Political Science 101

Chapter Eighty

THE STAGE was silent. The red light on the camera directly in front of Ray was on; he knew it was his turn to speak. He knew exactly what he was supposed to say and how he was supposed to say it. This had been determined weeks ago. The script was written, the play was nearly over, and he needed only to speak his final lines.

"Thank you," he said, trying to sound genuine (but sounding disingenuous), "to my fellow candidates for participating in this discussion. Thank you as well to the university for hosting this event, and a special thank you all who tuned-in to watch."

Ray paused. Ray stopped. The next bit of his script awaited his performance, but he stopped, regardless of his allotted speaking time ticking away. The silence around him carried a small hum, or a buzz, or a hiss; someone in the audience coughed. The moderator looked around. Ray's speaking time continued to deplete.

Ray inhaled. "My commitment to the great people of Missouri is..." He stopped again. He looked down. He looked around. Then, as if weighed down by an unseen inevitable reality, Ray visibly dropped his shoulders, letting his eyes and chin drop to the podium in front of him. His entire countenance changed. After a long and brief moment, he looked back up at the camera. "Do these debates even matter?" Ray looked around.

Everyone looked confused. A mild rumbling could be heard in the audience.

"Seriously," he continued, "we just spent the last hour-and-a-half arguing. But we weren't arguing about the issues, we were arguing about each other. All we've done here is bitch-and-moan using statistics, fear-mongering, and big words." Ray paused again.

The audience was now completely silent.

"None of us has said anything of real substance here tonight," Ray said. The sense of frustration in his voice was growing more apparent with every word he floated across the airwaves. "I mean, what would happen if we actually answered the questions we were asked? What if we actually gave solid answers like Yes or No to the Yes/No questions instead of answering with a convoluted soup of words; it sounds political and substantive, but most of our answers don't actually answer a damn thing."

The blue light on the moderator's table illuminated. "Thank you, Mr. Doyle," the moderator said. Your time has—"

"I'm not finished," Ray said, interrupting him. He turned to his opponents alternatingly. "I've seen you guys' campaign ads. The only thing you do is spread negativity like it's a disease. If I was a voter — and I am, by the way; just like you two and everyone in this room — I'd be confused as hell. All you people do is tell the public why not to vote for the other guy, but no one has any idea why they should vote for you! You just air your ominous negative ads, flooding them with political buzzwords, hoping to scare people into not voting for the other guy."

"Mr. Doyle," the moderator said, attempting to interject, "we've run out of—"

"Robertson," Ray continued, ignoring the moderator, "your ads are full of words like Liberal and Socialist and Border and Obama and Clinton; but the only thing in your ads about you is the part where you say you 'approved this message' at the end."

Robertson inhaled to speak, but didn't get the chance.

"And you," Ray said, turning his back to Robertson and facing Wright, "you're no better. But your ads just say Right-Wing Extremists and Elitists and Top One-Percenters and Civil Liberties and Bush and Trump." Ray paused. "You're doing the same damn thing he is," he continued, pointing a thumb back at Robertson, "you're just on the other end of the spectrum."

Wright also inhaled to speak, but did not get the chance either.

"Most of the crap in both of your ads," Ray said, his voice escalating, "is about each other — or me — and has nothing to do with issues the voters care about, and most of the information is half-true or flat-out false or misleading or stretches the truth. But that doesn't matter because if you run a TV ad enough times, thousands or millions of people will see it and just assume it's true. And you know damn-good-and-well that if the news stations fact-check your ads and point out your misleading half-truths and lies, only a few hundred or maybe a thousand people will be watching. So as far as most people are concerned, your lies become truth.

Ray paused again, seeing the shock in the eyes of ... everyone. He wasn't sure if it was because of his rant as-a-whole, or because he'd just made his accusation on public television. And he didn't care.

"Listen," Ray said, sounding considerably calmer, "if you want to vote for me then vote for me. Your support for me is humbling and appreciated. Seriously. But vote for me because you want to vote for me, not because you want to vote against someone else. If you justify your vote by saying you're voting for the 'lesser of the evils,' then don't vote. But regardless, I'm sick and tired of how fake and meaningless this process has become. Vote or don't vote, it's up to you; but vote for the right reasons."

And with that, he walked away from the podium and off of the stage. The uncomfortable and awkward silence Ray left behind him would resonate across the entire country.