Tomorrow is the Presidential election cycle here in the United States.  Starting tomorrow morning – a large number of Americans will queue up and vote for the candidate that they believe will best embody the concepts of what being an American is about.  Whichever individual is elected will be handed the keys to the country, and have their hand on the tiller – so to speak.  The true “power” in the United States is held by the Congress – comprised of the Senate and the House of Representatives.  But still…plenty of Americans will be in a snit and tizzy over the finality of the results.

The best thing about Tuesday?  The election cycle will FINALLY be over.  Maybe.  Potentially.  There’s a chance that this election will be super close (similar to the Bush v. Gore election in terms of closeness).  So the election cycle *might* not be over on Wednesday morning.  Well, with the exception of the amazingly annoying television and radio advertisements.  And honestly, I can do without that shit for a looooooooooooong time.

Depending on which side comes out on top – the other side of the argument (oddly enough – most folk don’t realize that there’s more than just two sides in this entire mess) will claim that the “end of the world as we know and understand” will be upon us.  No, it won’t have anything to do with the end of the Mayan calendar.  It will have more to do with the fact that their candidate lost the election, and the other candidate will then reshuffle America into something you would never recognize.  Of course, this ignores the fact that the President doesn’t have that kind of power as granted by the Constitution.  Laws and budgets are controlled by the Congress – which everyone seemingly forgets every election cycle…but I’m digressing slightly.

So, if one candidate wins, America will suddenly become a socialist state over-night.  If the other candidate wins, America will either become a draconian empire or a business caliphate – either one of which pays no attention to the lower classes.  The reality of it all is drastically different though.  Both of those scenarios are wild, fear-mongering depictions designed to scare people to one side or the other in voting. Instead, America will look the same on Wednesday as it did on Tuesday.  Come on folks, this nation survived eight years of President Bush, eight years of Bill Clinton, eight years of Ronald Reagan – and a host of equally horrendous/splendid (depending on your opinion) Presidential administrations.  America isn’t going to drastically change – nor will it make a slow erosion into a Communist state or Business Caliphate either.  There’s a triad balance of powers within the government.  If we all have faith in this form of government – as we all seemingly claim to do – America will survive and thrive well beyond whoever gets elected.

“But America will be different than the America we grew up in.”  Yes.  I agree.  America will be different.  Fsck.  America is different now then when *I* grew up.  And while every President since the time I was born (October 1965 for those trying to keep score) has had some influence over those changes — that influence is far smaller than was/has/is stated.  There are other intrinsic factors that have changed America (fsck, its changed the world too – and the President has FAR less influence in that realm than Americans seem to understand) – social changes, technological changes, changes to the business environment, changes in the way we communicate….those had far bigger influences on the changes of America over those forty-mumble years than any of the men elected to the position of President. In fact, I would submit that Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Douglas Englebert, Vint Cerf, Marc Andreessen, Linus Torvalds, and a small army of others have played a far greater role in changing our world than any politician elected to the position of President of the United States of America could ever have dreamed of.

I know that talk of doom and gloom is easy to work with.  Fear is a strong emotion, and far more easily accessible than that of happiness.  Fear lies just beneath the surface.  We need only scratch ever so slightly to conjure up our worst fears.  Achieving happiness is a little more difficult.  We are used to momentary periods of happiness punctuated with hopes and dreams – only to have our fears eat away at the sails we’ve set to assist against the tide.  Regardless of who gets elected to the position of President – life will continue on.  Those who perceive the loss of their candidate as a “sign of doom” move against what is the strength of the American populace.  Tenacity, perseverance in the face of a hopeless moment…these defined what the “greatest generation” faced during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  Yet, instead of feeling defeated because things were not “going their way” – these folks rolled up their sleeves and made do with what they had – and moved forward TOGETHER as a society to achieve success.  Currently, America has a division that shows in the current polls regarding the election.  Its not a matter of who we elect as President that will define where this nation goes.  Its not a matter of what policies the victor enacts that will make America what it is.  What we, the American populace, do that will define our future.  We can continue to wallow in a world of divisive positioning.  Finger-pointing, and sarcastically remarking over each mis-step that the Presidential victor makes in the coming years — or we can work together.  We can decide that political positioning is a way of defining “Us versus Them” – or we can roll up our sleeves and work together and become a nation of “We”.

In my personal opinion, America’s choice doesn’t come down to the election that takes place tomorrow.  Its the day after that when America will have a decision to make.  When the dust settles, do we continue to be a divided Nation?  or will we have finally grown up enough to come together and live up to the expectations of the generations that have come before us?  The generations before us that also had their political differences, but set those aside after an election and came back together as a Nation rather than a group of divided political factions?  Let’s ditch the fscking finger-pointing…let’s ditch the fscking sarcasm aimed at those we didn’t vote for.  Until we come together and work as a UNITED nation of peoples…regardless of political, racial, religious, gender, sexual preference differences…then we’ve not achieved anything with any election – and America WILL be a different Nation.  And definitely not something that I – as a single individual – will be proud to call myself a part of.