Voting for the Mayor Who Promised to Blow Up the City

Voting for the Mayor Who Promised to Blow Up the City Doesn’t Mean I Approve of the Mayor Blowing Up the City
by Mike Drucker
February 10, 2025

It’s so easy to label people these days. From the way folks have been talking, you’d think everyone falls into two buckets: those who voted against the mayor who promised to blow up the city and those who voted for the mayor who promised to blow up the city. And now that the mayor, whom I voted for, is blowing up the city, as he promised, I’m one of many people who are being unfairly blamed for something I didn’t want. Okay? I didn’t want the mayor to blow up the city like he mentioned many times; I just wanted him to fix the old bowling alley like he promised in passing once. Anyone saying I’m partially responsible for the explosions is just a sign that they have no argument.

Before you rush to cancel me, try to remember the mayor made lots of promises, and I didn’t expect him to keep them all. Yes, he promised to turn our playgrounds to glass and take a blowtorch to the schools; yes, he said that he was going to use napalm on every grocery store, but, as I said, he also promised he was going to fix the old bowling alley.

Oh, how I loved that bowling alley as a kid. It’s been closed for twenty years, so when the mayor mentioned he’d fix it if we elected him, I had to give it a chance. To be fair, he was also the mayor a few years ago, made the same promise, and failed to fix the bowling alley then. But he did live up to his promise to reintroduce smallpox into local daycares, so at least you know he can get things done, unlike the other guy who did neither of those.

I’ve seen all the attacks online. You use the mayor’s own clear statements of purpose against me just because I consciously chose this. “The mayor said he was going to blow up the city.” Yeah, metaphorically. “The mayor brought up his desire to see the residents of the city cleansed by flame in every speech.” Sure, if you take it out of context, maybe. “The mayor’s election slogan was, ‘Blow It All Up and Watch Them Suffer,’” which is scary only for people stupid enough to take him seriously. The fact that he had to go so far as to pour gasoline all over the Burger King before throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window shows what his opponents have pushed him to do. It’s really his critics that have kept him from fixing the bowling alley ...

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/voting-for-the-mayor-who-promised-to-blow-up-the-city-doesnt-mean-i-approve-of-the-mayor-blowing-up-the-city