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The Revenge Cycle, On Repeat
Vengeance is mine, sayeth both sides
Politics, like the people involved, is a funny thing.
Presidential elections, and national elections more generally, usually have a cycle to them, a rhythm and flow accounting for all the many factors involved and interests that coalesce around the most powerful executive position in the land. With an incumbent president seeking re-election, usually the theme would be the electorate’s verdict on how the previous four years have gone and the potential for the next four. Poll after poll of registered voters shows that the top two issues, by healthy margins, are the economy and healthcare. The normal, everyday American voters are pretty much concerned with the same issues they always are.
But not the most dedicated members of the politically active. They want something else.
They want revenge.
Revenge is the most bipartisan of things. Its base alloys of hate and resentment fit really well into the hearts and minds of those crusading for the greater good they believe is being prevented by the dastardly “them”. Politics is the perfect furnace to forge such things into the weapons of change, and if that weapon doesn’t work, clearly it isn’t the fault of the cause but only that the perfect instrument of destruction has yet to be wielded…
