The Candidate Who Laughs

Fellow citizens of this great nation, I give you the candidate!

He is the very image of leadership. Tall, well-fed, well-dressed, with a head of carefully coiffed hair. He is not a career politician. He knows nothing about governance or how government actually works, and like most everyday citizens, has contempt for career politicians. He is a wealthy businessman, and relishes the symbols of his status. He cultivates a 'self-made' image, even though his wealth was entirely inherited from his father, but in our great and wealthy nation there is nothing wrong with intergenerational wealth. Like all citizens he is addicted to media and craves fame. He even starred in his own television show based on the image of success he publicly cultivates. In other ways he is quite common. He loves making money. In fact, making money is the only thing he really understands or cares about. He enjoys all the trappings of celebrity and power, living in a large house, having a private jet, a limousine and servants, in other words, he is the embodiment of every American's idea of success and he understands the power of projecting this image, and relishes the limelight. He has only one genuine skill, how to sell things, which is quintessentially American. He holds only one credo - everyone and everything can be bought for a price. He understands that to sell you must speak plainly but always with utmost confidence no matter what you are saying. His sentence structure and grammar are elementary-school level and filled with hyperbole to demonstrate force of expression, also an American trait. He uses a lexicon of simple words that he repeats over and over. His words are never meant to explain or clarify, rather they are meant to obscure, so he can deny what he has said before, or say the opposite and declare he was previously misunderstood. He never communicates to convey any particular idea or belief, because his aim is to never commit to anything. His only commitment is to himself. He communicates to leave an impression, not to be understood. He lies repeatedly, about everything and anything, no matter how small or big, because outside facts don't matter when your only objective is self-interest. Repeatedly lying is an effective way to inure people to all lies, and muddy the truth. He thinks people are lazy, ignorant and uninformed, because he is lazy, ignorant and uninformed. His most devoted supporters are exactly like him in this respect, and this is why he has contempt for them. What his supporters love about him is his authenticity, and by authenticity they mean his capacity to say anything he wants without any regard to the facts. They wish they could live like that. His world is a world of make-believe, like a child's, no matter how absurd or ridiculous. His adolescent existence extends to a total lack of responsibility. Like a child he thinks he is the center of the universe, and at the same time, like a child, he is completely incapable of accepting any responsibility. Whatever happens it's always someone else's fault. He has no sense of accountability, someone else is always to blame, he is the victim. Because his world is make-believe, the media is his main ally, because they also trade in make-believe. They either fabricate drama out of whole cloth or amplify it into a crisis because it's good for ratings. The candidate is skilled at tailoring his messaging to attract and hold the media spotlight. Maximizing attention, through the media and at political events, is the only metric of performance that matters to him. When he performs for his supporters he tells jokes, usually to insult or demean the opposition. His supporters love him for that. They wish they could live without consequences too. But he never laughs. He is incapable of laughter because laughter shows vulnerability. Nothing is more threatening to him than showing vulnerability, because he knows deep inside that he is fragile and weak.

You can vote for this candidate, or the one who laughs.