The Elections Monster (11)
Seasons have started to change, and with them the nature of this contest. The national convention summer blockbusters are out of the theaters, replaced by double-billed monster movies. King Kong vs Godzilla. Freddy vs Jason. The Wolfman vs Dracula. Kang vs Kodos. Trump vs Clinton. Just when it looks like one infernal creature has got the advantage, expect a plot twist to put the other one back on top. The only real losers are the innocent victims.
If it feels as if Hillary Clinton has been keeping a low profile lately, the campaign has come out and said it: they trying to run out the clock until Election Day, believing that they can hold onto her massive lead in the polls. This waiting game is dangerous. Imagine if she hadn't been forced to compete with Bernie Sanders, and had been using the waiting out the clock strategy since February. She would not have any life force for the general election. The long primary fight sustained her, made her full; she should still be hungry. A vampire would prey on Jill Stein, draining her of vital lefty lifeblood, voters who may have not followed Bernie over to the darkside. Anything would be better than sitting around, waiting until Halloween night to strike.
Trump is a more fugitive monster than that. He is on the run, or at least, running towards something (and around obstacles in his path that he can't clearly see in the dark, like the Demogorgon in Netflix's summer sensation, Stranger Things).
The Demogorgon in the Upsidedown, an artist's rendition.
Trump's low poll numbers have forced him to adapt more than Hillary has had to change to confront him. He is just ahead of the mob that is trying to burn him with fire: the Frankenstein monster quality so frequently applied to Trump. But that mob is made of people. Whole teams of reporter heads band together to cover what he has to say, when he says he is going to say it. That kind of response from the villagers is something Hillary hasn't mustered in a while, and it may be her undoing.
It's a two-monster bill, but there are always other shadows in the background. No one is forced into this dichtomy, it's a chosen belief system. But the next two most viable options to vote for are more like the the friends of the monster movie teen hero, more caricature versions of the starring cast than fleshed-out characters. This is more true about the Greens and Libertarians as parties than it is about Jill Stein and Johnson as presidential candidates, whoever they are. Maybe all of them are nothing but hideous space reptiles. Huge if true.
