Erect the tent - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

For as long as there have been elections, there has always been someone looking to undermine them. There are the bad actors, who are nefarious in their intentions, working to further their own interests by manipulating an election (so glad that’s a thing of the past), but then there are others who really just like to mess around in the world of politics for the sport of it all. These goofs are always part of the landscape - increasingly in the age of social media and with the understanding that there is now a path for the most boorish and vile members of society right to the highest offices in the land - and it’s unfortunate that they suck so much air out of a room that, if navigated properly, could be of help to votes and politicians alike.

 

This happens in all kinds of elections, from those vying to be the next Prime Minister or President of the United States, all the way down to the most local of elections, like ours here in Huron County. As real issues face our country, province, municipalities, towns and villages, voters looking for real information or asking vital questions in the hopes of receiving substantive answers are forced to endure high school-level vanity projects from selfish people who have reached beyond being annoying on the internet from their darkened basement and are taking their show on the road, wasting everyone’s time in the process.

 

I’ll admit to thinking that’s what Donald Trump was when he first made it clear that he would be running for president. You know, this moron ran for president once before. He did it in 2000 and it was rife with all of the goofiness you would expect from such a thing. He wanted Oprah to be his running mate for his bid to lead the Reform Party all the way to the White House with the support of Minnesota Governor and Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter’s Wrestler of the Year in 1976 Jesse “The Body” Ventura. He eventually dropped out, ending that bid before it went too far.

 

Even in our biggest elections, there are often candidates on the edges of society who feel they should go ahead with a campaign - bother people for votes and push their agenda in a way that not only feeds their fragile egos, but siphons off time from real people aiming to govern in a way that serves residents. In our last federal election, there were candidates from animal-centric parties and marijuana-focused parties (that one must be losing steam since legalization), Marxist-Leninist groups, Communist parties and more.

 

There are the famous clips from 2005 and 2009 of Jimmy McMillan, who ran to be mayor of New York City in those elections as the leader of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, answering debate questions about this or that, always circling back to his central thesis, which is, you guessed it, the rent being too damn high. He’s not wrong, but still.

 

I remember when Trump first sought the Republican nomination ahead of 2016, asking a friend to grab me a Make America Great Again hat on his trip to Florida (he couldn’t find one) because I thought the whole thing was funny; one big joke. Guess I miscalculated Americans’ willingness to get manipulated.

 

There has been Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt running to be governor of California and porn star Nikki Benz running to be the mayor of Toronto. While we’re all glad these people can find an outlet for whatever it is they’re working out, unfortunately, it is done at the expense of real voters trying to determine who’s best to lead them. It shouldn’t be a circus, whether in the U.S. or here in Huron County, but, too often, it’s inevitable.