I Had a Dream

I had a dream that a well funded American individual decided to start a reality-based political movement by running straw-man candidates who would say the most ridiculous things, based in fantasy, claims that would be easily dismissed by the public, full of hypocrisy and contradiction. The idea was to clear the road to office for a set of real candidates, who would simply point out the obvious flaws in their opponents' outlandish claims and waltz into office, eventually bringing America into a Golden Era of Reason.

Instead, the dream turned into a nightmare, and the supposed "real candidates" fell for the fantasy fracas, and no one could tell the difference between fact and fiction, between straw men who could be bought and the "real candidates" who would simply compromise and roll over in order to get into and stay in office.

And worst of all, all the riches and altruism in the world could do nothing to fix the problem, since the supposedly democratic election process itself prevented third party candidates from having a real shot. So the rich man turned from altruism to figuring out how to profit from the situation, a simpler matter than getting a reasonable candidate into office.