US Election Campaign Almost Over, Israelis Prepare To Watch TV Again

“I’m looking forward to checking Twitter again,” confessed Dahlia, who has been living in her apartment’s sealed room since the beginning of August.

Haifa, November 8 – Israelis are looking forward to Wednesday and Thursday of this week, when the American presidential election results are known and the initial furor surrounding the outcome has subsided, a development that will allow them to emerge from their self-imposed isolation and start consuming media that for months has denied them respite from the barrage of campaign-related stories.

Families in the Haifa Bay area told reporters they began counting down the hours last week to Thursday around midday, when it is estimated the torrent of Trump-Clinton news, gossip, and innuendo will finally stop dominating the media, and it will be safe to listen to the radio, watch TV, and go online again.

“It’s getting so close, I can almost taste it,” gushed Yaakov, a pale, emaciated father of two from Kiryat Motzkin. “Can you imagine what it will be like to go to a cafe again, to just sit somewhere that has a TV or radio blaring, and not be bombarded with election garbage? Oh, my gosh, it’s really almost here!”

“I’m looking forward to checking Twitter again,” confessed Dahlia, who has been living in her apartment’s sealed room since the beginning of August. “That is, if I can get my arm and finger muscles accustomed to moving in those ways again. It’s been so long.”

Across Israel, people are riding out the final throes of the 2016 Election coverage and all its toxicity by focusing on maintaining discipline. “We had a real scare over the weekend when I made one of my nighttime forays out into the streets to forage, and I found an actual open supermarket,” recalled a shaken mother from Jerusalem who declined to give her name. “I started piling things into my cart, but as I approached the checkout lanes I saw a lit TV screen between me and the cashiers, just hanging there, with no way around it. I froze. Luckily, it wasn’t connected to an internet or a receiver – it was just showing ads for stuff in the store.” She shuddered. “I don’t know what would have happened if there had been any of that awful election stuff there.”

Economists and reporters have noted an economic slowdown related to Israelis’ refusal to venture out of their homes and maintain contact with one another for fear of seeing or hearing anything about the campaigns or election. “This is beyond what Bibi can be blamed for,” admitted journalist Ilana Dayan. “People are just scared of encountering the horror. But it’s almost over, and then we can all go back to the everyday worries born of having either a fascist-minded narcissistic bigoted blowhard or a corrupt mercurial enabler of genocidal regimes as the leader of the most powerful country in history.”

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