What Are Presidential Debates?

A satire, by James Autio
DEEP CONNECTIONS

The debates, as you figured out by now, are not really debates and certainly not about debating. A propagandist — no matter what — cares only about “obtaining a certain effect.” And that certain effect in a debate setting is to get the viewers excited about something they can believe in on the propagandist’s list of greatest hits of linguistic payloads — truth be damned. Clinton won the debates 3–0, a clean sweep, no doubt (the fact checkers worked less overtime). She got B’s whilst poor, dumb Trump suffered F’s (for talking over Clinton 22 times over the limit and following her around like a so creepy bull in a China shop). Ergo, Trump only got the consolation prize of three golden opportunities to win over the hearts and minds of millions of deplorable believers by bellowing carefully-crafted (albeit crude!) soliloquies to the entire world on your dime and time — but wow!… Such a buffoon he is exclaim those sporting weighty Ivy League sheepskins while scratching their heads in perplexity, hugging both coasts with domesticity… cry foul! no fair! Hey, we’re the digerati and the intelligentsia, so we, the 1%, plus a few hundred-thousand robotic (and temporary, not-so-robotic, imported, undocumented) slaves, declare to secede from the Union, take our toys and go home, and resurrect Thomas More’s flag from Utopia and call our new digs Ecotopia.

For sure, Trump’s stunted, syllable-anemic, subject-verb messages may have stooped below the dunce level a few times (how many syllables in a grunt or growl?) but that, my friends, is one of the master keys to conquest of the Achilles heel of the human mind. Hell, Adolf emphasized that in his autobiography Mein Kampf with fluorescent yellow highlighter for Pete’s sake!

When it comes to political prowess at echelon alpha, a genius is defined as someone who can decipher and then echo — ad nauseam — irresistible words that profoundly resonate with a legion of receptive, diehard disciples — and then let them knight their kin and thousand dearest Friends whilst overheating from rabid enthusiasm, possessed beyond measure by Zuckerberg’s social-graph-milking cash cow to the point the poor servers in icy Sweden start to sweat. So, lo and behold, beware an army of sheep led by a lion.

By the way, the “news analysts” and pundits after a debate — themselves debating ceaselessly about “who won” until the hook comes out in the wee hours — are mere mercenary actors in the role of spin doctoring their employer’s message while trying really hard not to laugh since the joke is on you. Unbeknownst to you, the seemingly life-changing decision you think you are going to make on Election Day is, unfortunately, only the illusion of choice because donkey and elephant (and perhaps the mighty lion too) are all at the end of the day joined at the hip, breaking bread as Three Musketeers, “All for one and one for all.”

If Trump reincarnated as a mackerel he would say something like this to his fishy schoolmates: “Yo, really big, badass tuna are out to eat you and yours so let’s make a deal: if you build a ball then I promise to get the tuna to pay for it.”

Like they say, anyone can grow up in the land of opportunity, home of the free and the brave, and become President of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Anyone. Provided you say the right thing at the right time in the right way to the right people. A tv actor, by the way, has a leg up for the job, and, if a charming wheeler-dealer to boot, maybe two.

Oh. And as for the not-so-silent majority out there that voted for Her and didn’t get the POTUS-in-Training Tweet yet: “You’re fired!”

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