On this 'Eve of Destruction,' it's the end of the world as we know it

I WOKE UP Wednesday morning with a song going through my head: "The Eve of Destruction." It bounced around in the echo chamber between my ears as I brushed and flossed, ironed my blouse, coaxed my hair into a semblance of order. Barry McGuire's "gargled with rocks" voice pounded the words into my brain, and carved the sentiment into my soul: "Tell me, over, and over, and over and over again, my friend, you don't believe we're on the Eve of Destruction."

Looking back in the mirror was the same sardonic, morning smile, the one I arm myself with to meet the day's fresh but manageable hells. But instead of irony, it communicated emptiness, the same emptiness I felt the morning after Barack Obama was elected president the first time. Where, I thought, do I go from here?

By this point, you're shaking your head and moving on to the sports section, or the comics, if there is still much of a comics section to peruse. That's another thing: The newspaper industry has fallen on such hard times that most papers have shrunk to mailer levels. Now, the Internet has stepped in and robbed newsprint of its relevance, despite that Best Picture Oscar for Spotlight.

And if you are still reading, if I still haven't depressed you to the point at which you'll need a Shirley Temple marathon to stave off the black demons, let me explain why I woke up with Barry McGuire, a man I hardly know.

Wednesday morning, it became fairly evident that the choices we Americans have given to ourselves for the general election are Satan and the Angel of Death. I'm not quite sure which is which, and I apologize to my agnostic or atheistic readers for bringing religion into a purely political discussion, but I have no other way to express just how angry I am at what we've cooked up for the autumn hunting season.

You might be saying, at least those of you on the right, that it's not a done deal and it is still possible that Donald Trump will not be the GOP nominee come August. And my friends on the left who despise Hillary Clinton and think Bernie Sanders has a fighting chance will think I'm showing disrespect to everybody's favorite underdog or, as the Czechs would have called him in 1968, the Socialist With a Human Face.

And believe me, I would sell a kidney if that weren't illegal to guarantee a Mario Rubio candidacy, or even the possibility of some Cruz control (even though his views on immigration repel me), but the math doesn't make that likely.

And so, I looked in my mirror and pretended that it was just another morning in March, when it was actually the beginning of the end. I haven't felt this empty since Obama was re-elected to a second term. Back then, I wrote these words, penned in the evening hours after 47 percent of the people weren't able to put Mitt Romney and my political crush Paul Ryan over the top:

"When I woke up Wednesday morning, it was dark. There was something ominous about that midweek morning, something I hadn't felt in many years, something that I hadn't even felt when my father died decades ago. It was a sense of intangible, yet visceral, loss. Barack Obama will have four more years to lead this country."

Clearly, I am at my most melodramatic on Wednesday mornings.

But to be truthful, the sadness I felt when Obama was given four more years to do his mischief is nothing compared with what I'm experiencing now with the prospect of having to live with either the Evil Orange Oompa Loompa or the SheBeast in a Pantsuit for the next four years. I have no tolerance for either of the two front-runners, and it amazes me that, in a country of millions of brilliant, creative, soulful and accomplished individuals, it's essentially come down to a lying serial womanizer whose idea of immigration policy is building a wall (hey, let's call the Amish, they're cheap!) and a lying woman whose idea of diplomacy is hiding her head like an ostrich while her diplomatic employees burn to death.

Yes, I know that Trump has said he'd let some of the people he'd round up jump back over the wall in due time, and I know Clinton was able to cackle her way through an incompetent congressional investigation, and I know that there are people who think both candidates are just what we need to either "make America great again" or "screw the Republicans" but excuse me if I don't feel inspired by the choices.

It's been a very long time since I have admired anyone in elective office. I felt that way about our former governor, my fellow Democrat Bob Casey Sr. I felt that way about my generation's hero, Ronald Reagan. I probably would have felt that way about JFK and Bobby, had I been old enough to understand what they were trying to do. I felt that way about Dick Thornburgh, another former governor who kept us sane as we teetered on the edge of a nuclear holocaust at Three Mile Island in my senior year of high school.

But this? This is as disgusting as the frozen smile on Chris Christie's fact, the hilarious defense of women and their dignity from Bill Clinton's wife, the desperate spluttering about penis size and sweating from both Rubio and Trump.

Barry McGuire was on to something.

Christine Flowers is a lawyer. Email: cflowers1961@gmail.com On Twitter: @flowerlady61