Cartoonicans and Cartoonacrats

Found this among the comments to a Guardian column by Ian Williams.

Can America elect a President who isn't preternaturally shallow? A potential president has to be both self-assured and reassuring to pull the votes— Americans like to feel comfortable with the President that comes into their living rooms. But s/he also has, at least potentially, a great deal of power; the American political system hasn't been substantially updated since it was brought down from the mountain-top in 1776, or 4004bc, or whenever (I hear there's now a museum in Tennessee that features dioramas showing American Presidents and dinosaurs striding across the holy land together).

The president, in fact, has too much power, should s/he only choose to use it for good, instead of for evil—and the corporations that now effectively run the country really don't want anyone with a real backbone in [the] White House. America is already safely in corporate hands—a powerful president is unnecessary and potentially dangerous. So the charisma that springs from real conviction would be a non-starter from their point of view, regardless of what those convictions were. As they essentially buy the Democratic and Republican candidates their place in the final race, their approval is essential.

The upshot is that any potential president must be charming, but must at the same time be devoid of any real conviction. And so, until the age of corporate rule is ended,… it's unlikely that the President of the United States of America will ever be anything but a polished imitation of a real human being.

It should be nobody's business but our own that we so enthusiastically elect Cartoonicans and Cartoonacrats to offices both high and low, except for the fact that we're so explosively amp'd about exporting our Glorious Vision of Cartoonacracy around the globe. And as far as anybody can tell, it's about the only thing we have left to export.