UNDECIDED VOTERS

 I do not understand how we can still have undecided voters in late 2024.

 The choice is clear. We have two, well defined and very different Presidential candidates with nothing in common. Where is there room for indecision?

 On the one hand we have a candidate with several decades of well-documented experience as a public administrator and as an elected official. The opposing candidate has only four years’ experience in public office but many decades as a controversial public figure.

 One candidate offers fairly detailed policy proposals concerning immigration, the economy, foreign policy and reproductive rights; the other candidate contradicts himself on reproductive rights and offers only vague and bombastic promises concerning the rest.

 As is normal in politics, both candidates are critical of each other. But while one is critical in a restrained, logical and adult manner, the other uses the vulgar, violent, unrestrained and insulting terms of the schoolyard bully.

 One candidate is young, optimistic and articulate, who talks in complete sentences and offers rational arguments in favor of national unity. The other candidate is old and showing signs of cognitive impairment, and whose rambling and inarticulate rantings only serve to divide and inflame an increasingly tribal electorate.

 I do not agree with many of Kamala Harris’s proposals, but even if she achieves all the things that I disagree with, it will still be within the bounds of civilized and democratic behavior and will not be a disaster for the country or for future generations. But if Donald Trump achieves his stated goals, his combination of demonstrated incompetence and transactional corruption will have long-term disastrous effects, not just for this country, but for the world.

 The differences are so clear, there can be no room for indecision.

 We know who Donald Trump is. We have known for decades. If we chose to elect him as our President, then we will be telling the world who we are and exactly what America represents. We will have no excuses to hide behind, we cannot pretend ignorance. He has told us who he is; we must decide who we are.

 The choice is clear.

 We must vote.

 THE MIDAS EFFECT

A remark by one of the TV talking-heads about the various witnesses involved in the current ‘Hush Money’ case in New York, describing them all as equally ‘unsavory’, reminded me just how much, since 2016, mainstream America has been exposed to, and become familiar with a whole seamy underside of Society that was previously limited to cheap B-Movies and supermarket tabloids.

 Currently we are watching a sordid mud pit wresting match involving a porn star and a Playboy model exploiting their sexual histories, with an embarrassing bevy of seedy, bottom-draw attorneys and sleazy Catch and Kill ‘news’ editors. But over the past several years, since his descent on the Trump elevator in 2015, we have encountered a seemingly endless succession of cringeworthy associates from Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and all their cronies to out-front, dodgy Ukrainian ‘businessmen’ like Lev Parnas and Igor Frumen.

 Even when Trump moves beyond the bottom-feeders among whom he feels most at home, whoever he touches in the normal world becomes contaminated and swiftly sinks to his level. America’s Mayor has sunk without trace, and a list of hitherto respected four-star generals, CEOs, Attorney Generals, Governors and long respected politicians have seen their proud resumes destroyed, overshadowed and forever poisoned by their association with The Donald.

 Donald trump has transformed Presidential politics and the White House into a XXX Gold Adult strip-club.

 AS King Midas eventually discovered, turning everything to gold has its price,

 Democracy vs Dictatorship

My lifelong faith in Democracy is being sorely tested as I witness the daily clown-show in Washington D.C.  Observing our elected representatives squabbling over nonsense is like watching an episode of Mean Girls. While pressure builds on our southern border, Russia destroys its European neighbor, China threatens Taiwan and as tensions in the Middle East spiral out of control, our leaders prove incapable of doing anything except playing musical chairs with the Speaker and indulging in meaningless impeachment trials.

 

Maybe a dictatorship is not such a bad idea after all!