Democracy in action.
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involved the use of doublethink.
—George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-four
In that light, then, marvel at the audacious beauty, the effrontery, the sheer, clueless chutzpah of the Quick Vote poll question on display as of 20.55 Pacific time, 19 August 2003, at The Official Re-election Site for President George W. Bush:
How many working families are benefiting from President Bush’s Jobs and Growth Act?
- 12 million
- 23 million
- 34 million
- 18 million
But! Take heart!
That’s why they can never hope to win. Chaos sneaks in every time. They can cover the world with cameras, but they can’t stop the guys in the monitor rooms from jerking off or playing the fifteenth sequel to Doom for the hundredth time. Total bloody chaos. Christ.
—Grant Morrison, The Invisibles
Because, at 20.56 Pacific Time, 19 August 2003, when you tried to vote (for 12 million) just to see what would happen, this is what you got.
(Holy crap! They’ve got W Stuff! And a GeorgeWBushStore.com! With Interstate W’04 stuff! All put together by The Spalding Group! Which is part of English Emprise! Who’ve been at this for a while! Who also supported our troops, all grass-roots like! Only I guess they don’t support him so much anymore! Chaos!)
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So I clicked on 12 million and got this:
Followed by a link to "Learn more about President Bush’s work to create jobs and grow our economy by clicking here."
So they must have fixed the bug. But still, it's a wonderful coincidence. As the late great Bob Ross would say, "There are no mistakes, just happy little accidents."