Politics has arrived at a bizarre impasse. On one hand we are in the midst of Johnism. One John is ugly—no, hideously Botox-able, but electable. Another John is a saucy southerner who talked about two Americas while surprisingly not referring to secession. Meanwhile, an unrelated John’s bile duct is in serious peril. However, some oppose the four-letter name hegemony, most visibly the Dennises and Ralphs of the world. We are led to believe in a John/DenRalph dichotomy, one in which we must choose between the steady fist of John or the righteous arm-flail of Ralph. However, those who unconditionally take sides in the Johnnie vs. DenRalph debate foolishly overlook the little-known allegory of salt.

Many a century ago during time immemorial, sodium and chlorine hated each other. Chlorine was a prudish, smelly gas that preferred to stay cool in swimming pools. Sodium, on the other hand, was a wickedly reactive metal that mostly just liked to rock out in his Marxist death metal band, Kapital Punishment. These elements did not hang out in the same crowd, and the whole chemical kingdom was fraught with strife. Cucumbers lacked brine with which to make pickles. Wounds recovered a little bit too quickly with no insult to be added to injury.

For all of this disharmony, however, sodium and chlorine listened to much of the same music. Every Friday they went to their local music club and gazed starry-eyed at MC Hegemony and DJ Discourse, two East Coast white boys that versed venomously against capitalism as they balled out of control on their father’s plentiful dime.

While sodium and chlorine were just as embedded in capitalist hegemony as the next member of the periodic table, they delighted in playing the role of righteous underdog vicariously through their music. As good ‘ol boy Riflin’ Randy hit the stage, chlorine and sodium shared a knowing grimace with one another: this guy didn’t even pretend to be disturbed by the vast inequalities of the world. United by their common distaste for such conservative music, sodium and chlorine bonded together quite frequently. Although they spent plenty of time with other elements, enough salt was formed to harmonize the chemical kingdom.

Now, I know what all you chem majors out there are saying: both chlorine and sodium are never found by themselves in nature, and there were no fancy chemists around back in time immemorial to synthesize said elements. You don’t need to have aced organic chemistry to know that this allegory makes impressively little sense. The allegory of salt does not necessarily imply that the Johns and the DenRalphs should form a cohesive unit (although a German-style proportional representation system would make it quite possible), or that they even have to get along. They only have to recognize that just like chlorine and sodium they are both integral parts of the same salt, even if it is the salty armpit of American democracy.

All saline arm crotches aside, what does this really mean for John and Denralph? It means that, as much as they love to hate each other, they complement each other so well. If DenRalph wasn’t around to frighten John, John might turn into a George or a Ronald. If John wasn’t there, DenRalph would either become even further marginalized or just turn into another John. Lest an entirely new naming system arrives, insisting on just John or just DenRalph is futile; for better or worse, we’re stuck with both.