidate who is calling out the “rigging,” even if he is doing so for patently self-aggrandizing ends), that is to say, the true rulers, would have left this decision to chance? Finally, do you honestly think that such people have anyone’s interests at heart, be they yours, or those of your alter-ego who’s voting for the “other” guy?

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Some may, in the irritatingly ubiquitous contemporary argot, dismiss my observations as “black pill” defeatism, but in fact it is no such thing. Realizing that your true enemy is as depraved and devious as he is powerful isn’t a counsel to knuckle under and accept his wretched rule: quite the opposite. Recognizing that your mind has been messed with isn’t in the least a counsel of hopeless passivity; rather, it is a searing invitation to wake up, as if from a coma, and fling off your conditioned programming like a freed slave sheds his shackles.

And seeing through this whole “presidential election” charade—understanding that it is ultimately of little more consequence that what is often sneered at as “sportsball” these days (while at the same time being considerably less fun to watch)—is hardly synonymous with accepting things as they are; instead, it is a clear and unavoidable mandate to flout your would-be controllers with all of your cunning and to fight them with all of your strength.


Andy Nowicki, assistant editor of Alternative Right, is the author of eight books, including Under the Nihil, The Columbine Pilgrim, Considering Suicide, and Beauty and the Least. He occasionally updates his blog when the spirit moves him to do so. Visit his Soundcloud page.