“Our faith in the integrity of the system has been restored! After all, democracy is alive and well—as long as we’re on top, of course. It’s a beautiful thing, really: ballots counted, recounts recounted, audits audited, until—by some miracle of divine intervention—Republicans win! Then, and only then, is the system above reproach, a paragon of fairness, with not a shred of fraud to be found.

Funny how it works, isn’t it? Win, and we have the most secure election ever held. Lose, and suddenly the whole thing reeks of foul play, conspiracies lurking in every precinct. In short, elections are ‘stolen’ exactly as often as they are lost. Democracy, folks—it’s foolproof, provided you pick the right fools.”

Our “faith” in the integrity of the system has been restored—if, of course, by faith, we mean a cynical grin and a shot of bourbon while the clowns spin their wheels. This, my friends, is the greatest farce in the American political circus: Republicans hollering from the rooftops that democracy has been stolen from the People—until, by some celestial coin flip, they end up winning. Then, somehow, the entire operation is as pristine as a monk’s prayer book.

Think about it. The same bloodshot-eyed politicians who spent years spreading election paranoia like they were spreading manure suddenly morph into pious defenders of the very machine they’d spent so much time bashing. It’s as if the voting booths, those hallowed “sacred instruments of democracy,” become sanctified only when they turn out to be dispensers of red ballots. I can almost hear them: “Ah yes, the American people have spoken.” Right—so long as they’re speaking with a conservative accent.

But oh, when they lose, it’s suddenly the crime of the century! The earth shakes, the skies darken, and before you know it, the same officials who declared themselves the holy defenders of democracy are rampaging through their own playbook of conspiracies, frantically declaring it all a rigged spectacle. Out come the wild-eyed claims, the imaginary fraudsters, the phantoms of dead voters and ballot dumps—all so they don’t have to swallow the bitter pill of an election defeat. And yet, when they win, these problems magically evaporate.

The game is rigged, all right. But it’s not the ballot counters or the polling stations who are rigging it—it’s the spin doctors and fear-mongers. They’ve got a good racket going: win, and democracy is sacred; lose, and democracy is a lie. It’s a shell game, a three-ring carnival, and they’re selling you snake oil with one hand while they pick your pocket with the other. And every time you tune in, every time you let yourself get sucked into their pantomime of rage and righteousness, you’re just buying another ticket to the circus.

And then we have the Sisters of Mercy—our noble Democrats—tossing up their hands and bowing down to the almighty patriarchy of power and wealth, while still cooing sweet, syrupy promises to the poor sods who trusted them. Make no mistake, these so-called “champions of the people” are doing nothing but rolling over for every boardroom warlord and tech titan that dangles a dollar in their direction. They’re not so much a resistance as a pitiful curtsy—a bow to the billionaires, a nod to the corporations, a submissive little grin to anyone who’ll keep them fat and funded.

They prance around talking about “hope” and “change,” but what does that translate to? Just another soporific cocktail of half-measures and empty gestures, designed to keep the electorate in a cozy stupor while the corporate machinery churns on, louder than ever. They don’t earn the people’s trust; they leech off it, riding the coattails of progressive rhetoric while offering nothing substantial in return. Behind the scenes, they’re every bit as beholden to power as the villains they claim to oppose.

The reality is, they’ve perfected the art of symbolic resistance—a neat little trick where they stand in front of the cameras, shaking their fists, mouthing platitudes about “fighting for the common man,” all while giving the green light to the same backdoor deals and loophole-ridden legislation that feeds the beast. They’re not a counterforce to Republican corporate pandering; they’re the polished flip side, selling out with a smile, waving a rainbow flag while signing off on a corporate tax cut.

And they wonder why the electorate’s trust is thin as a politician’s spine.

But this is all comfort food for the periodic arrival of the real villains in this melodrama: the ethno-nationalist, fascist, pig-headed wing of the industrial-corporate complex. The Democratic Party may be complacent, but it’s the other side—the red-faced, boot-stomping maniacs—who take that complacency and turn it into a weapon. They’re the ones salivating on the sidelines, just waiting to take the reins of the machine, to twist and reshape it in their image, with slogans that smell of blood and soil.

The Democrats, bless them, think they’re holding the line, playing a noble game of resistance. But all they’re really doing is keeping the seat warm. Their tepid half-measures, their sanitized rhetoric, their cozy relationship with Wall Street—it all amounts to a mere intermission before the fascist show rolls back into town. They’re the warm-up act, lulling everyone into a sense of security so that when the hardliners show up with their chest-thumping nationalism and crude, industrial-strength authoritarianism, people are too dazed, too weary, to resist.

And the “villains,” these ethno-nationalist corporate beasts, they’re not here to play pretend. No, they don’t bow, they don’t nod politely to the corporate overlords—they are the overlords, unabashedly wielding power and privilege as a blunt instrument, smashing down anything or anyone who gets in their way. They aren’t beholden to the system; they want to own it outright, to reshape it into their own monstrous vision, where democracy is just a dusty word and the electorate is nothing more than a mass of consumers to be exploited or discarded.

So while the Sisters of Mercy are busy shuffling papers and mumbling slogans, the real threat is waiting in the wings, ready to barrel through with corporate backing and a base pumped full of rage and righteous ignorance. They’ve got no use for comfort or moderation, and the sad fact is, they’re not going anywhere. They’ll just keep coming back, riding on the waves of populist fury, dressed up as patriots, until the last semblance of democracy is a thin, fraying disguise for the ugly machinery grinding away underneath.