A pessimist is a crushed idealist

People say that they can feel the spectre of history last night, stalking them down like silvian wolves, breathing down their necks with each peek at the TV poll results or each click at the refresh button. Among all of this looming inevitability, I blinked. I blinked again, but everything was pretty much the same as it was before I blinked.

What just happened? Did melodrama and sentimentality triumph over common sense and rationality? Or was it the other way around? Who's crazier? Those who fear terrorist attacks above all else, or those who believe that the big bad man will be bigger and badder given another four years? Who's your fear-monger of choice? The one in the White House? Or the one on the silver screen?

They are all idiots. Every last one of them.

The celebrators, the mourners. All idiots. Nothing was going to change, and nothing has changed. America is still not ready for gay marriage, will always lust after oil, and be on the payroll of corporate billionaires, regardless of who's calling the shots. The soldiers will still get all the "some" they want, regardless of who is telling them to roll. Change the figurehead, and the ship will still sail downwind.

We're voting for the mascot of our country, is all. So what if this one looks a little bit more like a chimp than the next? He's a mascot, afterall. They're supposed to look goofy and be all rah-rah and stuff.

All these people acting like it's the end of the world, as if the prophet has marked the wrong doors with ram's blood--get a clue.

A pessimist is a crushed idealist. Nothing but.