There’s not a day that goes by I don’t scan the daily headlines — first thing in the morning and sometimes in the dead of night — in hopes of learning Donald J. Tr*mp has gone to a better place.
I’d complete that sentence with — “Rest his soul” but the jury is, definitely, out in regards to that.
The man is a walking existential dread. Right along with all of the other existential dreads we’re bearing like proverbial crosses — climate change, the rise of artificial intelligence, climate refugees, space weapons systems, billionaires blotting out the night skies with satellites.
I was an existentialist in my youth. I read Camus and Sartre and Dostoyevsky. The dreads back then seemed more mundane. Pedestrian. Manageable. I don’t ever remember questioning whether some of my fellow Americans believed in democracy. Or, if I thought about anti-democracy advocates, there certainly weren’t enough of them to haunt my dreams.
Or cause me to contemplate the multiple paperwork hurdles to becoming an expatriate.
Young people, any portion of the 110 million registered voters who failed to vote in the 2020 election and apathetic Americans who believe they are immune to politics — you are the people who need to hear me out. You need to snap to attention. Somnambulism is no longer an option.
Ya’ll cannot sit this one out and you cannot vote for the person you believe to have no connection to evil. There will ONLY be two options for the office of the president. It is imperative you choose the “lesser of two evils”.
One represents compassion, the other represents all of our worst instincts.
One represents what it looks like to have an adult in the room, the other represents what it looks like to leave the inmates in charge of the asylum.
One represents forward thinking, the other wants to regulate your bodies.
One represents a chance to take hold of our future and deign to make a difference, the other represents greed grasping for a shrinking pie and dwindling resources.
One represents reason, the other embodies all that gave rise to the Spanish Inquisition, Cambodia’s killing fields, Salem’s witch trials and every blood-soaked battlefield in the Civil War and every blood-soaked massacre in the name of Manifest Destiny.
All of us with compassion and a conscience are perched on the edge of our seats because we’re deathly afraid that many of you are not sensing the urgency in regards to the upcoming election.
Of course, we are perched where we are because opinions are like assholes (everybody has one) and — these days — megaphones are like assholes (everybody has one). Our news outlets have a lot of content to create because there are so many people like me who seek new content around the clock. These days news media feel the need to be closer to entertainment to attract eyeballs.
They need tension.
They need Tr*mp versus Biden just like folks once needed Ali versus Frazier. Or Magic versus Bird.
They need the drama.
They need the existential dread.
They create it by hyping headlines like “Will Gen Z voters sit this one out?” or “Gen Z males are getting more conservative while Gen Z females are getting more woke.”
No one likes foregone conclusions. If you know the outcome before you sit down to watch the game, what’s the point? The media can’t have us thinking the fall election is a foregone conclusion.
I know the outcome this coming fall is not a slam dunk for decency and decorum and complacency is not, and cannot be, on the menu. But you can’t tell me compassionate conservative voters aren’t being shed, like dander or dandruff, with every verdict, indictment, slurred speech, incoherent interview, ignoramus viewpoint and blatant ass-kissing of one special Slavic autocrat who’s trying to physically destroy a European democracy. You can’t tell me he’s not losing some percentage of those who just wanted to vote for the reality television version of this particular sodden hunk of offal.
Folks, politics affects you. You know the old computer expression, “Garbage in, garbage out?” It’s the same with politics. As Jeff Tiedrich likes to say, “Hire a clown. Expect a circus.”
We can’t keep voting for those who are apt at creating spectacle, but inept at governing. Especially when they are inept at governing because they lack compassion. One of our political parties has no regard for compassion in politics.
It shows.
Do you know how hard that political party tried to roll back the law which protects you from insurance companies seeking to drop you because of a pre-existing condition?
Build a wall.
Erect barriers.
Don’t dare to dream.
We can’t afford that.
Give me a tax cut!
Just say “No!”
It’s our way, or the highway.
Republicans are in disarray, but the one thing they are experts at is obstructionism.
I watched Jon Stewart’s first show back at The Daily Show. I was particularly interested because I saw a post or two ragging on his annoying habit of playing both sides. I’d always found Jon Stewart funny and thoughtful, but, most of all, compassionate. He cares deeply for the things he cares about. Maybe too much so which may be why his The Problem with Jon Stewart just never took flight on Apple TV.
On this first show back, he pulled no punches on the back and forth about both Biden and Tr*mp’s age-related issues which is why partisans might have found the show off-putting. How dare he give solace to the ‘enemy’.
Still, I liked his opening monologue’s conclusion after showing some of the nonsense coming out of each candidate’s mouths. (Though, to be clear, Biden’s miscues — at least the ones The Daily Show aired — are much ado about very little as compared to the wannabe mob bosses’ blather which often feels like thinly veiled nonsensical threats — toward the media, the woke “mobs”, immigrants, women who never let him grab them…) Stewart — as is his custom — urged everyone to make the time to vote this coming November 5th.
He also wanted to remind us the work doesn’t begin or end on November 5th, 2024. The work is perpetual. It’s ongoing. No matter what the outcome there will still be work to do to keep pushing toward a better world.
He’s right, of course.
The existential dread will not be slain no matter who wins.
Compassion in America won’t die with a Tr*mp second term, but the headlining act coming from the Oval Office will be vindictiveness in it’s stead.
You read it here first.
The Super Bowl ad you might have missed.
Here are a collection of some of the better ads from Super Bowl Sunday. Oh! Was there a game as well? I’m just happy that the Deep State won.
Also —
Exceptionally Alert Reader, Nancy Enz Lill, sent along this exposé about the Hobby Lobby-financed Super Bowl ads that were not even remotely funny. Less funny than the ad pushing the conspiracy-addled candidate who thinks he’s going to get some lift from his deceased father and uncle.
To my younger readers — Please don’t consider voting for that guy. Or Marianne Williamson. Or Cornell West. Might as well vote for one of the Muppets.