Like orange Mad Dogs and Old English, boozing and politics just go together. It’s really a chicken and egg situation. No one is sure if the perennially partying and democracy-creating Greeks gave the people a voice because they were hammered, or if the democratic system was created just so they could organize bigger ragers. You know, like a Facebook event, but with more wars attached.
Pick any heavy hitter in U.S. history and you’ll find a meandering trail of liquor. George Washington supported his troops with his moonshine sales. John Hancock signed his name so big because he was blind drunk off of independence juice. Woodrow Wilson went down in history as a true OG and party animal for vetoing the Volstead Act, despite congress eventually overriding and enforcing Prohibition. And the Kennedys built an empire off of taxing hooch, post-Prohibition.
Even our outgoing president found God during a moment of clarity while he stared into a mirror with his face covered in vomit after getting retarded for his 45th birthday. Long story short, we’ve historically been governed by a bunch of drunks. Now who wants a Belgian-owned Budweiser American Ale?
While past administrations have always taken care those of us who put the Peroni on a pedestal because they’ve been boozers too, we’ve now got a new president who is coming in promising change. Sitting at a Goleta dive bar on election night, I heard someone drop “Shit, in a few months we’ll only be able to buy Malt Liquor and Congac in bars.” Offensive racial stereotypes aside, I began wondering what change Obama is going to bring to the boozing landscape. It’s sure to be a far cry from the 1950s idealism that the more conservative members of the Republican party would have encouraged: the man who comes home from work to a wife with dinner and a beer ready, pats little Timmy on the head and then leaves wife and kid behind to go get schlitzkrieged at the local bar with fellow drunken escapees of the suburban dream. You know, real family values.
On the flip side, Barry Brobama has been throwing out some real cool vibes, and I think that the next four years are going to see the resurgence of the classy shit shows of the ’30s and ’40s that my grandma tells me about. That mixed in with the party atmosphere of the ’70s swingers scene. While McCain would be face down in cheap whiskey, domestic beer and broken dreams, a get together hosted by Obama would be a positively suave affair, with obscure foreign booze like Spiritus, a bunch of rare records and a whole lot of drugs you’ve never heard of. I get the feeling that Republican drinking ends in either crying or fighting, but with the mellow encouragement of our new commander-in-chief, I doubt anyone could turn down taking a spin in the slurricane.
As far as actual legislation is concerned, the Amethyst Initiative is the only major drinking-related movement on the map right now. The Amethyst Initiative was created to reduce the drinking age from 21 to 18, and is supported by 129 U.S. university presidents who feel that making booze illegal for the majority of college students leads to serious binge drinking. While the fact that I regularly write about getting thunderpermed may increase accusations of personal bias, I’ve read through the initiative and the arguments are fairly sound, although the first year or so of the changed law would probably kill off most of our nation’s underagers.
Early on in the Democratic nomination race, Obama said that he was against lowering the drinking age, but I’m calling bullshit on that now. With the Amethyst Initiative fully proposed since then, and Obama now being the main man, I’m confident that a revisit to the issue would end in presidential support of every adult getting the opportunity to get fully dipped in boss sauce.
That’s really the crux of it I suppose: Obama ran on a platform of inclusiveness and serious equality, and that’s definitely going to carry over into our nation’s party scene. Gone will be the nights where standing by a keg resembles late-80s Soviet bread lines. Now, party hosts will welcome in randoms like the sobriety-oppressed refugees that they are. Change is coming my friends. And the effects of that change can be distilled down into an overproof shot of reality: Obama is about to get America blaquephaded.
