Welp, things are bad. It’s not a huge surprise. A lot of people said things were going to be bad if we elected this turd. We did it, anyway, and here we are. No reason to list all the bad things, as I have limited space and you have limited patience, but when the phrases “stock market crash” and “why did the DOGE bros fire grandma?” are in vogue, chances are high that things are not quite as sunny as we were promised they would be in this, our new golden age.
Less than 100 days into the second reign of Burger King, long live his name, we’re already careening from crisis to crisis. The government is a shambles. People are so fed up they actually went outside! Millions of them, walking around on a perfectly good Saturday afternoon. Does the rest of the world have any idea how difficult it is to get Americans to exercise?
So I’d like to propose an idea that I could think could turn this whole thing around. It’s a small idea, borrowed from children, but it’s a classic. Here it is: a do-over.
Think about it. We held an election. We did our best. But you know what? We screwed up. Everybody gets it wrong once in a while. No biggie. The important thing is to recognize the error and correct it. And there’s no real reason to wait four years to fix our national boo-boo. We can just pick a date—say, two weeks from tomorrow—and have ourselves a good, old-fashioned do-over.
Some of you are probably thinking, “Can we do that?” Well, if the new administration has taught us anything it’s that we can do anything we want. Sure, a do-over election isn’t “legal,” but neither is disappearing innocent people to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. If we can do that, I don’t see any reason why we can’t take ourselves a mulligan on the last election.
I’m not saying we impeach. I’m not saying we depose. I’m not even saying that, at the conclusion of the do-over, the same guy doesn’t end up winning. I’m just saying, given the disastrous start of this new administration and the overwhelming evidence that it’s likely to get much worse still, why not just take a pause and ask ourselves, “Should we maybe give the lady a try?”
If you recall, the lady was a nice lady. She had a nice running mate who had a normal face. They also had some pretty good ideas like not crashing the economy and not alienating our allies across the entire world. At the time, ideas like that probably seemed a little wonky for an apparently large portion of the American electorate—I get it. But now that we’ve seen what crashing the economy and alienating our allies actually looks like, I’m starting to think they actually made a lot of sense.
Lots of nations already have do-overs. They just don’t call them that. They call them “snap elections.” Canada just called for one! Are we really going to let those maple-syrup guzzling bastards have all the fun? Hell no! (For the record: I have been furious with Canada for far longer than Donald Trump due to an Alanis Morrisette-related injury I sustained in the 90’s. But that’s another column.)
I know the thought of another election probably won’t sit well with a lot of Americans. After all, we just voted and now we have to do it again? Trust me, I’m as irritated as you. In normal times, I wouldn’t even suggest such a thing.
A do-over isn’t the ideal solution. That would have been for America not to elect a sociopath. But now that we’re here, I much prefer a do-over to the various alternatives— general strikes, civil unrest, political violence and/or a military coup d’etat. Sure, the Constitution forbids it, but if we’ve learned anything over the last couple of months, it’s that half of the country doesn’t give a flying flick about that old ratty piece of parchment. Why should we?
