Living in America

 

I am approaching 90 this December. So I may be approaching my last national election. I continue to struggle with this notion of becoming 90. Part of my problem is simply aging. But part is this truly weird election, in which we have somehow normalized Donald Trump and JD Vance, two of the slipperiest characters in America.  Trump is a convicted felon, a multi-business failure, a liar who seems not even to understand the concept of Facts or truth or honesty. He simply talks and leaves it to you to determine which part of his talking is Bullshit and which is factual.  Trump also seems not to understand normal human relationships, which explains his multiple marital failures, including his present one which seems to have failed, although no one will discuss that.

In short, we have a man running for President who seems not to understand fact and fiction, or perhaps, Truth and Lying.

Then we have his partner, JD Vance. Vance lies, but he knows he is lying. He lies simply to advance his point of view. When he chatted with us about Haitians eating peoples’ pets in Ohio, he knew he was lying, but it did not matter. He was trying to degrade some other group of people, to advance his own position.

And then, we watched Stephen Colbert last night and he had on Rachel Maddow. They talked about the recent rash of election deniers, who now work in some capacity in or around the local election stations around America. They are talking about how they plan to refuse to certify the election should Trump lose (an increasingly likely Outcome). Yeah, here is a group of American republicans who somehow know in advance that their man will lose, so they are preparing America for both inaction and potential violence after that happens.

So, what does any of that have to do with me turning 90? Well, somehow, I feel less capable of doing anything about all this mess? In days of old, when I was younger, I might have joined one of the many political entities and set about trying to ensure he loses. But now, I have begun wondering whether it matters if he loses. He has already suggested that he or his crazed friends will begin to act after the election to refuse to certify any outcome in which he is the loser.  And Me? Well, I no longer am physically fit enough to go out into our community and challenge his actions. He seems to be outright asserting that violence will occur should he lose.

And I can’t even Up and Move to New Zealand. See, now, that’s a joke, but only because I am almost 90.  I never had thoughts before about moving to New Zealand.  And, to be fair, I don’t now, but only because I am almost 90. Were I 40, or maybe even 50, I think I might well be initiating action to begin a Citizenship run to New Zealand. Now, even though I cannot run off to Aukland, I can still encourage other youngsters to do so.  Because I am now of a mindset that America might well be OVER. So, were I talking to a friend who was say 40, my advice might well be to begin initiating steps to move, should America decide that our Nation is OVER.  See that’s the key. If, in this next election, Kamala and Walz succeed, and America says, collectively, “OK, so we have a new President. Let’s celebrate and then move on”, then we will be OK. But should Kamala win, and our Nation explodes (think January 6^th ) then my advice to that youngster would be to begin taking action to migrate out of America. I keep mentioning New Zealand, but Canada is a lovely nation with smart, civilized citizens. But, seriously, should that awful even begin unfolding, then AI think it is time to leave. Because, for some reason, America seems not to want to continue to exist as a civilized Nation.

BUT, we still do not know that. I am simply baffled quite fully about why anything more than 10-20% of Americans could possibly be seriously thinking of voting or supporting this IDIOT-MALENFANT.  How this race is even slightly close is what troubles me.  See, it’s not really Trump that is the core of my troubled thinking about America. It is the American people who support him that troubles me so greatly. I feel as though I went to sleep and then awakened in Nazi Germany 1936.  And were that accurate, I would definitely be attempting to move permanently.

So pay attention America. You may be approaching the END. Now, to help forestall that, everyone eligible needs to go out and VOTE on Election Day or earlier if you can. None of this crap about how you will skip this election. He needs to be destroyed by the power of this VOTE.

So, VOTE folks. Please VOTE!!!

VOTE!

 “Oh, Mr. Trump is a businessman, and I think the government should be run like a business.”

 “I’m a professional fisherman, and Obama has put me out of business” (no more fish because of overfishing by professional fishermen, so of course he is voting for Trump.

“I’m a coal-miner and Obama has put me out of business” (because he advocates for renewable energy).

And from a Jordan Klepper interview of a Trump supporter: “ Barack Obama had a big part in 9/11-- not being around, always on vacation, never in the Oval Office.” “Why do you think Barack Obama wasn’t in the Oval Office on 9/11?” “That I don’t know. I’d like to get to the bottom of that?”

So sayeth Mr. Trump’s supporters.

I don’t know what is more terrifying. The sheer stupidity of some of Mr. Trump’s supporters, or what it is they hope to see him achieve while in office—yeah, let’s run the government like Wells Fargo, or HSBC. That’s the ticket.  I keep hoping against hope that America really is better than this. That the 40+% support for him is some kind of statistical aberration, or folks just having fun with pollsters. The fact that he seems incapable of uttering a full sentence without inclusion of some lie seems to be, a) clear, and b) reason enough to conclude he is incapable of assuming the mantle of the US Presidency.

And now, I read articles that predict violence by the heavily armed Alt-Right should Mr. Trump lose. That group, neo-Nazi’s all, appear to form the right wing core of the Republican Party. We think of them more benignly as “The Tea Party”, but we now know they are both KKK and Neo-Nazi in origin.  And violence by that group would present an interesting challenge to our government. Would we allow a group of heavily armed insurrectionists to mount a serious challenge to the American Government? Let’s see, let’s see . . . do we have any precedents for that? Hmmm . . . think April 12, 1861. And that was lots of fun, wasn’t it?

So this election is getting more interesting by the minute. Day by day, we see idiocy generated over and over by our Republican Party, you know that party that used to be one of our two responsible political parties?  Well, we now seem to have only one party, the Democrats. Republicans have sold themselves to a lying Carnie Barker and his narcissistic family. The Libertarian Party, such as it is, is too strung out on dope to even understand what an election is all about, and the Green Party, well it’s a bad joke at best.

And so we have the Dems, and their candidate Joe.

And you don’t like Joe, you say?

Well, get a fucking grip on reality folks. He is at the least an experienced person, and a person with some sense of humanity applying for this god-forsaken job. And you claim you can’t vote for him?? Well, maybe it’s you who should be applying to leave this country. I’m sure Bashar Al Assad will welcome you with open arms, or maybe Vlad the Impaler, or maybe even The Donald’s BFF, Kim Jung whatsisname.

And that, with a few minor changes, was a small piece I wrote in 2016 (substituting Joe for Hillary). And that’s what I find tragic. See, we knew then, in 2016, that Trump was an immoral, incompetent person at everything he ever attempted—business, marriage, even his con games—think Trump University. We knew then that he was bad . . . terrible really. But we know now a great deal more. He is still incompetent, immoral and all that. But now we know his performance doesn’t stop at affecting just him or his family. No, now we have way over 200,000 dead people, people who used to have a life, and are now dead because Trump was so terrified of the pandemic, that he tried to lie his way out of our trouble. It’s what he always does when he is in trouble. He resorts to lying, mainly because he doesn’t know what else to do—he is incompetent remember—but also because he is a compleat narcissist and that’s what he does when he is trouble—“didn’t happen on my watch” is his favorite mantra.

And so we know. We know he was never even close to being “up to this job”.  He really isn’t up to almost any job.  Remember, he has failed at everything he ever attempted—EVERYTHING!

And now there is some question about whether people should re-elect him?? Really??  Really people??

Look folks. The United States of America may not make it through another four years of Trump. That’s how important is this election.  If you intend to vote for Donald Trump, then you are taking on responsibility for the failure of our republic.  And should you decide instead that you will just not vote, well, folks wake up. That’s how Trump was elected in 2016.  So, not voting is just like voting for Trump.

So, get out there, wait on lines if necessary. You must vote. And it really is vital that you vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They are humane, and both still possess fully functioning brains.

VOTE!

Try to be Rational

  The other day, we saw a little clip from Kid Rock, who seems to want to enter the Halls of Congress, or, who knows, maybe even the Presidency? And it struck me hard. How much we have belittled the Presidency, and, even more, all of our senators and Congresspeople.  It would seem with the last series of encounters, that we have eliminated all standards for the various positions to “represent” the people of America.  Now, quite literally, anyone over the age of 35 and born in the US of A can be President.  No other qualifications exist.

In the olden days, we used to want folks to possess at least a modest intellect, be honest to a degree that would not embarrass us all, have some acquaintance with the arena of public policy, and at least pretend to care about the American people. No obvious traitors; no flat-out crooks; people possessing the ability to string together sentences that would not embarrass a fourth grader, and a personality that would not embarrass us in front of the world.

Gone, all gone.

Now, it is tempting to blame Donald Trump for the changes, the degradation that has occurred.  But, realistically, we the people are to blame.  We not only elected people such as Donald Trump, we continue to applaud his inane statements and Tweets. He Tweets apparently because he cannot write, or perhaps even speak in complete sentences.  I am continually drawn back to my early question, how did someone of his limited abilities to read and write ever complete high school, not to mention college?

But, we have also now simply lowered the bar of acceptable behavior. Whenever he does something, or says something stupid or outrageous, we nod and say, “oh well that’s just Trump being Trump. He tells it like it is.” And then his spokespeople stand up in front of us and say, well no he didn’t say that, he said this, and then they invent a fictional account of what we all heard him say.  And then Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell sigh and say, “well yeah, that wasn’t cool, but it was just Trump being Trump.” See, they accept his behavior, thereby encouraging the rest of the cretins in Congress, or in the Evangelical forces who seem to love him, or in the various pubs around the country where his supporters fist-pump for his latest idiocy, to decry the rest of us. We the people are now the enemy. Now doesn’t that all seem a bit too familiar?  It is in fact from the playbook of autocrats everywhere, from Hitler in 1930 to the current crop of Putin, Duterte et al.

And increasingly, I am seeing no obvious way out of our current “problem” (a “problem” implies some solution downstream, whereas I am not sure any longer that we have one). The GOP is in total disarray, to the point that I now characterize them as the Castrati Republic, a group whose members are all male and all castrated. That group is headed by the senior castrati in our land, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Clearly, they gave up their balls long ago and now no longer even pretend.

So, where is our Lone Ranger? Well, Hillary is out there ensuring that no Lone Ranger will be along any time soon. It was fairly clear that the Democratic Party is beyond total disarray. Yes, the party has some intelligent folks, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand, but Hillary has been very busy sucking the oxygen out of the rooms they inhabit.  Her book and her tour are all about informing the American people that there is no sign of intelligent life in the Party. She was it and now she is gone, off to that netherworld of money.  I want to shout at her, No Hillary, Bernie didn’t lose that election. You did. Almost anyone in the country could have defeated Donald Trump, but you failed at that simple task. Stop blaming Bernie. Kindly move to Iceland, or the Antarctic and stop appearing in public.

But again, it probably isn’t Hillary either. It’s us. How 35-40% of the people in America could support the clown tells us everything we needed to know about America.  America is, I guess, now over, and it is someone else’s turn to lead the “free World”.  Who that might be is open at the moment, since Britain seems busy with dismantling its connections to the world, and France and Germany also seem a bit preoccupied. Maybe our good friend Justin Trudeau could assume the mantle. He’s young, smart, even attractive. No one seems to hate him, and that is a very large step up that ladder.

I assume that America will continue on its current downward slope into second or perhaps even third world status. We are dumbing down the population as we speak, with Madame Devos leading the pack to ignorance with her private school approach that we already know doesn’t work. But, like her boss, she doesn’t seem to know anything either. 

It is not clear to me that what we are witnessing has much of a world history. Countries have failed in the past, fascist Germany, Japan, and Italy come to mind, but they did not simply decay from within. They set about to conquer the world and they failed.  After their thwarted attempts, they returned to their business as usual (with our help of course).  Italy seems periodically to flirt with degradation, but theirs seems more of a political degradation. Their social and economic systems go up and down of course, like everyone else’s but they don’t seem inclined to pursue a course in stupid.

Some countries seem stuck on stupid, but I continue to believe that our current course is unprecedented. From near masters of our universe, to an embarrassment to the rest of the planet.  I continue to hope that someone much smarter than me has some solution.

What is it we need to reverse course? Well, after our near-death experience in 1929 and the 1930s, we emerged only after a rational political personage assumed the reins, after a disastrous course being followed by a republican who did not believe in government intervention. He believed in bank bailouts, but not people bailouts.  Then FDR appeared on stage and decided to spend public money on recreating the American economic landscape. He spent money, folks became employed and then those same folks started buying things, thereby kickstarting the economy again. Turns out it isn’t bankers who put an economy into fast forward. It’s ordinary people. Who knew? Well, not bankers as it turns out. But FDR and some of his Democratic party bosses also knew.

Then of course, Hitler & Co. decided they wanted to own the world, so they began invading everybody. Finally, FDR got his act together and decided this unitary America thing wasn’t such a hot idea, so he threw in his lot with the World and began assembling a fighting force that could help to counter the fascists everywhere.  Turns out creating a war machine to counter nasties also helps to kick an economy into high gear. America began to climb back from its bank-induced near bankruptcy to its position as a leader in the free world.

So, we won the war, well that war, and then we got back to peace time living (well, ignoring those peace-keeping thingies in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, et al).

But we failed to learn the lessons from that 1930s to 1950s period. That it takes an educated middle class to maintain a class economy. That the very rich don’t really care about maintaining a whole economy, or even a whole country. They just want to get richer and to keep all their money.  And, largely, all the rest of the country folks can suck lemons.

With Donald Trump, we have come full circle, right back to 1929, well maybe 1928.

So, we need someone thoughtful to guide us out of the dark, dark wilderness in which we find ourselves.  We can’t just get rid of Donald Trump, because he isn’t the whole problem. He is the perfect essence of what we have become, but he is a mere reflection in the mirror.  Look behind us folks. It’s us, and we need to seek out and then elect people who can actually think. 

So, we have said it before, but let’s say it again. We all need to register to vote, and then we need to vote—every time there is an election, not just once in a while. We need to elect decent, thinking people in City Councils, in State legislatures, and certainly in the Halls of Congress.  And yes, we need to vote for a President. And if you’re not thrilled with the two choices facing you, pick one of the two anyway.  Don’t vote for “none of the above”. Vote for one of the candidates you think might be better than the other one. Donald Trump was fatally flawed. His entire life experience has been a disaster. He has really never succeeded at anything. Plus he lies all the time, even about stupid stuff, so nobody can trust him with anything. But we knew all that, didn’t we? So, don’t go down that path again.  Remember, Jesus Christ isn’t running. He never runs. Just go with the better of the two candidates. Don’t vote for the asshole just to register your protest. You’re simply screwing yourself.

Dancing with the folks whut brung ya

So, it remains close, this sorry election. And some polls show Romney ahead. I guess it’s another example of “dancing with the folks whut brung ya”.  The Romney forces,  beginning with the Bush Neo-Con crowd who destroyed the economy through greed, deregulation and tax cuts producing record deficits, are now promising “Change from Day One”. You betcha they will. Mr. Romney wants now to eliminate FEMA (at the height of the Frankensturm Sandy) and give the function back to the states, so that the Feds have no actual power or money to help in disasters. It’s their standard answer to all things—give it back to the states, who we know have such a good record in that regard. Take away Medicare and give people vouchers that exclude pre-existing conditions, so that individual families can fight with insurance companies to obtain insurance worse than what they now have under Medicare standards. Yeah, that’s Change from Day One we can believe in.

Oh, and they continue to rage on about people getting government issued food stamps.  Talk about no shame. As Romney continues to park his money in tax-free accounts offshore, he actively despises poor people. The Romney-Ryan folks really do hate the 99%. Yet, 49% of American voters still seem predisposed to invite them to lead the country.

Maybe Americans are yearning for a return to yesteryear, when good old King George ran the place . . . ya know, when there were real tea partiers, instead of the fake Astroturf crowd organized by the Kochs of the land.

Yeah, that’s right folks. Dance with the crowd whut brung ya.  And when Ford Motor Company begins to fail, Mitt’ll sell it to the Chinese and tell the auto workers to move to Florida to pick lettuce and oranges with the Mexican kids.

So, remember you 47% plus people—annoy a Republican. Go to the polls and vote.

Dreary Election

As the election nears, it is beginning to be difficult both to pay attention (we voted on the first day of early voting) and to avoid becoming depressed about the prospects of republicans basically stealing the election.  It has been such a depressing affair, beginning with the early Gong Show, mounted by the republicans. Think of it—assailed by the likes of Rick Perry, Sarah Palin and Ric Santorum and Michelle Bachman. That these clowns actually thought so little of our once great nation that they believed they could and should be president is itself depressing. Have we sunk so low that we actually deserve the clowns?  Romney, as awful as he is, actually seems a shining light on the hill compared with the clowns.

And then the Romney decided to hang out with Paul Ryan and have him a step away from the presidency. This guy is a devotee of a fantasy writer of post-apocalyptic fantasyland. But, to be fair, he’s also a good Catholic—talk about post-apocalyptic fantasyland. What a great combination for a possible vice president—a follower of that Nazi Pope who seems not to mind priests raping children, but can’t tolerate birth control, abortion, gays, or science. Yeah, that Paul Ryan, the one who seems to despise those less fortunate souls who have to rely on food stamps, at least partly because Ryan’s republican banker thieves stole their livelihood.  What a guy.

And now we are being visited by that Frankensturm, currently smashing into the eastern seaboard. That storm seems to be interfering with the election process—keeping at least some folks away from the polls.  And since that’s the job of republican poll watchers, maybe we should conclude that God is weighing in??  But no, it isn’t God. That’s for the stupid people, like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who seem to believe that God intervenes whimsically in all of our petty affairs. But they’re idiots and we should really try to ignore idiots.

I guess I am not alone in devoutly wishing for the end of this dreadful election (“but, be careful what you wish for, Richard”). I have been paying attention and in fact voting since 1956. This particular election seems the most awful of all the ones in which I have participated (by voting).  I know, 1964 seemed scary—Johnson v. Goldwater. But Goldwater seems a paragon of virtue when compared with Romney-Ryan.  Then there was Nixon, lying to us about his Vietnam plans.  We of course were treated to wholesale lying and corruption in the 2000 and 2004 elections—that’s when republicans discovered apparently that it was ok to engage in the Big Lie, because Americans are after all, pretty stupid. And we paid the price fully for that act of foolishness.  This election continues to be affected and corrupted by the eight Bush-Neo-Con years.  This process seems to be wearing out all of us to the point of exhaustion.  But will it ever go away? Maybe not, because republicans have discovered that it’s ok to buy any and all of our elections—huge money matters, apparently to the exclusion of anything else.—thanks Supremes.

Well, let’s be positive--maybe we will all awaken on November 7^th and discover that the world is still ok and the republicans have crawled back into their spiderholes, joining Dickie-bird Cheney.  And the sun will shine and people will begin working at reasonable wages and home values will return to normal, and everyone will resume smiling at one another. Oh, and maybe the Faux News network will announce that it has entered Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. Wouldn’t that be a nice pre-Christmas present for America???

Just a thought.

Oh, and if you haven’t already . . . annoy a republican -- Vote.