Of the many painful and exhausting activities I engaged in over that delightfully unproductive interim we call J-term, perhaps none was more excruciating than closely following the Republican presidential primary coverage. A close second was the hour every day I spent laboring in front of the TV with my virtual fitness guru Shaun T. and the workout regimen he has so aptly named the “Insanity” workout.

If you haven’t been following this soap opera lately, you might be asking yourself what, if anything, “Insanity” has to do with Republican presidential politics. If you’re a Democrat or a political science major, you’ve known since 1964.

At its most basic level, the “Insanity” workout is you, the previously unmotivated or uninterested consumer, at home in front of your TV, watching and listening to a handsome fellow tell you what to do, and you listen because he must be qualified, because he’s on TV. He knows better than you, so he gets to lead you through exhaustive activities that you believe will help you because they sound sensible, although it may take a while to see improvement.

He also knows better than to blame you, because it would hurt your feelings to suggest that problems exist because of something you did. It’s always someone else’s fault, and you need him to right those wrongs. At the end he will try and sell you his miracle recovery formula shake for mere pennies on the dollar, but not mention that it contains gross vegetables and probably tastes like shit. After a while, probably longer than you would like, you might see a real difference, feel better and admit that it really wasn’t so bad after all, or that however bad it was it was worth it.

What I have just described could just as well be a televised political campaign. “Insanity” the workout helps you lose weight and become a healthier human being, while the insanity of presidential campaigns leave many feeling cynical.

The moral of this story is that if I hadn’t completely abandoned physical activity and healthy food for most of the fall semester, I wouldn’t be busting my ass to get healthy now. In the same way, the American people bear much of the responsibility for the state of their country and may be suffering for it in much the same way. Through apathy, poor information and hateful rhetoric, we have as a people, not as any one person or party, presided over our own decline.

Our country is out of shape, but we can all do our part to regain a healthy democracy by exercising our rights, letting our voices be heard sensibly and respectfully and by refusing to swallow so much of this unhealthy rhetoric. Hateful rhetoric will only end when it stops working on people. Therefore we, the People, must demand better.

The rippling biceps of freedom and truth will flex once more with our help, but we all have to dig deeper. Only then will the United States be attractive enough to enter relationships with other nations, and hopefully never have to endure this insanity again.