310 My Vote Discounts

November 5, "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November," is statutorily set as election day here in the USA. It is, coincidentally, Guy Fawkes Day in the UK.

Guy, or Guido, as he was in the Spain insurrections, had plotted to blow up James I's Parliament. (November 5 is also National Gunpowder Day.) The whole Guy Fawkes debacle was some Catholic thing. Guy wasn't successful, getting hanged along with many other Catholics for their trouble.

So, Election Day.

Who to vote for?

I want a rebel. Someone not afraid of a little insurrection now and then. And I'm Catholic, as it turns out. How weird is that?

I want someone who digs gunpowder, especially aimed at their enemies' faces. Someone who kicks ass and takes names. Recognizes vermin when he sees them:

The tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of teeming shores. The homeless and tempest-tossed.

You know that lamp beside the golden door? We've turned it off. I want someone with his little hand on that switch.

I want someone who delegates bans effectively—reproductive rights, books (we all know which ones), music (we all know which, "YMCA exempted"), and the ideas of Cleisthenes, even if he doesn't know his work.

Oh, and immunizations. Someone who got COVID-19 and beat it, bleach notwithstanding, is too old for polio, to temperate for yellow fever, too sequestered for small pox, and whose right ear laughed at tetanus.

Someone with the greatest crowds in the history of the world and who will protect women whether they like it or not ('cause he loves women and they love him, despite 16mm black-and-white and grainy). Someone who loves Latinos in Arizona, unions in Detroit, Puerto Ricans after hurricanes, dictators—but just to get along with them and end wars with just a phone call; firing squads, censorship, and persecuting political enemies.

That's my guy!

Even if he's old.

His replacement—just a heartbeat away—condemning Hitler-labeling, diatribe-spouting critic turned sycophant—fellow election-denier, and blood-bathing lemming, with no need to think, debate, or cow-tow to reason or the Constitution for silly self-defined reasons.

Nah. I think I'll vote NOT INSANE instead, even if the bloodbath leaves a ring.

__________

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Tuesday, Election Day, Guy Fawkes Day, National Gunpowder Day, November 5, Day 310 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge.

366 WORDS (without A/N)

57 DAYS TO GO! THIS DOGWALK SNIFFS ON, 366 WAFTS A DAY.

There are currently three Vocal writers in this 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. (Votive) Schäfer

• Rachel (Motive) Deeming

• Gerard (De-votive) DiLeo