Don’t Worry, Neither One Will Get Much Done

We usually write these columns the day before they are published, which this time means we are writing on the morning of Election Day.

Knowing that our column will be published on a day when no one is talking about anything but what happened the day before (and might still be happening) is surprisingly inhibiting.

It’s especially surprising because of how little the outcome matters. We keep hearing that it is the most important election in our lifetimes. Given how unimportant most elections turn out to be, that’s a fine example of damning with faint praise. (Except it’s not really praise, is it?)

How important can an election be when most of the electorate would have preferred neither candidate to be on the ballot? How much will the victor be able to accomplish in the face of ferocious opposition and at most tiny congressional majorities?

But that’s not the main reason today’s result does not matter much.

To contemplate the true irrelevance of election day, look again at one video you have certainly seen several times already before but is worth watching over and over: the landing of the Starship booster. Could there be a better reminder of the irrelevance of politicians?

Notable is that this happened under the Biden administration, which has done nothing but try to punish Elon Musk, including by withholding billions in revenue from his Starlink project though it was by far the best choice to deliver on the administration’s promise to provide internet service to remote regions of the United States.

Didn’t matter. Starship landed anyway.

Politicians do accomplish some things. The war in Ukraine has pushed past one million casualties and will soon account for a quarter million dead. Lest we be tempted to say, “well that’s just the Russians,” more than 400,000 civilians were killed in the string of wars that started with the elder Bush’s war against Iraq, then our ally against Iran.

U.S. politicians (and U.S. generals who, amazingly, have not been fired) now openly talk of war with China. Could such a horror possibly produce as few as a million dead? Could we hold it to under 10 million? How many Americans would die in U.S. cities still undefended from Chinese missiles? Have you asked your congressman how he can speak of war when 330 million Americans are open to attack? We’d be better off in Tel Aviv. (No thanks to Kamala, who is clueless as to how much we owe our most important ally.)

Let’s hope today’s results, result in our little politicians doing very little, and the American people doing all of which they are capable when left alone.