Washington — As voters prepare to enter polling booths nationwide, a referendum on our current levels of cancer-causing radiation has been brought by the political minority. Across cable panels and opinion pages, the commentariat has converged on a new framing of the oldest question in American politics: are you less radioactive now than you were four years ago?
That question has stuck in the minds of voters, like a malignant goiter choking the breath from our iodine-deficient collective thyroid glands. What ARE they doing about nuclear fallout?
Life, in the meantime, goes on. We go to work radioactive, ride the radioactive bus, buy the least-glowing produce at the store, collect our radioactive children from radioactive schools during the radioactive school-shooting, and come home radioactive to radioactive homes to sit on radioactive couches and watch radioactive screens. No one has proposed an alternative. The arrangement is rarely described out loud, on the theory that debating it wouldn't lessen the dosimeter readings.
As we continue our daily lives, dodging kamikaze drones, commuting across a post-apocalyptic hellscape to offices across the country, we can only wonder if the periodic missile barrages will kill us before radiation poisoning does?
At a recent and heated political debate, things got very, very hot. EPA-level hot. The candidates, resplendent in their formal wear, glowed a soft, shifting green, reminiscent of the Aurora Borealis, while debating life expectancies. At one point, the conservative candidate accused the lib-tard environmentalist of finger-counting, while pointing all seven fingers of his left hand in her direction.
The Science, Such As It Is
For the record, scientists note that most of the radioactivity a person carries is natural, drawn from thorium and similar elements, and that this baseline has not meaningfully changed in millions of years. Asked about more recent contributions to the total, one of them said he cannot bear to think about the wife and children he lost. He can't speak of it. We can't speak of it. It shall remain unspoken.
They offered one tearful clarification. Thorium's principal isotope has a half-life of roughly fourteen billion years, slightly longer than the current age of the universe. On that timescale, one physicist noted, the difference between now and four years ago is "not measurable, not meaningful, and not, frankly, the sort of thing you carry into a swing state." It does, however, make the question impervious to news cycles. The argument should hold up to the next several thousand elections, at least.
The argument split immediately along the usual lines. Commentators on one network assured viewers that the public is "demonstrably less radioactive under current leadership," citing no instrument. Commentators on a rival network warned that the readings had "skyrocketed" and that "you can feel it, folks," also citing no instrument. A fact-checking organization rated both claims "off the charts" shortly before everyone there passed away.
What Finally Got Their Attention
For years, the elected elite have been ignoring the problem in favor of building fire-barriers out of tires and laying razor wire around their electoral districts. That changed last month, when a peer-reviewed study concluded that the elevated levels were measurably shrinking penises nationwide. The reaction was immediate.
Lawmakers who had never once asked about fallout demanded to know how much, how fast, and whether it was reversible. "Up to this point, the deaths, cancer, skin ulcers, baldness and tooth loss could all be mitigated. But our penises have a God-given right to remain mediocre. It's what this country was founded on."
A Run on Geiger Counters
Most Cold War-era radiation survey meters have fallen into inoperability, due to no one being able to manufacture vacuum tubes anymore. The tried-and-true quick hack of holding a filament light-bulb close to your exposed flesh lacks the precision to register a measurable dose. Without that, how can anyone compare their current hit to four years ago?
A scientific-instrument retailer added that demand had also spiked for bananas, after a widely shared post explained that a banana delivers a small but real dose of radiation, a unit informally known as the banana equivalent dose. Voters were reportedly carrying bananas into the booth as a reference standard, comparing themselves against the fruit, and in several cases eating the evidence before a reading could be recorded. "That's just going to increase your reading and potentially make you vote for the wrong candidate," warned polling station authorities.
Election Officials Respond
Election officials clarified that radioactivity is not a qualification for the ballot and that voters should answer the question "to the best of their ability and available dosimetry." Poll workers, issued no guidance, improvised. One precinct reportedly asked voters to "shake if they felt unstable," but stopped when coyotes learned that these were the weak targets in the herd of voters.
Neither network produced a single reading. The pundits have promised to revisit the question every four years, a commitment that, given the half-life involved, they are uniquely equipped to keep. Even though the radiation will still be around in four years, it is unlikely that any voters will be.
At press time, the average voter remained about as radioactive as Chernobyl ground zero, twice as confused, and running late to collect the children before they mutate into superheroes.