Ah, yes, there are those who believe that the president should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. Twas ever thus, I suppose, but it used to be much rarer in the case of actual elected officials in the absence of any real cause. But the right-wing party in this country has been taken over by plain and simple lunatics and dunderheads, and the evidence is everywhere.

The people are idiots. And the media doesn’t do a good job of reminding them. So they forget.

It wasn’t that long ago that the White House had to begin seriously debating whether or not to mint a trillion dollar coin in an effort to save the country’s credit rating and prevent a worldwide economic collapse.

Have you heard that mentioned recently?

Probably not. Even if somewhere a lonely Democrat had a light bulb go off in their empty head, the chances that the media would report on it in the face of the nationwide outbreak of the Ebola virus (fatalities currently equalling 1) are virtually nil. Look, over there! Somebody got their head cut off!

Here’s a good day in Iraq:

Crowds of hundreds of thousands of people in the holy city of Kerbala had largely dispersed in safety after nightfall, following a day of worship and prayer to mark the 7th century battle that divided the Muslim world into Sunnis and Shi’ites.

But seven pilgrims returning home from Kerbala were killed in separate roadside bomb attacks in the town of Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police and medical sources said.

Dozens of pilgrims were killed in Baghdad alone in the run-up to this year’s event, despite an increase in security since suspected al Qaeda suicide bombers and mortar attacks killed 171 people during Ashoura in Kerbala and Baghdad in 2004.

Some people should visit Damascus or Tripoli or Kandahar and report back on how things there compared to Seattle, Phoenix, and Miami. Go to Liberia and see how things are going, then come home and go to your local Thanksgiving parade.

We’re not even concerned about the right health risks. We have a major problem with gun violence in this country, including in our public schools. We have an opioid epidemic in this country that is overwhelming the resources we have in place to deal with it. Every year, the flu kills off thousands of Americans and we don’t force teachers to resign if they’ve ever been on the same continent with someone who had influenza. We’re stupid enough, but our sensationalized media makes us even more stupid.

This election is structurally tilted toward the Republicans, but anyone who’s been paying even a modicum of attention should have ditched the Republican Party long ago. They’d know that if they weren’t selfish, scared assholes, or if the media would focus on policy once in a blue moon rather than process and the horse race.

I don’t even care if you agree with Democrats either rhetorically or on their record. They are many things, but they aren’t crazy. They aren’t filled with hate. They aren’t trying to disenfranchise voters. They don’t do things that will ruin the country’s credit rating for no good reason. They actually listen to scientists.

People don’t vote in this country. Why should they? What they’re told about the candidates is less interesting and relevant than what they’re told about their fantasy football players. This candidate over here thinks that the United Nations is going to take over this country and ban bicycles? Never mind. She’s a rising star. She has charisma. That’s all you need to know.

And the Courts have made everything worse. Why not set up a system that nakedly allows the richest people in this country to throw their money around with no accountability so that they can buy whole legislatures and then write their legislation for them? How could that possibly result in depressed voter participation?

Since that’s not good enough, why not just legalize the disenfranchisement of anyone who doesn’t have a state-approved photo identification card? That will boost civic engagement, for sure.

The Dow Jones Index is in the stratosphere and unemployment has been dropping dramatically. If people are still upset about the economy, then why don’t we examine why they aren’t sharing the fruits of all this wealth creation?

That’s what we just did in the November/December issue of the Washington Monthly. Try finding anyone else who did this. Was any of this even the smallest part of this campaign? Other than raising the minimum wage, what have you heard that would boost middle income wealth in this country? Even when a Democrat proposes something, the press reports on some gaffe they allegedly made.

I am not just mad about the likely results tonight. I’m mad that this election was drowned out by the dumbest imaginable bullshit. I’m mad that the Republicans were able to hide their record of unprecedented obstruction and lunacy behind wall-to-wall coverage of some woman going for a bike ride with her boyfriend in Maine.

I’m angry that people are so disengaged and uninformed, but I don’t blame them. At least, they are not primarily responsible because they are victims of terrible leadership. The Democrats are too passive. The Republicans never stop lying. The media doesn’t do substance. The Courts give all the power to the demagogues and their funders. The legislatures gerrymand the districts into complete uncompetitiveness. Even when we elect someone on a platform we like, the system doesn’t allow them to try out their ideas, and then we blame them for ineffectiveness. So, now we have a stupid, uninformed, malleable, scared populace that sees no hope and either disengages or bases their decisions on the most idiotic bullshit.

Two countries are going to the polls today, and one of those countries is overwhelmingly white and pissed off about the very existence of the other country. The Republicans continue to drive this wedge between us and we’re going to see the results in how people vote in urban and rural Wisconsin or Georgia or Massachusetts.

One party has its problems, but the other is actively making us worse people who live in a worse country every single hour of every single day. And they are going to be rewarded for it.

And the press is going to treat this as the reward for savvy.

It’s not savvy. It’s just brokenness. It’s a result of so many failures that I cannot even list them all.

We could have had hope. Our elites didn’t want hope.