It’s not always tragic when a young gun is cut down in his prime.
It’s not often these days that I see merit in talking much about two-party national politics, but the shocking and unexpected political demise of House Majority Leader Eric Ivan Cantor is impossible to ignore. Granted, I write about politics, and this is practically a required topic for the chattering classes. Despite the fact that we’re all used to Nate Silver – practically a rival wizard – predicting everything months in advance, nobody saw this one coming. We can give the electoral soothsayers a pass on this one since no sitting House member of Cantor’s power and position has ever lost a primary, in the history of ever.
The reaction of the analyzers is, in fact, in itself quite hilarious. Everyone’s running round from bridge to rooftop, hair askance, screaming at the top of their lungs WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!?! Is the Tea Party the new Genghis Khan? Can people even buy elections anymore? Is any wealthy corrupt incumbent safe? Is nothing sacred? And how much do republicans hate brown people, anyway??
For the purposes of length – not to mention both my sanity and yours – I’ll leave that kind of terrified speculation to others. I don’t care that much about any of those things anyway. This is interesting and irresistible to me for one reason, and that’s that I’ve been venomously calling the esteemed Majority Leader Emeritus a rat-faced eff-bomb for longer than I can remember, with a gleeful and pure hatred so filled with the fullness of life as to forever defy the moralistic fascists who insist that hate can never be a good thing.
In fact, for a foul, black-souled villain like Cantor, when it comes to such a silk-suited lunatic, cheat, and charlatan, to lack hate indicates either a lack of knowledge or lack of humanity. Even his ostensible co-criminal, House Speaker John Boehner – himself wholly responsible for inventing the phenomenon of “orange privilege” – hates the former majority leader if for no other reason than his propensity to be a pain in the ass and get in the way of his merlot and Camel Ultra Lights (or is it Marlboro? Either way – what kind of good Midwestern tobacco consumer smokes ultra-lights?).
In his illustrious and contemptuous political career, Eric Ivan Cantor, Majority Leader Emeritus and rat-faced eff-bomb, took every opportunity to screw working people, always made sure the banks got paid, fought off violent nausea and twitching at the mere thought of mild Keynesianism, couldn’t morally stand the idea of people going to work, but didn’t think that people without work should, like, eat food.
Nobody cries for Cantor – quite possibly not even his wife, who is somehow apparently a liberal of some kind. It’s like when the meanest, ugliest, least-loved neighborhood dog outlives all the good ones and then must finally be taken in to be put down. No one grieves, and no one should. This is a sleazy, maniacal pol who will still always be able to look back at his career, even such as it stands cut short today, and say he gave government overthrow a good old-fashioned go. It may have proven neither revolutionary insurrection or fascist uprising, but hell, at least this self-proclaimed fiscal conservative was able to cost the United States 24 billion dollars over a couple of days in some mangled, bizarre-world attempt to not make any point whatsoever. The word “quixotic” is much too generous and complimentary for such a disgustingly delusional and deranged endeavor.
He’s an unabashed supporter of genocide and colonialism, proclaiming – like an Orwellian dictator on brown acid – that what’s great about America is Israel. And no table scraps for those browns who dare to live in the land of King David, either. Time to crank up the SodaStream and get some cold refreshment to the bulldozer drivers – there are so many Palestinian homes to crush, so much land to turn into wonderful colonial settlements, and just so little time. Just ask Cantor.
Indeed, one of the only things I continue to love and admire about President Obama is his consistently and delightfully shabby treatment of ethnic supremacist genocider Bibi Netanyahu. In contrast, the shameless former Majority Leader has been at once the Israeli Prime Minister’s BFFL and lapdog.
No one cries for a pathetic, self-serving, two-faced, smiley sociopathic oppressor, and thus no one cries for Cantor. No one should. He had his shot to overthrow the government and may have aimed a bit high. If there’s any chance of any Capitol door hitting him on the ass on the way out, it’s an ass that’s already outfitted with the protective cushion of inevitable seven-figure days on K Street.
But in the infinitesimally unlikely even that one of American history’s biggest political losers or even some clueless staffer is listening, I’m compelled to say a few words directly: Eric Ivan, you’ve been a favorite enemy of mine for much longer than most, and I’d like to commend you for achieving the impossible. It’s not the laughable accomplishment of your defeat that impresses me most, but the fact that you somehow managed to make yourself into an embarrassing scourge on a ruined political system already performing at all-time lows. To you, I raise my glass of (not-merlot) wine, and I leave you mankind’s most immortal parting words: fuck you, and thanks for all the laughs.
Christopher J. DiLoreto 