by Jesse Marioneaux

Annual party convention season in the United States combines comedy, farce, and melodrama in one rip-roaring package of unadulterated entertainment that is to democracy what the Emperor Nero was to fire prevention.

The American people, and the world, are currently being treated to an annual parade of charisma-challenged, very rich and predominately white mummies, appearing on vast stages bedecked in Stars & Stripes and other symbols of US exceptionalism, reading prepared speeches from an autocue in front of audiences of placard-waving, holler-whooping people bused in from every town in the country.

Meanwhile, outside the auditoria where these circuses are being held, the people from downtown are protesting, doing their best to avoid getting their skulls cracked by police batons in the process.

Is there anybody anywhere who still believes that democracy and America are words that belong together in the same sentence? Rather than a government of…