T-minus two weeks

Elections have generated excitement for as long as I can remember, and even before. But I don't ever recall it being this kind of excitement:

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence...

“If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot,” said Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts. “If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief.”

Personally, I think this is less to do with having a minority and a female candidate on the tickets than it is a function of the increasingly shrill and militant competition for power. The more power has become concentrated in Washington, the more important it is for the parties and their unthinking masses of partisans to jockey for prime positions at the feeding trough. What began as legitimate disagreements over governing philosophies has instead become an ever-more-brutal game of king of the hill. And while the bi-factional ruling party jostles for the One Ring, those of us who just want the government to mind the borders and the jails and stay out of everything else have nowhere to go.

What happens when you have two factions jockeying for unrestrained, unitary power, and a separate constituency who thinks power is entirely too concentrated? You get a powder keg... and an excuse for boots on the streets.

What have we become?