It's always been a bit obnoxious but the modern, always plugged-in hyperreal media landscape has really turned up the gain knob.

There is no more respite from the side-show aspects; everything is covered in advertisements and about 80% of those ads have been political for the past ~year and a half.

The ads are never a substantive rundown of the situation, it's just "look at what my opponent does. I don't do that. My plan is a checklist of empty rhetoric, glittering generalities and scare mongering nonsense. Aren't you scared badthing???". Neither of the 2 major parties seems to exist independent of the other in that neither one has a coherent ideology that isn't simply the negation of the other. Like some kind of recursive Hegelian ouroboros constantly shitting in it's own mouth.

And the ad season has been starting ever earlier with each passing election cycle. it's like christmas commercials that seem to begin the immediately at midnight november first. This is not a suprise since consumer ads operate on the same logic of making the viewer feel dissatisfied with the present condition; "are you still using oldthing? don't you that you will never be fulfilled until you get newthing?? isn't badguy such a terrible person? you'll never be happy with badguy in office. Vote for goodguy, goodguy will do different thing, which is whateverr the opposite of badthing is".

it is obvious that the manufactured binary of the 2 party system doesn't imply that the 2 sides are the same. This is a strawman that milquetoast liberals love to parade around whenever you dare to point out the obvious trunk of the two branches. We're all old enough to recognize that one side does indeed wish to, for example, destroy the last century of civil rights legislation. But the opposing side has no problems maintaining socio-economic status quo that neccessitates having to legislate common-sense ethical mores like "black people are human beings" and "women are equal to men in every way that matters" and "lgbtq folks deserve to live happy and fulfilling lives free from the fear of violence."

Regardless of who wins, I reckon we we'll get about a year of freedom from the campaign industrial complex before the next election cycle begins to inflict more misery upon usi