It's been something to watch, don't you agree? A crass-talkin', TV-starin', nonpolitician multibillionaire and a 74-year-old avowed socialist and career politico each sweeping primary elections.
That such an unlikely scenario in the race for president of our United States is even possible, much less a reality, opens the door to a bit of musing over how in the world we find ourselves standing waist-deep together in the mucky backwash.
As you might suspect, I have an opinion, just like many of you. For me, the answer is pretty simple. To a large degree, we have no one to blame but ourselves for finding ourselves in this mess.
Sustained, ever-deepening mismanagement and corruption triggered by the need for and love of money in politics have made the once-unlikely campaigns of GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Democrat contender Bernie Sanders understandable in a nation where so many millions are flat fed up.
Yet in large measure, while both men are great at uttering phrases that play to frustrations, they also are empty vases into which their supporters can pour glamorized "hopes" of what each man represents, rather than their realities.
As I've expressed previously, President George Washington in his farewell address warned us against embracing political parties and their special interests and competitive natures for these very reasons. Like a soothsayer, our founding president realized, human nature being what it is, corruptive influences would take root like a cancer and metastasize.
And just looky here only 240 or so years later, my friends. Why, we even watched corrupt, big political-contributing bankers derail our economy with their financial sleights of hand. When that occurred in Iceland, two dozen or so of that nation's bankers went to prison. Our status quo politicians bailed ours out.
I've watched this widespread dissatisfaction with unfairness and injustice spread in relatively short order through the heart of our once-unified and proud nation. I can actually recall a time when character and integrity were important in our culture.
We've all known down inside that the very nature of two-year campaigns and all the money that invariably brings to bear can't help but rot the entire process. And when our Supreme Court in effect rules that corporations are people, the downslide kicked into high gear.
While I certainly don't pretend to speak for anyone but myself, logic also tells me so many reading today realize full well how rotten things have become. Faith and trust in those we elect to lead us has evaporated, especially among the badly ailing middle class and beneath. It's gone. Poof!
And so the understandably dissatisfied and disaffected of both political persuasions turn to candidates the likes of Trump and Sanders as the primary way they have of striking back through showing outrage with the intractable and untrustworthy mob that controls each party.
Yet, even at that, another month or two will show us how those in charge of each party determine through proven good-ol'-boy manipulations which candidate will ultimately represent their presidential interests.
In the world of internally gerrymandered primary elections and resulting conventions, the deck of finite numbers and super-delegates is clearly stacked in favor of the ingrained establishment and those who generously pad their coffers. I'll just hide and wait over yonder to see if I'm proven wrong.
Meanwhile, we Americans to an enormous degree (and because of the billions upon billions of dollars in special-interest influences waiting to reap their taxpayer-funded rewards later) are being ignored.
The ones who appear to me to have the best interests of the people and of our nation at heart are the aging socialist Sanders and megabucks Trump, who doesn't need other people's money.
Yes, John Kasich is a respected and effective GOP governor in Ohio. But he's also widely perceived as the preferred choice of the same entrenched establishment and their status quo. At this point, that translates to more of the same gross dysfunction and malfeasance.
And so go the days of our lives in 2016 America. Our badly broken political system as a whole unfortunately sold out to the big political contributors years ago. We allowed and participated in the resulting degeneration. And now we whose voices and ire aren't being noticed by the professional pols are living with the consequences of our choices, all unfolding on our watch.
How Washington and our founders who fought and died for individual liberties and freedom must be cringing in the fetal position.
Fascinating and sad how that "action inevitably leads to consequences" dealie works, isn't it?
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 04/23/2016