The Panican Ledger

 Chronicles of Misrule

A Republic of Abundance (or, The Plenty of Nothing)

In the cloistered drawing rooms of Democratic punditry, where consultants sip espresso and mutter in hushed tones, a new watchword has emerged: the “Abundance Agenda.”

Yes, the strategists would have the masses believe that the path to electoral salvation lies in promising abundant housing, abundant healthcare, abundant clean energy, abundant wages. A vision of cornfields heavy with grain, paychecks thick with digits, and hospitals where the doctor’s bill does not resemble a mortgage.

Alas, across the aisle, the Republican Party has already beaten them to the punch—though theirs is a most perverse abundance. For what do they trumpet, if not:

☞ Abundant Poverty – Penniless multitudes, a spectacle so inclusive it warms the very cockles of Wall Street.

☞ Abundant Sickness – A land where every cough, rash, and tumor is a patriotic badge of liberty.

☞ Abundant Hunger – The family table bare, the pantry echoing, while senators dine upon lobbyist-fed banquets.

☞ Abundant Joblessness – A Great Gig Economy of Nowhere, where every man may be his own Uber serf.

Thus, while Democrats daub “Abundance!” upon their campaign banners like a tonic advertisement in a railway pamphlet, Republicans already offer it in overflowing measure—a cornucopia of calamity, a horn of plenty filled with ashes.

And so the people are left to wonder: whose abundance shall prevail? The vision of plenty promised by the timid reformer—or the abundance of ruin already enacted by the jubilant despoiler?