"Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot"

So said Mark Antony after successfully rousing the rabble against Brutus and Cassius in Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR. Antony's speech, in which he incited a riot against his enemies, all the while protesting that they were "honorable men," is a masterpiece of wicked and sly demaogogery. Its sheer disengenousness is grimly hilarious; Antony clearly wants the men who assassinated Casear to run afoul of a hateful mob, to be lynched, tortured, drawn and quartered, or worse... but he keeps insisting that he has nothing against Caesar's killers, all the while stirring up resentment against them through masterfully underhanded rhetoric.

Today, mischief is afoot. The Republicans smell blood. Poor, hapless, pompous fool John F. Kerry has given the long-embattled GOP a chance to rally their forces a mere week prior to midterm elections. His seemingly snotty comments about U.S. troops in Iraq, apparently implying that they were stupid failures (in spite of ineffectual post-speech spin during which he claimed merely to have botched a joke intended to be about President Bush) has helped to reinforce the image of Democratic elites as rich, snotty people who look down their noses at common folk, i.e., churchgoing country hicks who do things like live in red states and watch professional wrestling and shop at Walmart and join the military. Likely Republican voters whose predominant inclination had been disenchantment with the performance of their own party now seem to have rediscovered their fear and loathing of the opposition. People are calling talk radio and angrily insisting, "My son/my dad/my uncle/my nephew is serving in Iraq and he isn't stupid-- I don't care what Kerry says!" Bush and his people have expertly stoked the fires of people's indignation; indeed, they would have been stupid not to. Whether it will ultimately save the GOP from defeat remains to be seen, but it certainly seems as though Senior "Lurch" has awakened the sleeping, if not comatose, giant that is the Republican base.

Now, little as I respect the Republicans, corrupt and useless as they mostly are, I despise the Democrats. I hope the Repugs pull it out, if only for the sake of the appointment of judges that may have a chance of actually upholding Constitutional law and ending the unconsitutional travesty (and moral atrocity) that was Roe V Wade. Not that I think the GOP really cares a fig about the evil of abortion, but I know the Deathocrats don't.

Still, minimally heartened as I am by the prospect of the lesser of two evils winning, I am less impressed than ever with this "democratic process" thing. For voters aren't much better than Mark Antony's mob. They do little more than "sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn," favoring one party when the other does or says something tacky, then blowing the other way when the other party says or does something no more tacky, but closer in temporal proximity to election day. If the GOP holds the House and Senate this year, it will be because Mark Foley was outed as a perv slightly before John Kerry was confirmed to be an ass. Why is that supposed to make me proud to be an American?