A curmudgeon’s guide to the 2026 US elections | Dave Schilling

Chances are, as you’re reading this, your bunker is fully stocked, your doors are locked, and you’re peeking at your computer screen through gaps between your fingers.

After all, it’s election day on Tuesday. Once again, democracy will be tested – like Beavis & Butthead taking the SATs. I’m not looking forward to it, and I’m sure you aren’t either.

I’m old enough to remember when American elections, and especially the once-sleepy midterms, were a placid affair that anyone with a calculator and a friend at the Associated Press could predict.

Now, it feels like anything can and will happen this week – from delayed results and slow counts to Donald Trump sending in the DC Comics Suicide Squad to your local polling place. That’s all we need, John Cena checking your ID before you vote.

It’s enough to make you crawl up into a ball and beg for mommy. But fear is a passive emotion, one that leaves a person paralyzed and incapable of action.

My preference is for the fully formed anger of the middle-aged curmudgeon. A shaken fist and a choice expletive is healthier than babbling for hours in your panic room. So, in lieu of a voter guide telling you how to fill out your ballot, here’s a list of all the most irritating, confounding and downright stupid things to scream about on Tuesday.

The Cheesecake Factory discourse

During a recent campaign stop, the former president Barack Obama compared the aesthetics of the recent Trump-led White House renovations with a Cheesecake Factory. Not only am I annoyed that this is even a talking point during a crucial campaign, I also resent the comparison being made. I’d rather eat at a Cheesecake Factory than the White House, any day of the week. I have to assume Bill Maher agrees with me.

The continued importance of Spencer Pratt

Here in California, the race everyone is talking about is a contest for Los Angeles mayor, a famous stepping stone to jobs as prestigious as “Ambassador to Country Chosen by Random Lottery Draw” or “Special Adviser to Herbalife”. It’s neck-and-neck between incumbent Karen Bass and the city councilperson Nithya Raman. The unfortunate twist in this daytime soap opera is that the reality show star they combined to defeat in the first round of voting this summer, Spencer Pratt, is still popular enough that his supporters could tip the scales toward one candidate or the other. The only thing I can think of that’s worse than Spencer Pratt as mayor of LA is Spencer Pratt deciding the next mayor of LA.

The curious case of the two Dan Sullivans

According to the New York Times, some Democrats figured out that the best way to unseat the senator Dan Sullivan was to force him to run against himself. Retired teacher Dan Sullivan was allegedly recruited to run for US Senate by the campaign of Democrat Mary Peltola, in the hopes of unseating … Dan Sullivan. (The Peltola campaign has denied any involvement in his candidacy.)

The Sullivan v Sullivan smackdown has the Republican party so worried that the justice department is suing to invalidate the results of the election if Sullivan (the senator) narrowly loses to Sullivan (the not-senator) or Peltola (the not-Sullivan).

I’m no fan of Dan Sullivan, but I’m not sure how I feel about Dan Sullivan either! This is the kind of goofy dirty trick that makes people hate politics. Who are you really fooling here? Old people? People who are too busy to read the fine print about which Dan Sullivan is the incumbent Alaskan senator? People with an acute case of Sullivantitis (a crippling disease that causes blindness to the name “Dan Sullivan”)? Can’t this country ever be normal?

Please don’t message me. I realize the answer is no. I just hope this election is more entertaining than The Undertaker v The Undertaker at WWF SummerSlam 1994. Unlike that match, this face-off of doppelgangers won’t involve Leslie Nielsen.

The continued push to close polling places

In an attempt to depress turnout amongst Democratic-leaning voters, red state election boards in states such as North Carolina are shutting polling places in blue areas. In North Carolina in particular, voting sites were shut on numerous college campuses, but that didn’t stop a group of predominantly students from organizing marches in excess of two hours so that they could maintain the franchise.

When I was a young man, the main tool crooked politicians had to keep people from voting was good, old-fashioned apathy. We should have changed the motto on the quarter from “E pluribus unum” to “They’re all bums, anyway.” In 2026, politicians have infuriated people to such a degree that they’ll walk miles just to vote.

It’s inspiring to see young people exercising their rights in the face of an actively hostile state government, but I find the notion of our nation’s leaders blatantly making it more onerous for citizens to vote absolutely abhorrent. I mean, the peer pressure is bad enough.

‘I voted’ stickers and selfies

I get why the stickers exist. An elaborate campaign of shame and embarrassment for those that didn’t bother to vote. I can’t think of two more powerful forces in my life than shame and embarrassment. They’re really the only two reasons I get out of bed these days, but I don’t have to like it.

Like a lollipop at the end of a haircut, the “I voted” sticker is the little treat at the end of a long period of interminable waiting. The only difference is, I don’t need to take a picture with my root beer-flavored Dum Dum. And I hate to be cynical here, but anyone who hasn’t planned on or even considered voting will not be swayed by a sticker.

As much as I despise people shirking their responsibility to democracy, I hate internet trends even more. Instead of wearing an “I voted” sticker on Tuesday, just slap it on your laptop. That way, anyone in your general vicinity will have to stop and double-check that there isn’t an election that day.

Donald Trump’s Mr America beauty pageant

This is Donald Trump’s last campaign of his risible political career. He has been a cancerous influence on our discourse since 2011, breaking traditions, norms, rules, and some priceless artifacts along the way.

I’m sure he’s getting nostalgic for the rush of election fervor – the ups and downs, the thrill of victory and the agony of not admitting defeat. These are some of the last campaign rallies he’ll ever lead, some of the final moments of political combat he’ll engage in in his lifetime.

Most of us would get wistful, maybe a tad somber. These days will never come again. Instead, the president is pondering the strength and power that emanates from various Republican buttocks.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, makes me bang my head against a wall this election cycle than my social media feed being littered with clips of Donald Trump sexualizing his colleagues.