Log man

I was sitting in the Outlaw Women Saloon in Augusta, Montana, enjoying an interesting conversation with the bartender - a young lady from southern Florida who came to Montana because she wanted to learn to be a cowgirl, and a fellow named Log Man, who was finishing up his adventure on the Continental Divide Trail -when a loud chorus of boos and hisses suddenly erupted from the other side of the bar.

Photo by Craig Rullman

Log Man gets Rullman's vote.

We all swiveled in that direction, expecting a good, cow-town sort of bar fight, only to realize that this was a spontaneous reaction to the Presidential Debate, which had appeared on the one tiny television, hanging between a photograph of Calamity Jane and an elk mount.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted to watch it.

A columnist is often an unofficial pollster - taking the proletarian pulse, listening, observing, weighing this versus that, and finally trying to make some kind of order out of chaos. In the arena of Presidential politics this can be an absurd amount of fun, particularly when the candidates are so objectively terrible - so historically awful -and yet somehow continue to mesmerize their enraptured flocks of true believers.

Hiring someone for what is, arguably, the most important job in the world because they are "beautiful," or have "vibes," should be clear evidence that the process is badly broken, from the voter to the political machines that have only managed, election after election, to spit out such garbage candidates in the first place.

Collapse is further evidenced by the two national conventions, whose producers have clearly borrowed heavily from southern-style televangelism - complete with convulsive crowds and eager witnessing, culminating in a frenzied, pulpit-pounding, ecstatic sermon by the candidate - full of faith-healing promises that the sick will be cured, the lame will walk again, and democracy will finally be made safe from evil-doers. If only you will donate more money and, naturally, spread the word.

It's all poppycock, of course, but nevertheless draws a big crowd of the wildly devout.

Trump Derangement is a real thing, and highly contagious, because it has a certain gain-of-function volatility and ends up deranging both those who love him and those who hate him. That he is the wrong guy, plucked from a nation of 370 million people who show up on a census, should be obvious to anyone who isn't wearing the Fox goggles.

On the other end we have the Enigma candidate, equally unsuitable, who has the advantage of most major media organs being entirely in the bag for the Democrat party - and whose followers screech wildly about defending democracy while simultaneously executing a palace coup and ushering in a candidate who has received zero votes anywhere, and whose history in government - when anyone cares to examine it - leans heavily toward Marxism.

How very democratic.

The final lie, and it is a lie because it is intellectually dishonest and inherently fraudulent, is that somehow, as a conscientious voter, you must choose between Daffy Duck or Porky Pig. It is your duty, they insist, to vote for one cartoon character or the other.

Except that it isn't, and you don't have to.

What they want, these missionary zealots who come frothily out of the woodwork, are converts, and they represent a jealous God, which is why they get angry when you don't fall in line for what each side sees as the living embodiment of the one and true political savior.

Thankfully nobody in the Outlaw Women Saloon was buying it.

This is probably the result of diminishing faith in the institutions that are meant to safeguard the republic. The FBI? Nope. The State Department? Nope. Congress? Nope. The IRS? That's laughable. The White House? Nope. The Secret Service? Our system of voting? Hardly. Watching five minutes of almost any congressional hearing, or White House press conference, on any topic, should be enough to debunk or disabuse the idea that these folks are the best and the brightest among us, working single-mindedly for their constituents to improve conditions in the wider republic.

We have plenty of evidence - and more of it than ever - that this simply isn't true - that they aren't doing that.

For the assembled riff-raff in a decent bar in Augusta, Montana, the dripping condescension of it all evoked a spontaneous - and I think measurably important -reaction. The roar of loathing born of disappointment and disillusionment is widely representative. Because the event was meant to be taken seriously. Because it wasn't serious at all. And because anyone with a mind not befogged by weird celebrity crushes or the endless flood of sponsored lies suspects that the entire process, at this point, is little better than a corrupted feat of legerdemain.

Turning back to the bar, me and Log Man and Julia, the bartender, picked up our conversation. It had to do with Log Man's triumph over severe asthma, his military service, and his decision to complete the Appalachian Trail for veterans. Which he did. And then the Pacific Crest Trail, for child abuse victims. Which he did. And his final conquest, the Continental Divide Trail, which he was doing to raise money for Alzheimer's research. All while carrying his gear and a 30-pound log on his shoulders.

Come November Log Man gets my vote. He's earned it. And the best part - he doesn't even want it.