Election stuff. As prolific as fecal bacteria at a Gulf Shore beach and just as shitty.

Both parties have managed to put up candidates who could, tomorrow, rip off their human skins to reveal reptilian scales beneath, and not a single person in the world would be surprised.

The Republicans have had their Battle Royale and will (unless crazier things are yet in store, and apparently there are people in the party working for exactly that) officially name a radioactive potato as their candidate in just a few short weeks. A xenophobic, racist, sexist, dollar- and self-worshipping bag of elephant assholes, who literally cannot stop the feces fountain that erupts from his mouth without warning, day or night.

It was the best thing Democrats could hope for. What country could ever elect this “man”?

But then the Democrats held their own coronation festival for perhaps the most disliked figure in recent political history, a woman who … well, it’s hard to say exactly what the Republicans dislike about her so much. They say she’s dishonest, but … she’s a politician. There’s that Benghazi thing, but again … she’s a politician, and she’s just one thread in a massive tapestry. Nonetheless, they hate her, and they’ve convinced a lot of innocent bystanders to hate her, and the Democrats will be putting her into the ring with Agent Orange come November.

It was the best thing Republicans could hope for.

So now we’ve got a real race to the bottom, a true battle of “which terrible, horrible, very bad, no-good candidate will be less awful for our country”.

It would be a perfect time, come to think of it, to vote third party.

Why not, right? The two-party system has belched up this rotten buffet of a living, breathing cheesesteak versus what is probably a pod-person, and it all sucks. It sucks bad. Like, moving to Canada bad. I hear they have healthcare figured out up there. Never has a third party candidate looked more appealing!

But the problem with a third party is the same problem it’s always been, which is that the two parties, as hell-fargoed as they are, have enough entrenched followers that they will never lose to a third party. And it’s a damn shame. Because the libertarians put forth ideology that, I would wager, sits right with the vast majority of Americans. Real laissez-faire stuff, not that Republican brand of get off my lawn (which quickly turns into HEY TRIM YOUR LAWN ACCORDING TO THE STANDARDS WE’VE SET DOWN when they decide you’re not Jesusing hard enough). And they don’t go crazy with the entitlements and the social aid like the Democrats do either. Not ruthlessly pandering to any base. Not shamelessly lobbying for votes. Just decent, commonsense, middle-of-the-road approaches to politics.

This is the perfect time to vote third party, to send a message to the two parties that we’re fed up with their Hatfield-and-McCoy-ing.

But.

If you’re a Republican, you hate Hillary like the son of the man who killed your father. And you know that if you vote for a third party (who won’t win in November), much as it’d be nice to stand on principle and send a message to your own party, you know that one less vote for Trump is essentially one more vote for Hillary. So you clearly can’t do that.

And if you’re a Democrat, you fear Trump like the Boogeyman that probably already got his soul. And you know that if you vote for a third party (who won’t win in November), much as you’d love to chastise your party for putting up such a flawed candidate, you know that one less vote for Hillary is essentially one more vote for Trump. So you clearly can’t do that.

Both cups are poisoned. There’s a third cup, but if you drink from it, you lose by default, even if you win in principle.

This is the perfect time to vote third party, because the other candidates suck. They really suck.

But this is the absolute wrong time to vote third party, because … what if the other guy wins?

Unless you’re a Republican who can’t bring yourself to vote for Trump. In that case, by all means, vote third party. Because while the Democrats may be a circle-jerking ring of hippie love and pot-legalizing granola crunchies, the Republicans are that nasty patch of grass that somehow keeps growing in the shadow of the melted-down nuclear plant.