PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA ONCE SUGGESTED that the so-called American democracy is, in practice, a single party system.

Duh?

Euphoric as we were during the Obama years, perhaps the lack of qualitative difference between the Democratic and Republican parties simply escaped notice. Two squads from the same team casually tossing the football back and forth with a single, ever-shifting, ever-elusive, often non-existing goal post.

As in the world of professional sports, the players are all super-wealthy and the only ones who ever stand to lose are the plebs who throw money at them and, when things really heat up, revert to rioting in the stands.

That’s why we’re the real jackasses.

Rule by the rich

As of 2024 going into 2025, the richest members of Congress include Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida, net worth estimated between $327 million and $546 million) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California, estimated net worth: $120 million to $252.6 million, depending on the source). Other uber-rich members include Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), and the late Diane Feinstein (D-Cal), among many others.

“One congresswoman’s net worth ballooned from a mere $300,000 to $40 million is just four years” - Elsa Blease

The baseline congressperson’s salary is a modest $174,000, plus a gold-plated healthcare and benefit package, yet half the House and Senate are millionaires and many are billionaires.

Nowadays, a million dollars isn’t really that much, given rocketing inflation, the high cost of living, and real estate prices in any of America’s and Canada’s major cities and towns. Ad hoc Canadian analysts have pegged the so-called “living wage,” at $28/hour, far beyond the reach of anyone but degreed professionals (law, medicine, engineering, accounting, hi-tech) and the most in-demand tradespersons.

The average annual American salary hovers around $60K - not bad by global standards - although tens of millions are living on far less while the country’s wealthiest 15 congresspersons together enjoyed a net worth of over $1.3 billion. The 1978 Ethics in Government Act (EIGA), stipulating that members of Congress may not have outside personal income exceeding 15% of their congressional salary, apparently doesn’t apply to members of Congress at all. Fifteen percent of $174,000 equals $26,100, last time I looked.

So who does the Act apply to, anyway?

How does one go from $300,000 to $40 million in 48 months in public office? Perhaps that’s the question that Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) had in mind when he insisted that he and his colleagues be banned from insider stock trading.

Surely, Hawley had the intrepid Nancy Pelosi in his sights. And Nancy knows exactly why.

On February 21, 2024, the late Brian Thompson’s UnitedHealthcare discovered a cybersecurity breach of its data management. On the same day, Nancy and her husband, Paul Pelosi, allegedly purchased $14 million in call options in Palo Alto Networks, the cybersecurity company that UnitedHealthcare contracted to deal with the hack. Twelve percent of one’s net worth (giving the Pelosis the benefit of the doubt by pegging their wealth at a meagre $120 million) is a lot to bet on a single horse in any race. The win net the couple a cool $31,900 before taxes.

Now, what are the odds for a high-level Democratic Party politician picking just the right stock at just the right moment when Republicans have been calling for a ban on insider trading by all members of Congress?

The only person who could have exposed Pelosi, and surely would have been subpoenaed by a Congressional investigative committee, was the late Brian Thompson. It’s a slam-dunk that the incoming Trump administration will move to investigate that suspicious trade among other suspicious trades made by their colleagues across the floor. Or maybe they won’t, since politicians are all cut from the same soiled cloth.

It’s an even surer bet that Luigi Mangione, who took out Thompson on supposedly moral grounds, is going to fry. The dude has already been charged with terrorism, that is, threatening (i.e., killing) a member of America’s one percent who own and control 42 percent of the country’s wealth. What Mangione did was wrong, but his analysis was right on the money.

Pelosi has some explaining to do but WTF. The entire Democratic Party along with their jackass mascot has some explaining to do.

Their contempt for the American people, including their own constituents and supporters, emboldened them to insist that a sitting president in severe cognitive decline was fit for another four years in office. All the better to keep the gravy train on track until Pelosi, among a slew of other geriatric, wealthy politicians, voluntarily or involuntarily are put out to pasture.

When Joe Biden had the grace and good sense to step down, the Democratic Party machine appointed (not elected as per the customary primaries) word salad princess Kamala Harris as their presidential candidate who, if anyone needs to be scapegoated, cost them the election.

Characteristic of the post-election jackass is its stubbornness and sheer inability to acknowledge mistakes and move on. Instead, it digs in its front hooves and kicks up lots of dust with its hind legs while bellowing incomprehensibly and biting everyone, both left and right, in the arse.

I don’t mean to single out individual Democrats, or even Republicans, for abuse. The fact that the GOP’s mascot is an elephant says volumes about the gullibility of the American people. The elephant is arguably the most intelligent and caring animal on the planet. How it became emblematic of Ted Cruz, ‘Gym’ Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie ‘QAnon’ Taylor Greene, or Lauren ‘Boobs ‘N Bullets’ Boebert is a story too convoluted for a 5-minute essay.

Fact is, the jackass is a survivor and that’s why cute little libtard me has put his money on the Dems; until now. But more on that later.

If you’ve ever had a problem with coyotes stealing chickens or killing sheep, don’t buy an assault rifle. For the same amount of money or less, you can purchase a fiesty little donkey who will not only act as an alarm system with a 95 decibal screech but will tear the living sh*t out of any predator.

Now, donkeys aren’t really dumb creatures. They only look that way so they can slip under the radar. What they really are is cunning, manipulative, and tenacious. Donkeys rule. You can ride on a donkey’s back from here to wherever and he (or she) expects copious amounts of rolled oats mixed with fresh carrots as compensation, but this animal isn’t going to offer a healing massage to compensate for that kink in your sacroiliac.

I’m reminded of Joe Biden’s pre-election promise of a $2,000 COVID-relief check that arrived in much reduced form some five months later after the outstanding rent payments had grown 5X, the repo-man had made off with the car, the bank repossessed the house, and the desperate committed suicide. Or his promise to forgive student loans that he completely and conveniently forgot. Donkeys have great selective memory. Like I said: cunning, manipulative, tenacious.

What we fail to appreciate is that donkeys don’t equate with dumbasses.

A dumbass is someone who believes in QAnon and Stop the Steal. A dumbass is someone who refuses to wear a mask in the midst of the worst pandemic in living memory. Anti-vaxxers are dumbasses. Dumbasses got vacuumed up by the FBI after storming the capitol buildings while the kingpins behind the January Sixth Insurrection sat in their plush offices, laughing at their minions’ stupidity.

Dumbasses are guys like Mike Pence who think they still have a chance at high office. Dumbasses are folks who send in their nickels and dimes to the Great America Super-Pac or to Pat Roberson and Pastor Paula White when they can’t even afford to purchase canned dog food to mix with their cold, left-over rice. Dumbasses are folks who drink themselves to death. Dumbasses do drugs. Dumbasses think that legalizing dangerous drugs is a way to cure society’s ills.

Dumbasses think the Second Amendment allows them to own a Sherman tank.

Dumbasses think the Biden-Harris Power Rangers were going to save them from themselves.

Dumbasses are the reason this society is on the brink of collapse.

The 2020 federal election in which 73 million dumbasses opted for four more years of insane fuckery with a con artist President and low-track porn star as First Lady proved that at least half the American population is less intelligent than the average donkey. November 2024 proved that we’re even more addicted to jackass-ery that previously thought. Jackass-ery has achieved pathological proportions in this country, soon to exceed Wokery in its crusade to destroy all that is rational and good in the interest of power and money and dopamine hits emanating from mobile phones.

Not a nihilist

Now, you might think I’m a nihilist, but I’m actually quite positive about America’s future. Like the motherboard in your aging computer, it’s time to change out the microprocessor. Like that old gas-guzzler you’re still driving, it’s time to give your mind a ring and valve job.

I’m not just complaining but offer a solution, be it longterm and not without some sweat and tears. In America, the operative phrase is “blood,” sweat, and tears, not that I would ever advocate violence, mind you.

That’s why I’m suggesting we nominate Dave Volek for President in 2028.

Every thinking American needs to read Dave’s treatise on Tiered Democratic Governance. Yeah, I know it’s more than a 5-minute read and that’s all you signed up for with Zone of Sulphur or any Substack or Medium blog. But it took 240 years since Independence to create the morass we’re living in and the nightmare we’re experiencing now; therefore, it’s going to take more than five minutes of our time to learn how to wiggle out of it.

Later on, I’m going to explain how to organize our communities around the Volek campaign. Four years flies by faster than one thinks, especially when you’re no longer young.

But first, ya gotta read the proposal:

Tiered Democratic Governance
An Alternative to Western Democracymedium.com

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