Background info:  The Mormon Church firmly believes in a modern prophecy which holds that the Constitution and the Republic of the United States of America will be hanging by a thread during some unspecified crisis, and that the Mormon Church or its leadership will step in and save the Constitution. Plow through to the end of this drivel to see how this prophecy will be fulfilled in November…

Nugentism–the tendency to interpret politics through the lens of Braveheart or Lord of the Rings (because life really is that simple)–is actually a smaller problem than its converse: the fact that politics is about to get so super boring, democracy itself may be in peril. 

Of course, democracy is always in peril, that’s what makes it great. Or good enough. Worth fighting for. Worth suspending your rights for. Something.

But not all perils are created equal. Peril is very undemocratic like that. And the peril of political boredom is real enough.

It sounds partisan, but it’s the Republican’s fault this time:  Obama has to be boring, he has no choice–for now. He can become slightly interesting late in his second term and in his post-presidency he can become truly fascinating.

But until then, Obama has to act more like Romney (dull and doofy) than he normally would. Simply being the first black president forces Obama to be an extra-reasonable guy so that voters in the future won’t automatically associate black candidates with radical cultural change. His presidential biography will almost certainly be called Holding Back.

Only the Republicans have the choice of being interesting, like they were back in 2010 and 2011. But instead they’ve chosen boring, very very boring.

Their plan is clear: bore the shit out of the electorate and win a low-turnout snooze-fest! Much cheaper to go boring (thus “more efficient”) and Romney is at heart a money-man.

Village idiot:  But won’t that lead to a crazy third party?

Establishment answer:  Yes! Increased Nugentism is the inevitable by-product of boring vs. boring during times such as these. We’re just hoping it doesn’t crystallize into some sort of Ross Perot thing on steroids without the burden of Ross Perot dragging it down. That could be dangerous.

Village idiot:  What about Santorum and Palin on a third ticket? Then Romney could become the severely moderate person he pretends to be when he’s not pretending he’s conservative.

A:  And with a three-way split in the electoral college, Obama’s piddly popular majority will not be enough to get the 270 electoral votes. Then it goes to the House of Redneck-Resentatives for a fraudulent vote open to the highest bidder foreign or domestic. And we win!

Village idiot:   Don’t you think that if that happened the Prophet of the Mormon Church would call up Mitt and say, “Look, bishop, we can’t win like this–you gotta hand it back to Obama–he won the popular vote”?

A:  You’re an idiot.

(c) 2012, Alan Brech