Omaha, Nebraska. There's a sense of hayfevery optimism in the air, organisers, strategists, volunteers and voters are pregnant with anticipation, awaiting the arrival of their candidate, their guy. Some have camped out here for weeks, such is the unprecedented enthusiasm for this particular campaign. Edna Schultz and her 4 year old daughter Babs have been living in a small tent for over a fortnight, surviving on various insects and grubs.
"You wouldn't see me doing this for Obama or Trump, not even Biden. I know they make people feel euphoric, especially Joe, those aviators could make even my gun-toting, Confederate flag-wearing father melt like a snowman meeting Timothee Chalamet in a sauna, but he doesn't have that effect on me, or Babs."
The candidate in question is Omaha's own Vaughan Eagles, a state senator making quite a splash in Nebraska politics. A clip of Eagles went viral earlier this year showing the Senator launch into an impassioned speech decrying politicians from both sides of the aisle in the Nebraska State Senate chamber for what he called an 'embarrassing lack of compromise and imagination'. Eagles' rhetorical prowess and anarchic gesticulation was deemed 'highly refreshing' by the Nebraska Times. It also won plaudits from Buzzfeed, who had sent a 12 year old boy to cover the speech.
"One can tire of the drab, rehearsed, unimaginative political speeches nowadays. Eagles is like a breath of fresh air, like a lonesome can of Pepsi nestled deep in a dollar store freezer on a warm August day."
Eagles is fast becoming one of the most popular politicians in the United States, even surpassing Biff from Back to the Future lookalike Madison Cawthorn from North Carolina. "He has something about him.." explains Edna Schultz, "something mercurial, something raw. I remember someone once said to be a popular politician in the US you have to look like someone who could shoot a buffalo and watch it bleed to death in the day, then be able to go on and host a talk show at night, smiling and talking about family values".
The crowd was bubbling away, Schultz was squealing with glee, it was almost time for Eagles to take to the stage and the atmosphere was bubbling away, not since Tony Robbins came to town has there been such a feeling of collective elation. The announcer's voice boomed through the tannoy system, "Ladies and gentlemen, the time is now come, please put your hands together for America's saviour, Nebraska's own, Vaughan Eagles!" Rapturous applause followed, Eagles walked out, dressed in a red, white and blue suit, holding a bald eagle on one arm and a bible in the other, all the while moon-walking with ease toward the microphone.
"Nebraska!" Eagles cried, the mere mention of their home state sent the crowd into foamy-mouthed spasms of delight, "I, am Vaughan, motherfucking, Eagles! And I.. am here.. to save you!" The crowd, manic and primal, ecstatically started chanting his name, a woman's bra hits Eagles' face, he picks it up, gives it to the eagle on his arm, the eagle flies off with the purple-sequined bra in his golden beak, high up into sky as a jet plane flies past with the American flag in tow. The eagle drops the bra onto the flag and the crowd let out a deafening, joyous roar.
"Nebraska!" The second mention of this word delays Eagles' speech again for another two minutes as the crowd cannot get over the fact that they've just heard the name of the state where they're from. "I am here, to give you something new, to give you what you've been waiting for. Eagles then takes his blazer and shirt off, rolls the shirt up then tosses it into the audience. The audience scramble to catch it and in the process, tear each other apart limb from limb, gnaw at each other's faces like ravenous dogs, flesh and bones flying hither and thither, torturous howls of jealous anguish assaulting the ears of those who witness it. Eventually a lucky member of the audience prevails with the shirt in hand, by now soaked with mad, patriotic American blood, the woman wrings the blood out of it like a wash-cloth, stuffs it in her fanny-pack, then urges the audience to be silent for Eagles.
"Nebraska!" Again the audience let out a sharp, piercing roar of appreciation for Eagles mentioning the man-made, historical boundary they happen to inhabit within a much larger man-made boundary. "I am here to tell you it don't have to be how it is, it don't have to be how it is, Nebraska, it don't have to be how it is. It don't have to be how it has always been, I am here to tell you how it could be, and let me tell you, it don't have to be how it has been, Nebraska, oh no, no, you betcha' it don't."
Eagles then pauses for a moment or two while two of his stage crew assist him into a jet-pack, before hurriedly leaving the stage for Eagles to continue, "I am here to tell you, it don't have to be left, right or centre, Nebraska, it don't, it don't have to be left, right centre, socialist, capitalist, libertarian, libertarian capitalist, libertarian socialist, anarcho-communist, anarcho-capitalist, or all that crap, it don't have to be left, it don't have to be right, i'm telling you, Nebraska, it can be... UP!" At this point Eagles ascends rapidly into the air, much to the crowd's delight, upward and upwards he soars, high into the Nebraska sky, the crowd reach fever pitch, they chant 'Eagles! Eagles! Eagles!' To them he appears a spec, so far up he appears, cries of 'wow!' fill the air, all eyes are on Eagles as he rises higher and higher, higher and higher, to impossible heights, until the propeller of the jet plane with the American flag in tow cuts him up and slashes him into a million pieces.
The crowd are stunned silent, 'is this part of the act?', a moment or two passes, then stray body parts start to fall into the crowd, and a sudden gust of wind sprays blood into their faces. A leg lands on Edna Schultz's water cooler, a severed head lands on a barbecue, a torn bible lands on the bonnet of a Mustang. Suddenly the mood, as it so often does on occasions such as these, turns sour. Mothers are screaming, men are firing their pistols into the air, babies are crying, topless girls are praying in a prostrate position, dogs are rabidly fighting over this adored politician's haggard remains.
A man, soaked in blood and wearing a glazed expression upon his face, picks up the severed head of State Senator Vaughan Eagles, walks onto the stage and up to the microphone, "howl! howl! howl!" he cries, "God is dead!" He places the head down on the stage, as the purple-sequined bra floats down and covers it.
This is Upwing politics, a new brand of politics, and a particularly grizzly one if I may say so myself. Let us hope it doesn't make it's way across the Atlantic to Britain, but, then again, maybe it already has.
