I’m tired of being scolded because I want Bernie Sanders to be elected President of the United States. I’m pretty much doing it to annoy people at this point. I’ve said over and over that my support is the kiss of death for any candidate, so I have little expectation that he will win. He ought to. It would be a better country if we took his ideas and ran with them. But we won’t. That’s not how we roll. We roll downhill.

I was raised by two New Deal Democrats. It’s my belief that the U.S. Constitution was written to protect civil society from the two most powerful forces of its day: The State and the Church. Spread power out as widely as possible with internal checks and balances. Remove the power of the State to use the bludgeon of religion against which the notion of ‘appeal’ is empty. There were certainly corporations at the time if the writing of the Constitution, but they were still largely seen as extensions of the State (given that the State granted the corporation license to exist). Compared to the well-understood nature of monarchies, parliamentary government, and religious power, corporations were the new kid on the block. The later conflict between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson can be read as an extended “oops” on Jefferson’s part.

I think the New Deal was an attempt to correct the imbalance of power inherent between the individual and the corporation. We’re seeing what happens when corporate power runs amok. There is no depravity that cannot be justified by good quarterly earnings and a strong return on investment. Please name one if you can think of one. I can’t.

The conventional wisdom is that Trump is what you get when you appeal to the worst of people so you can get their votes. Sanders is what you get when you appeal to the best of people but don’t really mean it. The Iowa caucuses are tonight. I have no idea what’s going to happen, and I don’t really think whatever happens is going to matter that much. Hillary Clinton will be nominated and even I’ll vote for her because I don’t plan to have a lobotomy between now and November. And absolutely nothing will change. We won’t even try to change. She’ll probably get impeached because she tends to shoot herself in the foot (private mail server as Secretary of State. Really? Was that competence of leadership. I forget). But Wall Street will still call the shots. And that’s all that’s really important, isn’t it?

I support Bernie Sanders because of what he wants to do. I’m aware that most people don’t want to do those things. This time I’ve decided I just don’t care.

Kiss my ass, I’m voting for Bernie anyway.