A Chicken in Every Pot!

There once was a time in this country when people were extremely naive. They believed what people told them, or sold them, because they had no way of discerning whether or not it was true. The day of the traveling salesman selling snake oil was nothing more than a few entrepreneurial men who saw an opportunity to make money on peoples suffering.

By the time the buyers realized that is was nothing more than a colored liquid placebo, the salesman was gone, on the the next batch of suckers. Word traveled very slowly back then, and a guy with cases of fake ointment or balm or vitalizer or cream or what have you could canvass the entire country without the rubes coming around to see the light. Generations have passed, the internet now connects the world in nanoseconds, yet the salesmen remain, spewing their bullshit to an audience lapping it up. We have learned nothing from the past.

A headline today says Hillary Clinton is in Florida to woo the millenials. Ah, the millenials, that group of young men and women that are the future of this country. They don't understand things that us old folk learned and grew up with. Like how to say thank you. Or hold the door open for someone. Or walk a little old lady across the street. Or look you in the eye. Or pay attention to history when it maters most. Yes, our presidential candidates are those very same salesmen, canvassing the country, peddling their snake oil to whole generation of voters who are eating it up like candy. (To those millenials who shun the "it's all about me" mantra and actually contribute to society, I apologize. To both of you.)

I have lived more than a half a century in this world, and I know a few invariable truths about elections. One of which is the fact that candidates will say and do and promise anything to get elected. To listen to someone in today's race and take them at their word is nothing more than buying a bottle of Dr. McGillicutty's Magic Elixer Tonic. But today's suckers are far more dangerous than those of the late 1800's. Because if you are buying what they are selling today, you have absolutely no excuse. A few clicks on a mouse should tell you everything you need to know about anyone.

So if Hillary is successful in wooing enough suckers to vote for someone that by all rights should not be running for president, then the days of the snake oil salesman is alive and well in the 21'st century. If you believe anything that comes out of a candidate's mouth during an election year, then you are truly stuck in the past. Live and learn. A simple motto lost on today's me generation of headphone wearing, Netflix binging, MTV watching, society shunning, self centered suckers. There is more at stake than here than simple self preservation. The future of our country is at stake. And the stakes have never been higher.