blog post

The scene is an overweight man standing over a wooden workbench, beads of sweat forming on his brow despite the cold of the room. His posture is tense, shoulders hunched, clearly struggling with the task before him. In his hand, he grips a hefty wooden mallet, its surface scratched and worn from years of use. His eyes, uncomfortably close together, squint at the round peg he’s about to hammer into the square hole in the piece of wood in front of him. The peg looks completely out of place, its perfectly circular shape mocking the perfectly angular hole.

 

The man stands just a little too close to the bench, a mix of determination and frustration in his expression. His thick beard, uneven and unkempt, hides part of his frown, but the irritation in his furrowed brow and squinting eyes is undeniable. His flannel shirt, stained with a mix of sawdust and sweat, is barely hanging on to the sleeves that are rolled up to his elbows. The piece of wood itself is plain, unadorned, with a single, stubborn square hole in the center—an odd shape that doesn’t match the round peg resting beside it.

 

As the mallet is raised high, his eyes narrow even more, the gap between them seeming to shrink as if his intense focus could somehow make the task easier. His other hand, thick and calloused, steadies the peg in place, but the frustration on his face suggests he knows, deep down, that this is a futile attempt. His body is locked in a tense moment, ready to strike. The round peg, sitting helplessly beside the hole, seems to almost laugh in defiance of the man’s impossible effort.

 

Sorry Dems, the toothpaste is out of the tube now. The party is dead. In 100 years, it will just be an ugly note in the American history books, much like the Whig party of the 1800’s is now.