Here’s a great truth about many modern things: they’re just mass hallucinations. Elections, legitimacy, primaries, offices, campaigns, polls and even the candidates themselves: they’re not objectively real the way that rocks or trees are real. At least, not at first. Because things that are not real can become real if, like Peter Pan, you just believe. And in America, the very real action that corresponds to “believes in” is “you tell other people you’re voting for Bob, especially if that other person is named Mr. Gallup.” That’s it. If someone asks “Is Bob running for president?” Well, now, I don’t know - how many people have told Mr. Gallup they would vote for Bob? Six hundred and forty-three thousand? Well then, yes, he’s running for president. See how easy it is?
Let’s try another, less imaginary, example. You may have heard about this “Democratic Party” - yes, if you’re wondering, parties are also hallucinations - and how they’re not very good at these “election” things. Perhaps they’d be in the market for a new candidate who would not lose so badly?
To that end, here’s an another little secret about their hallucination: you can just say out loud “I’m running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination” and then it’s true. It becomes even more true every time someone else says “I would vote for the person who just said that” until one day it becomes Pinocchio-style-real-boy true until you get a silly picture taken of you in a tank and then it becomes un-true again. It’s all just in people’s heads, but so are all those other things like the election itself: they’re as real as you want them to be.
Hey wait, I’m a someone.
What if… I just said, out loud:
I’m running for the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential nomination
Oh my god, look, it’s happening already:
Humbly I think that my smile is better than Mayor Pete’s, but AOC has me beat. At least I look better than the guy I photoshopped out.
Did I fake this? Of course I did, I am an internationally renowned expert at Microsoft Paint, and that credential is just as a real as my candidacy. But as Churchill said, we’ve already agreed that all of this is on the fake spectrum, now we’re just haggling over the price. The key thing I selfishly want to focus on is that it is possible to de-fake it (until you make it), and you can do it with me. Email PredictIt and tell them to add me to the list. Email Polymarket or Kalshi or whoever, and buy some [Brian Moore: Yes] contracts. Is that a wise investment? I don’t know, but I can 100% guarantee their value won’t go down. And when Mr. Gallup calls you on the phone, tell him you’re putting all your voting chips down on Brian Moore, but please be very clear that you’re talking about the one from Ohio, and not the one from Florida, and also not the one who is also from Ohio but is a dead criminal. Sorry. A little sensitive about that guy.
But why stop there? People say “you can just do things” but obviously we shouldn’t just stop at doing one little thing! Did you know there’s another hallucinated political party in America? They’re called the “Republicans” and they also (think they) have a primary! Let’s try again:
I’m running for the Republican Party’s 2028 presidential nomination
Holy crap, it worked!
Sure I arbitrarily removed JD, but does the race really need two mid-40s white Ohio dads running? It does not. I’ll assume anyone voting for him would be just as happy with me, and assuming is what matters here.
Now, you might say: “you can’t run for both party’s nominations at the same time” and to this I would say “did you not see those prediction markets?” Remember: the parties are hallucinations. If everyone changed their minds and decided to hallucinate that the GOP’s representative color was orange instead of red, that would become true. Wait, suddenly I don’t like that analogy.
But so it goes with rules like “you can’t be the nominee for both parties.” It’s true if enough people believe it. But if enough people decided to stop believing it, because they were sick and tired of stupid made-up party rules, then…. it would no longer be true. Remember the words “Democrat” and “Republican” don’t appear in the Constitution. Any rules that exist about those fabricated constructs are just as imaginary, and you are all free to un-imagine them. So, everyone believe real hard and the rest will follow. So long as I avoid silly tank photos.
But we can do one better. 2028 is a long ways away. Who knows what the current occupants of the White House might screw up over those long, long three years? Who are they to tell us that we have to wait until November 2028 to get rid of them? Now I may be just a humble country lawyer, but a democracy where you can only vote once every 1461 days doesn’t really seem very democratic.
Seems to me, we should imagine ourselves up a process where we could just replace the president today with whoever we wanted. Well, good news everyone: they already imagined that process and it exists, ready to go: The Contingency Plan.
Here’s the important part to imagine:
“Enough voters” are basically just enough motivated, loud, obnoxious people to swing the margin of the closest ~60% of upcoming congressional elections, so that the relevant congresspeople consider it in their interest to go along with it. Not actually that many people. If you imagine (and yell at your congressman) hard enough, then whoever you demand in step 3 becomes the president. For real.
So kids, come along with me to Imagination Land:
It’ll go a lot better than it did in the show, I promise.
As they say in the ads - my name is Brian Moore, and I support this imaginary message.