Appalled at the obscene spectacle of this year’s election many have descended into grumbling indignant rage, or are actively seeking the worm hole to an alternate universe where Jill Stein or Gary Johnson break on through to the other side. Either position hinges on a grudging denial of the inevitable, a grey zone where we know but can avoid facing the truth of this election and the next four years.

That’s right folks, in January 2017, the Whitehouse, either "Trump's Steak House" or "Bubba's B&B", will be open for business. When the “he said, she said” 24/7 media money bacchanal is done we are going to be vomiting in hell. Whoever wins in November this will be the most derided and divisive presidency since Lincoln. There will be violence, political dysfunction, continuing war, social unrest, growing hatred and distrust in America, and against America around the world.

It is obvious from the many polls concerning trust and credibility that the majority of Americans wish they could wake up to find it was just a bad dream, but to imagine that things somehow might get better with either candidate in the Oval Office is not being hopeful, it is delusional, the Parties, the Media, and the money have decided, Trump or Clinton, Johnson and Stein are tranquillizers. It’s time to brace ourselves, maybe it’s time for all of us to put down our tools, walk off the job and start screaming. At least we might later claim we were screaming before it happened. (Small beer perhaps, but do you have a better idea apart from “never Hillary” or “never Trump”?).

Those who stump for Trump say we need to ‘reclaim’ lost American values, (religious or racial) purity, power, and/or constitutional justice, while the Clinton campers would save us from Trump with the promise of a 3^rd Obama term with some moderate social policy initiatives. Both candidates assure us that we can expect (at least) four more years of brutally senseless war (with, we imagine, off budget deficit financing) and so, we can rightly assume, increasing partisanship at home, and desperation and violence at home and abroad.

A Clinton presidency would face implacable, nay rabid, opposition in a GOP controlled House (and probably Senate); hostility, scandal mongering, and shear belligerence that will make us nostalgic for the last eight years. She will get nothing of any substance done beyond defense, war and security funding where neo-cons all agree, and she might pass a slightly modified, but substantially intact, TPP agreement (Pace progressives).

Trump would on the surface have it easier, but as moderate Republicans rediscover their voices (with Trump in the Whitehouse even Paul Ryan becomes a moderate) he would not find it easy to pass any of his most reactionary initiatives, and would face a consolidation of progressive opposition in national forums and in the courts.  He is also maladroit politically beyond his reality television persona. It is doubtful he has the skills, the friends, or the patience to get anything done in the public interest (his private interests he finds more compelling). However, he too will successfully preside over our ever-expanding security state and commitment to war.

Clinton would nominate moderates to the Supreme Court, and Trump would nominate more conservative thinking justices. It is unlikely that any truly progressive person would be nominated, or that an extreme right nominee would be confirmed (especially if the Democrats take control of the Senate), whoever wins the election, as we have seen with Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, the Supreme Court war is already on and it is destined to make the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings look tame.

Elections are, or should be, about policy, and getting things done. So, if little or nothing will get done, and we can expect greater hostility and evermore hyperbolic bad faith spectacle what and/or who will be served? Cui Bono?

First up, and no surprise, the six media conglomerates that control information in the public interest. If CBS’s Les Moonves declared Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS   . . . the money’s rolling in”, we can be sure he, and his fellow media CEO’s are rubbing their hands at the thought of continuous Clinton conflict and scandal (another Clinton impeachment anyone?) or the breathless anticipation of Trump’s next insult, provocation (“I’ll just call you Vichy Fran?ois, but I love French food, very good, I love it, really too much sauce.”), and/or blatantly fatheaded policy proposal.  Don’t touch that remote.

Next up the military/weapons/mercenary war machine. Security is our biggest business and weapons our biggest export, whoever wins and whatever the opposition we are going to continue to be at war at a cost that is destroying our economy and our democracy. Neither of the candidates oppose this, rather they fall all over themselves to see who the greater warrior is and how escalating violence will resolve the conflict. There is no talk of changing policy, diffusing terror by creating a peaceful future through aid and opportunity for the millions of young people caught up in the devastation and chaos we have created (how did we win the peace after WWII?).

At home this means leaving our racist Criminal Injustice System and creeping security state as they are, from private for profit prisons to militarized police forces breaking up peaceful protest, locking down whole neighborhoods, and shooting blacks for being black. Terrorism is what we make it and, it seems, how much money we make from it.

We can add the Wall St. finance banks, health Insurance companies, big pharma, and of course the fossil fuel industry who will continue to block the transition to a sustainable future as climate disaster grows ever more obvious. Regulating any of these is nearly impossible already (it took the risk of a global financial meltdown to get even mild regulation passed, and we have watched as it is being undermined), it will not even be attempted.

I have not brought up campaign finance, or voting rights as there will be no movement whatsoever from the Whitehouse to attempt change. Why fool with your golden goose.

If the next president can get nothing done, even if they try which is doubtful (self-service rather than public service defines them both), little will be done about global warming, little to transition out of fossil fuels, little to make the next round of adjustments to the health care system, little to rein in Wall St., little to insure the quality of our food, water, and air, little to ensure the respect for human rights and justice, and nothing to adjust the obscene level of inequality. In short the environment goes to hell, we bomb the hell out of whoever whenever, and the rich get rich and the poor stay poor. We are left with the vacuous blather of contrasting media narratives: untrustworthy competence vs. brash untested reformer. Welcome to hell and the presidency of Hillary Trump.