Managing Expectations

Part VI of a series | Part V | Part IV | Part III | Part II | Part I

In the previous installment of How To Survive The Midterm "Elections", we talked about the ways in which you can express yourself in the voting booth. In this installment we turn to ways in which you can protect yourself from the results.

In my view, tomorrow's midterm "elections" will be most dangerous for "voters" who have unreasonable expectations. Therefore, in order to protect yourself against the coming danger, it is important to set your expectations as realistically as possible.

The following hints may be beneficial to your physical and mental health:

Do not expect to be able to "vote". Expect all manner of senseless, unnecessary and illegal obstacles.

Do not expect your "vote" to be counted. You may never know whether it was counted or not. But when it isn't, it won't hurt so badly if you didn't expect it to be counted anyway.

Do not expect any of your preferred candidates to win, regardless of where they stand in pre-"election" polls. Remember that even though the polls may be rigged in favor of Republicans, the polls do not rely on "voting" machines, and therefore cannot be rigged as spectacularly as the "elections" themselves can be. Also remember that the machines are controlled by people who not only want your preferred candidates to lose, but actually do not want you to be able to "vote" at all.

Do not expect any Republicans to fulfill any of their campaign promises. Don't expect them to pretend that they care about you, or your well-being, or even the well-being of the country. They don't, they never have, and now that their friends control the "voting" machines, they no longer have to pretend that they do.

Do not expect any Democratics to do anything for you, or for your well-being, or for the well-being of the country. In general, you can safely expect them to hide under their desks while the Republicans continue to dismantle the rule of Constitutional law which Americans used to enjoy.

In particular, do not expect Nancy Pelosi to renege on her pledge not to press for impeachment of the so-called president or any of the other criminals who have been running the country for the past six years.

Expect a small number of senate races and a large number of house races to be stolen, in some cases quite blatantly. Do not expect anyone to do anything about it. Expect certain segments of the blogosphere to "light up" for a while, but expect the impact to be slight, if not negligible.

Do not expect any protests in the streets or anywhere else. Expect to be one of the very few people who actually care about the results -- or the process.

With your expectations set at this admittedly very low level, you will probably not be disappointed. You may even be pleasantly surprised.

Do not expect to be pleasantly surprised.

Part VII