The coming political apocalypse

Start the hand-wringing and eulogizing: 80% of Americans don’t trust the government.  Combined with the fact that some people like to own guns and the calls for rebellion by national policy experts like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are inciting rebellion with seditious rhetoric, the violent revolution can’t be far behind.

Our Republic is clearly doomed.

Based on what I caught on the Sunday Morning talk shows yesterday, here’s what we can expect in the coming months:

Increased antagonism between right-wing ideologues and progressive thought leaders. As experts examine previous social programs – and which new social programs must be implemented to fix them – the tea partiers will grow louder and louder.  Their simple-minded sentence fragments – such as a call for a more reserved and focused federal government which permits society to develop its own mores and guidelines organically to reflect those of the people combined with stronger states which work in harmony with federal officials to ensure that government services are optimized to best serve the needs of the people – will drown out the more educated progressives’ more refined and intellectual plans to pump up program budgets.

More people buying guns and getting violent. As if to gnash their metaphoric teeth in the wake of Tax Contribution Day, a bunch of right wing nut jobs got together in Northern Virginia this past weekend to rally for their Second Amendment rights.  Some even brought their guns to the rally!  In contrast, cooler heads held a rally opposing gun ownership just across the river in Washington, D.C. – where tight restrictions keep out gun violence.

Violent overthrow of the government. These bitter, angry people who distrust government may even coalesce into a bitter, angry mob and try to disrupt the November elections.  Foaming at the mouth and blinded by their hatred of the government, they may descend on local polling places, march in one by one, check in with a poll worker, show necessary identification if required, and then angrily pull levers other than the one with “Incumbent” written in next to it and thus tossing the people in office out instantly (after a careful counting of the votes and a two month transition period).

It wasn’t exactly clear how we’ll get from these initial steps to Beyond the Thunderdome.  We’ll have to tune in next Sunday morning to find out.