Most Americans - largely ignorant of history and half-crazed by diets of Cheetos and sugared soda pop - probably assume that this year's primary elections are fairly typical of history. Oh, certainly, there's the novelty of the candidates being a black, a woman, and a cripple, but the basic outlines of the campaign - nominees competing fiercely in primaries so that the summer conventions are scripted coronations - are the same that our bewigged forefathers envisioned when they unleashed democracy on an unsuspecting world in 1776, right?
No. Wrong. Always wrong, stupid America.
In fact, the primaries are a new invention cooked up by sinister party bosses to make the country focus on irrelevant places like Iowa at least once every four years in a transparent bid to boost local hoteliers' bottom line. A quick glance at the history makes this plain.
The Early Period (1789-1825)
A little-known fact about the Constitution is that it does not envision either elections or the office of presidency at all. The nation's lack of interest in written materials that do not involve pictures of leggy starlets emerging bleary-eyed and sans knickers from sports cars has camouflaged this fact for decades, but the stray student of constitutional history who actually endeavors to read the damn thing will be forced to admit the absence of these elements. Instead, the Constitution calls for a hereditary monarchy staffed entirely by men who were involved in the Revolution. At the end of the lineal succession, the document envisions the country being consumed by a massive civil war and subsequently ruled by Mexico. George Washington was chosen Imperator For Life in a bloody initiation in 1789, as were the successive Revolutionary-era presidents.
The Period of Robust Democraticism (1825-1861)
With the departure of James Monroe and the end of the Revolutionary generation, older Americans looked forward to their violent death and/or subjugation by the vastly superior armies of the Mexican emperor. Instead, conniving Massachusetts liberal John Quincy Adams proposed that the American nation be allowed to continue until the bonds on the Big Dig had been paid off. If the country were going to continue having presidents (or, as they were called in the parlance of the time, Dragonslayers), they were going to have to find a new way of choosing them. Quincy Adams suggested a "Quincy Adams-off," in which contestants would compete to answer trivia questions about the Quincy and Adams families. This idea was soundly rejected, and he was banished forever to a small island off the coast of Maine.
Instead, Americans settled on a succession of tests designed to locate the strongest adult males for the office of presidency. There were barrel-hoisting contests, spike-hammering tournaments, and dead lift competitions that ensured America was ruled by a succession of muscled boneheads for nearly 40 years. This, incidentally, is the origin of the phrase "political strongman." Historians are virtually unanimous in agreeing that the strongest president from this period was Andrew Jackson, who bench-pressed the entire state of Kentucky, leading to his nickname, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too."
Dictatorship (1861-1865)
American democracy endured a brief interregnum in the 1860s, when federalist militant Abraham Lincoln seized power in a bloody military coup, ruling with an iron fist over the terrified nation until he was assassinated by patriots. After a period of national rejoicing, the Constitution was rewritten to ensure that no man would ever be able to accumulate such power again. Instead, electoral power was decentralized to encompass a broad and diverse network of 37 bankers and industrialists, several of whom lived outside New York City.
The Period of Bankocracy (1865-1901)
Known as the Golden Age, this post-Lincoln period in American history was characterized by westward expansion, harmony between all races and classes, and universal progress in every field of endeavor. This was made possible by the benevolent rule of the nation's venture capitalists, that genius-kissed class of men who tamed the wilderness and criss-crossed the country with mighty railroads. As a sign of their essential goodness, they allowed several people to vote in semi-annual "elections" to choose presidents from among the most promising members of the industrialists' servant classes.
The process by which these servants were chosen to stand as "candidates" was occasionally whimsical. For the 1884 election, Jay Cooke and Andrew Carnegie decided the Democratic candidate would be the man who could sit perfectly still while a flock of angry pigeons covered him in their defecation. That's how Grover Cleveland earned his nickname, "Old Covered-in-Shit."
Dictatorship, again (1901-1908)
After assassinating his predecessor in a cowardly plot similar to Brutus' murder of noble Caesar, anti-business fanatic Theodore "Mad Ted" Roosevelt seized power and embarked on an insane regime of "trust-busting" that speedily brought the American Century to an end. In 1908, Roosevelt was toppled by a coup and offered the choice to go into exile in the newly-christened state of Canada. The colonels who overthrew his brutal regime decided to put in place yet another revision of the Constitution, this one giving huge amounts of power to newly formed "political parties," which at the time were called The Astrodocents and Big Herkle.
The Era of Party Bosses (1908-1952)
Quickly renaming themselves the Democrats and Little Herkle, the two parties soon embarked on a policy of trading the White House every eight years, in a bid to confuse voters and ensure regular redecoration. Individual candidates for office were largely unimportant; the people with most power were the shadowy men who controlled the political parties from the relative anonymity of big city political clubs. Indeed, many historians argue that the most powerful man in America during the 1920s was a short, chubby Philadelphian named Toots Manacle whose official occupation was "vagrant" and who carried a roll of nickels in his shoe. But no one could hope to win a party's nomination without getting Manacle's go-ahead.
Party bosses generally chose presidential nominees based on ephemeral criteria such as whose name would look best on a poster and who had the least amount of individual will. The one major criticism of this system was that party bosses had an "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach to government. The process of finding a suitable nominee often cut into lunch, and was considered deeply annoying. Therefore, when the bosses found someone they all liked, he tended to be president every single time. This is why Franklin "D" Roosevelt was president from 1920 to 1948, when it was discovered that he had died some time in the spring of 1945.
Dictatorship, a third time (1952-1960)
Following its successful defeat of the Nazis in World War: Too, the U.S. Army returned home determined to wreak havoc on the civilian population that - so it was felt in military circles - bought an insufficient number of war bonds. The military installed as dictator-for-life Dwight "D" Eisenhower, a brutal tyrant who eventually tired of the rigors of presidential life, famously comparing the office to "a warm glass of piss." After Eisenhower unwisely opposed the introduction of rockabilly into the Northern states, his regime was shaken by a series of uncompromising Doo-Wop Strikes, and he was driven from office and torn to shreds by a gang of angry teenagers, who offered yet another revision of the Constitution, designed to ward off dictatorship forever.
The Birth of the Primary System (1960-present)
Elections in America had always been bloody affairs characterized by riots, civil strife, Air Force bombings of defenseless civilians, and death tolls in the tens of thousands. Starting in 1960, America's two parties - Muslim League Q and The Thunderbirds - decided that some of the devastation could be lessened if the year consisted of dozens of small elections culminating in one general election. The hope was that most voters would be either exhausted by constant fighting or dead, and so the November elections could go off with a minimum of bloodshed.
This plan was opposed by party bosses, who dismissed primaries as "so much eyewash" and vowed to slaughter anyone who dared vote in them. Despite these threats - carried out in states like West Virginia and Maryland, which were essentially depopulated in the 1960s - the primary election caught on. Americans simply loved voting, and the chance to do it twice in one year filled the population with excitement. Soon, "voting parties" were springing up all over the country, in which people voted not only in primaries, but on questions ranging from what to have for dessert (cannoli) to whether condoms should be used during sex with strangers (no). The party conventions, which had once been fabulously seedy events filled with chances to smoke cigars, drink bourbon, and have sex with young housewives in sensible dresses, soon became little more than ratifications of the primaries.
That's the situation in which we find ourselves today, in which the candidates of one of the parties (The Anglo-Klaxon Party) find themselves visiting places they never imagined they would have to go (Indiana, for the love of Jesus!) in order to convince the tubby yokels to vote for them in the primary. This is so unpopular with the candidates that another reform is almost guaranteed once one of them crushes the other and dispenses with the flimsy trappings of democracy forced on the parties by a fickle public.
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