My Favorite Joke
After a brief hiatus at the beginning of the year, i've spent the past several months writing and performing a lot of new standup material. Some of it has been good, some of it has been bad. And with my attention perennially focused on the election just like everyone else, a lot of it became dated and irrelevant almost immediately. Between the deluge of new information that is constantly dumped on us by our 24 hour new cycle, and an open mic scene that is so consistently oversaturated with a thousand different yet seemingly identical iterations of any political joke you might have giggled at when you thought of it in the shower, most such jokes tend to come and go pretty quickly.
However, as the election draws to a close, I wanted to take a quick moment to share what I think is easily the best election themed joke that I've written over the last (seemingly endless) year or so. Not very many people have heard it, as I only did it at a handful of open mics before it slipped into the ether of cultural irrelevance. But I'm still really proud of this joke, so I wanted to put it out there for anyone who wasn't fortunate enough to see it at an open mic. Or, more accurately, for anyone who was fortunate enough to avoid being at an open mic in the first place.
Setting the scene for this joke, I want to bring you back to the primary season. It was a simpler time before we had any official nominees, when the Bernie Sanders campaign was just beginning to run out of steam but nowhere near admitting it...
My wife wants to have kids and I don't. When it comes to this issue, it's like she's Hillary Clinton and I'm Bernie Sanders. We both know that she's going to win, my job is just to make sure that when she does, nobody feels good about it.
It might not be as funny now Bernie has long since vanished from the race, but every time I think of that joke, it still makes me snicker a little bit at my own self-satisfied sense of cleverness.
In all seriousness, though, I do love Bernie Sanders. I'm an idealistic Vermont socialist at heart, so how could I not? But as proud as I was to support Bernie, I'm equally proud to say that I will be voting for Hillary Clinton tomorrow. I honestly believe that she's highly and uniquely qualified for the position, and that the scandals plaguing her campaign have been grossly exaggerated and distorted beyond all reasonable proportion. And perhaps more importantly, I believe that even if I am wrong on both counts, even assuming for the moment that she is corrupt, incompetent, and possibly dying from any combination of infectious or neurological disorders as we speak, I maintain that compared to Donald Trump, she is still far and away the lesser of two evils. For in that particular contest, the evil she is being pitted against is so virulent and dangerous that it needs to be stopped at all cost.
And if that's how you see the situation, as a hopeless choice between the lesser of two evils, then I understand your frustration. No one likes being put in a position where their only real options are equally unpalatable. So you might gravitate towards a third party that has no chance of winning, either as a principled stand or a thinly veiled protest vote. Or you might decide to simply sit the election out all together rather than dirty your hands in the service of a system so foul. And under normal circumstances, I might support those decisions. Voting is one of the most basic ways to make your voice heard, and sometimes a voice of dissent, whether active or passive, can be just as important as a voice of support. I get it. It makes a lot of sense. In theory.
However, considering the moral implications of an uncast or wasted vote not just in theory, but in terms of the practical reality at hand, I could never hold such a position myself. Because from where I'm standing, the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency seems so damaging to our country -- to our values, to our reputation abroad, to our safety and economic stability -- that to me, it seems socially irresponsible to do anything but vote for the only person who can realistically stop him. It may make you feel better about yourself to claim the moral high ground by staying out of politics, or to protest both major candidates by backing a losing horse rather than to be counted amongst their ilk. But when you get right down to it, it doesn't matter how good you feel about yourself if the entire world is burning around you. To me, this particular election is about something bigger than a sea individual voices expressing their individual opinions. It's about our collective responsibility to stop something catastrophic, something that may not effect us all equally, but will effect all of us. It's about swallowing your ego and doing what is right for everyone in this country, not just what's right for you and your sense of self. It's about recognizing that sometimes the lesser of two evils can be the right choice if it means keeping a much greater evil at bay. It's about keeping Donald Trump out of The White House no matter what.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Far be it from me to tell other people what to do with their vote. But whatever you believe, even if it is the polar opposite of what I might like you to believe, I would still encourage you to cast your vote tomorrow. Whether it's a vote for Hillary, Trump, a third party, Bart Simpson, or a coat rack that if you squint hard enough in the dark looks kind of like Abraham Lincoln, it's your voice, and you should make it heard. Whether your goal is to stop Trump, stop bleeding heart hippie liberals like me, or send a message to Washington that the two party system is over, no one will get the memo if you just stay home playing drinking games with your TV. Go out, vote whatever you feel is right, then head home to get drunk in good conscience like a true American.
-TC