On the eve of the first Republican presidential debate, Governor Jerry Brown laid down a gauntlet of a challenge to the field of Republican candidates running for President of the United States: “My message is real clear: California’s burning. What the hell are you going to do about it?”

The worker bees of the American political process can be divided into two categories.

Woman: “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a Republic or a Monarchy?”

Benjamin Franklin: “A Republic, if you can keep it."

Historians aren't certain whether Benjamin Franklin ever had the above exchange after the Constitutional convention in 1787, but whether or not he did, the sentiment behind it is all too correct.

“He’s not a war hero,” billionaire Donald Trump said of John McCain at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

I find it difficult and exhausting to participate in the American political process, and a big part of me would rather not do it at all.