by Corey Taylor
Don’t let this chapter fool you: it’s not all Reagans and Trumps. There’s a certain former president from Arkansas who can be blamed in a lot of ways as well. You see, if Ronnie was the gift of the GOP, then William Jefferson Clinton became the shining star for those Blue devils. I was sure as hell caught up in it. Now at first people just worried that being from Arkansas, Bill Jeff would either (a) come off as a racist dick like that “Dixie-crat” Wallace or (b) get rendered moot by proxy like Carter, even though by then we all knew that Jimmy was something of a goddamn saint. But Bill Clinton—or, as I call him, Clinton I, with Hillary being Clinton II—fooled us all by appealing to people of every color and having the kind of charm we all wished Carter could’ve had. Plus, HE COULD PLAY THE SAXOPHONE. We’d never seen anything like it. He could play a fucking saxophone! How the fuck could he do that? Presidents aren’t supposed to be able to do anything!
So I jumped on the Clinton I bandwagon, much like so many conservatives jumped on the Reagan bandwagon, and it was a fun ride! It had rock music and MTV and jobs and the Internet and all kinds of cool things. Clinton was the perfect president for the nineties: young, rebellious, funny, and, dare I say, cool, doing his very best to do the very best for us. We saw an economic boom like we’d never experienced in my lifetime. People were happy—well, Democrats were happy—and it was glaring proof that we didn’t need the flag waving and the eagles (even though the Eagles got back together in the nineties too) and all that red-white-and-blue bullshit. We could just be America because it was the greatest country on the planet. We didn’t need to rub it in the faces of everyone else—we were too busy living it to lord it over anyone.
Then the fucking bubble burst, literally and figuratively. The dot-com craze made fuckers rich and poor all within the same minute. Republicans didn’t like Clinton I’s diplomacy and the way he handled certain foreign crises, specifically Somalia, and once they regained control of Congress in 1994, the standoffs began, shutting the federal government down twice. Then a cigar, a confession, and a dirty, dirty dress led to the Lewinsky chronicles. Although he wasn’t impeached, it fairly killed Clinton’s credibility. When he left office all he’d done was make it harder for Dems to get elected for a while. This is the most disappointing bit because he was, in my opinion, just as good a president as Reagan was. Clinton I had an economic surplus at one point—something that hadn’t happened in the United States since the sixties. Clinton I, much like Reagan, was a fitting symbol of the times: good natured, meaning well, but ultimately flawed and only human after all. This realization has brought me to a conclusion and a question. My conclusion is that we don’t vote for the party but the person. You can argue that all you want, but it’s true. The one who wins is almost always the one people like the most. And if this is true, then here’s my question: If we’re just voting for the one we like the most, then why the fuck do they even need political parties at all?
I know it makes things easier. I know most of us can’t even be bothered to memorize an ATM pin number half the time, let alone give a shit about certain policies and whatnot, so it does make it easy: Republicans are supposed to be for smaller government, lower taxes, more rights for the states, and conservative values like “pro-life” and “good Christian morals” and “family values.” Democrats are the futurists, the ones who believe in freedom, in taking care of each other and themselves, with big government helping us along the way, creating laws that maintain freedom, not block it, and guarantee equality for all, no matter what—pro-choice, pro-love, all colors, all people. These two parties, which have been our parties since the mid-1800s, with very little outside threat of being replaced (sorry, Bull Moose and Tea Party), have been Our Government for so long that we just take it for granted. Actually, let me rephrase that: they take us for granted. They just know that because they have most of the money and the commercials, we’ll be forced to vote for who they want us to vote for. But at this point in the game I haven’t seen anything to show me that these parties are coming up with anything new. So what does it matter which party they come from? Why not put a little more emphasis into likeability and charm?
I’ll tell you exactly why, and what went down in the Democratic primaries fairly played that out: because as long as they have the money, politics is a business. The Democratic National Committee got caught fucking over Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton. This is highly unethical, and it was made even more embarrassing by the fact that Bernie was the shit. Bernie was my pick. I didn’t care if he was old as Christ, I didn’t care that he turned purple when he was riled up, and I didn’t care that he was an Independent who’d only joined the Democrats so he could run for president. Bernie Sanders is a no-BS, top-notch guy who has been fighting against financial waste and civil rights corruption for years. He was my dude—shit, he was everybody’s dude. The people at the DNC knew it too, so they pulled some crazy shenanigans to fuck him over. It’s still not clear how much Clinton II knew about it, but the fact of the matter is that the party was responsible for that, just as the Republican Party was responsible for allowing Trump to go as far as he did on the platform and violent message he was spewing. Those parties, in my opinion, have put themselves in front of who the candidate turns out to be, which, I’m sorry, is just silly. I don’t vote Republican or Democrat; I vote based on who I am, which just happens to be a little bit of both. I am convinced that is the way most Americans are: fuck the fringes, the leaf-eaters, and the bigots—fuck them. I’m talking about everyone else in our country, the people who are in no hurry to join a group. That’s America, the ones behind closed doors making decisions based on real life. So if most Americans aren’t really as clear as they have registered, then why have these antiquated political parties, run by fanatical fuck heads on million-dollar payrolls? If we know we’re going to vote for the person we like, let’s start from scratch. Let’s ditch these two old-ass parties and figure out what the future should look like.
That’s essentially what happened with Reagan and Clinton I. Reagan represented the New Conservative: family values and freedom; good, clean, and wholesome all wrapped in a flag like a pig in a blanket, with some fiscal mismanagement thrown in for good measure. Clinton I was the same, adhering to a new Democratic Party line called the Third Way, which tried to come more toward the center and, in turn, become more conservative while also maintaining its stance on human rights. Politicians have moved and modified old stances for years, so it’s not without precedent. But I feel like we don’t need any of that shit. What we need is a whole new set of plans and rules. You want this government to go back to when it was more “of the people, for the people, by the people”? Then have I got a plan for you, my friends. Listen up, because I’m only going to run this down for you once. It may sound crazy, but there’s a thin line between crazy and creative, even if the minds behind these types of ideas tend to hang themselves from these thin lines. But I have an idea and a solution.
There are four years between presidential elections. That means there are four years we could spend looking for a better option as our leader. So I believe a great idea would be to use these four years to scour the entire country—every coast, every state, every city, and every suburb—until we find people to run against each other. We put together gangs of hopefuls and use the Internet and TV to choose the ones we really like. Then we whittle those down until we get the number to ten people. Then those ten people take it upon themselves to “campaign” for a year, leading up to a “Great Choosing” in which, much like all those shitty singer reality TV shows that ruin television and music simultaneously for me, we let America nominate based on text voting, which, at this point, I’d have to think is just as reliable as actual booth voting. America nominates the two they like the most, then the race is on. For sixty days the two “people’s nominees” debate and talk and answer questions together, all around the country. Then we vote for who gets to be president for four years. But here’s the kicker: there aren’t really any losers
because the one who isn’t voted president becomes vice president, the other eight left over from the original ten are part of the cabinet, and anyone else from the original round-up becomes a special ambassador for their states in both houses of Congress—Senate and the House of Representatives—to remind those career politicians about the will of the people who put them there in the first place. A truly democratic government should never forget that the populace it governs could replace it in an instant.
I can already see the social media sites condemning me to a seething, fiery death with snakes and ladders and shit. “Scoff scoff,” they’ll say, “The Dishonorable Mr. Taylor has no idea how the truly democratic process works! A system of such putrescence would never work in this day and age, sinking underneath the sheer weight of its own ridiculousness.” To which, obviously, I would reply with: Why? Why is their method of choosing a presidential candidate any better than what I just put out there as an idea? We’ve already established that people within the DNC got up to no good when it came to picking theirs, and I’m going to go on record with absolute certainty that the RNC regretted the day they took that ass-cannon Trump seriously. These were both under the current system of putting forth the “best of our two-party system.” Like them or not, they were regarded as the two worst choices for the presidency in God Knows How Long (an actual measurement of time, used by the Mayans on their circular calendar, referring to “the last time White Man seemed to have their collective shit together”).
So there’s my idea for what to do about this whole president fiasco. I know what most of you are going to say: “Hey shit fucker, stick to singing, and leave the politics to professionals,” or, “Nothing pisses me off more than when an entertainer who has no business talking about politics talks about politics.” To which I usually reply, “You just described the dude you most certainly voted for, you rustic pussy whistle.” But you know me: I dislike irritation on a cerebral level. I also hate people who make me feel that just because I have had some success in my life and been able to make some money, that suddenly I am NO LONGER QUALIFIED OR WELCOME to talk about politics in my country. That is such a fucking bullshit cop-out of a response to something you don’t agree with, and it really fucking bothers me that so many people get away with it. These are usually the same people who bragged about “lurking around polling stations to intimidate people who aren’t voting Trump.” Can you believe that, in 2016, certain Americans find they need to resort to tactics perfected by the brown-shirted Nazis in the 1920s? My only comfort is that people aren’t standing for it. Americans have had enough of the bullying and are pushing back.
Reagan wouldn’t have felt good about that either. Of all the Republican presidents in my lifetime, I think he understood people the most. He understood that you don’t keep a country running by dividing it; you keep it running by bringing people together and keeping them there. That’s why most successful politicians don’t claim the Right or the Left but work the center. That’s where the world is, in a nutshell. Yes, it’s true that we have some fringe fuckers who are as certifiably fucked up as a football bat, but the majority of us are very much huddled together in the middle of it all, the center where the good ideas on both sides collide and commingle. Successful politicians know that when it comes to crowds of people, you run the “hits”—rhetorical ideals, essential appeal, and the overall message. But when you break it down on an individual level—the person just sitting there in his or her own head (and Spider-Man PJs)—you hit them with the center because that’s where we all live if you’re worth a shit as a human being. We all have more in common than we are different, no matter what they say to “break up the band.” Yes, we’re prone to extremes, but not all extremes are hate and racial and fiscal and conservative and progressive and peaceful and warmongering and whatever; sometimes those extremes are just a severe hankering for double chocolate fudge ice cream.
Reagan was one of the best at understanding this about America. He could fire the horns of FUCK YEAH, REPUBLICAN GUNS, GOD, AND FLAG SHIT, getting the crowd whipped into a frenzy and ready to vote Red. Then he could turn around and talk with Democrats, find a common interest, empathize from their standpoint, and incorporate that into the policy, shaping something originally conservative, implying the liberal bits, and coming to a bill that was suddenly central in nature. This is why he was able to work with Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Senate majority leader. The name of the game, ol’ Dutch knew, was compromise. Compromise has been the cornerstone of American politics since the beginning. Now some of you may be saying “horse pucky,” but it’s true. It’s a slower process, but it ensures that the will of the people is being done. It’s a slow process precisely because of the will of the people—there’s no one right way to correctly sum up the will of the people. Might as well call it the will of the zeitgeist. We are a nation of ids and idiots sometimes, and it takes a while to sift through the damage to find the diamonds.
It’s now 2017, and the spirit of Ronald Reagan permeates everything that armchair Republicans wish for their party: a knowing smile, a strong hairline, a square jaw to go with what they consider a square deal—conservatives always had better imagery to work with. With liberals it’s hard to get ideals and ideas to stick to a rockin’ poster. Conservatives got the whole enchilada and the hot sauce to smother it. So I can see why they cling to Reagan—he looked like their leader. Sadly, that’s not the case these days. More and more the Right are being left with what can only be described as a bunch of fucking temp workers who couldn’t cut it in the Klan: none of the charm, none of the background or common ground, but all the stubborn stupidity that comes with thinking you’re right and refusing to listen to facts, figures, or fate. I’m not just saying this because I disagree with a lot of what they say—they are just SO FUCKING CONCEITED that they think they can just bluster and bloviate and eventually people will get worn out and give in. But it doesn’t work that way anymore. People are sick of fear tactics. People are sick of being intimidated. They’re sick of being beat over the head with a fistful of poison politics that only helps the top 1 percent under the guise of speaking for the working man.
Lord knows they’ve searched for the Second Coming of Bonzo. Romney didn’t work, though he came close to looking the part (I always got more of a Bond villain vibe from him, to be honest), McCain and Dole were just a bit too old, and Dubya had the charm (which is why he was elected twice, I suppose) but none of the respect or old-school strength. But with each passing decade they get more and more desperate. Case in point: Mike Pence, the caustic ex-governor of Indiana, now vice president, in favor of fiscal fallout and conversion therapy—you know, the Christian method of “helping” young adults who are homosexual by torturing them until they give up on their identity just so the pain will stop. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? That shows you how far down the fucking rabbit hole you have to be if that cat is a viable candidate for vice president on your ticket. Now you’re not even in the same hemisphere as the party of the 1980s. Now you’ve suddenly entered the world of legislating to taste—kind of like putting a giant statue of the Bible in front of the courthouse and assuming there will be no bias against you if you don’t subscribe to their version of God.
I’m trying not to get angry here. This book is supposed to be balanced in message and humor. So far I haven’t said a lot that you could laugh at, but that’s because I haven’t really written about anything funny yet. I keep pushing off the funny shit because I always figure there’s time for jokes as long as you make your point first. Maybe I feel like I haven’t made my point yet. Where the fuck was I going with this, anyway? I started with superheroes, moved on to Ronald Reagan, encapsulated the drowning image of the political idol shape, and segued nicely into the relative death of socioeconomic worship. Johnny Thunders sang, “You can’t wrap your arms around a memory,” and I think that’s where I was going. I think that’s where the Republicans have it fucked. They’ve been wrestling a ghost with the strength of a giant boa
constrictor for nearly forty years. Reagan was amazing for them because he worked in that moment in time. He was a reflection of what America needed to feel like and what we needed to see ourselves as in the long run. After that, there has been very little in the way of evolution or diversity for their party. Yeah, every once in a while they’ll trot out their token minority for their fucking State of the Union rebuttal or to attack POC with a different line of bullshit. But the Republican Party has only stagnated because they only represent a very specific part of the country. Albeit, they’ve won the White House (barely), but that’s not how our politics grow. That’s why the Democrats were the first to elect a black president—because these are more accurate views of what America is and wants to be. How is it that the party that freed the slaves became the party that now treats people like slaves?
Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but I feel like the collapse of the GOP can be a good thing. I know on the surface it seems like a catastrophe for people who think they’re true-Red ’Pubs, branded in America for the good of freedom and pancakes and shit. That’s not being a Republican; that’s just being American, a very specific version of American. The Right used that shit to get you, even though they haven’t identified with that in years, if they ever did at all. Like I said before: if you checked the laundry of the GOP, every collar would be more white than blue and dirtier than any other party on the planet. So it’s good that their lies have folded in on themselves. From those ashes can come something a little more honest, ambitious, kosher, a little closer to the center we’ve always wanted. Maybe back to basics: freedom for everyone regardless of color, religion, sex, or history. Or maybe just back a few decades: self-starters welcome, help for the independent businesses, and money in your local communities. Maybe this time they’ll keep religion out of the laws they try to pass. Maybe they’ll keep their unbelievably antiquated views on race out of their legislation—or better yet, maybe they’ll listen! Listen to why this prejudice is unwarranted and unwanted. Listen to why the world cannot afford to think and live this way anymore. There are beautiful people and shitty people in every color under the sun. Singling out one shade is just pathetic.
