The 2016 Presidential election ends next week. None too soon for me. I am sick of watching our nation tear itself
apart over the most outlandish campaigns and candidates of the modern era. This is one for the books and that book
becomes the only one I would support burning.
We have a choice between a man who does not believe he can
do anything wrong, say anything wrong or ever lose, and a woman who is very
scared that someone might find out she did something wrong. The man harkens back to a time as the model
for future greatness that was a terrible time for anyone other than Anglo Americans
with steady income and no disabilities.
The women dreams of a future time free of discrimination and rife with
opportunity. Their separate visions of
the future are telling, and the model they would use to move toward their
vision is equally telling.
Even when Trump was way behind in the polls his response was
the polls are wrong. Even when it
appeared clear Clinton would win, he said if Clinton won the election must be
rigged. The man cannot fathom failure or
misstep. There is no compromise in him
because he has never had to compromise.
He has never been put in a position other than the boss. At the risk of being drafted, where he surely
would not have been the boss, he dodged.
He does not want to be President as much as he believes he should be the
boss of the USA. He can insult anyone he
wants because he is the boss. He can
assume any political or economic position he wants because he is the boss. His model for male/female relationships was
formed in the 1950’s when a woman’s place was in the home or on her back.
Clinton on the other hand has been shaped by the expansion
of civil liberties in the 1960’s. Women,
children, minorities have all been the focus of her life’s work and work she
has. She is a Washington insider which
may sound like a curse to many and a blessing to some. She knows how to get things done. But she carries baggage. It is not the baggage of discrimination or misogyny,
it is the baggage of mistrust arising from her emails, her handling of Benghazi
while Secretary of State, and a bunch of random quotes taken out of context
from speeches made years ago. The
American people are having a hard time forgiving her for lack of transparency
while she claims to be the most transparent candidate.
The main difference in the shortcomings of the two
candidates is that Trump’s shortcomings are revealed via the words out of his
own mouth and his own behaviors, while Clinton’s shortcomings are part of the
narrative of the Republican Party who argues she is hiding something. After months and months of hearings and investigations
no agency has found any evidence that merits the prosecution of Clinton. And yet the narrative has become so strong as
to be believed by many.
I am oh so worried about this election, not because of
whomever the winner is, but because this election will more than anything in
recent history reveal America’s core values.
A Trump victory will send a loud and clear message regarding civil
rights, inequality of wealth, consumer oriented protection agencies like OSHA,
Office of Civil Rights, FDA, etc. Those
agencies will be abandoned while taxes on the wealthy will decrease. Trump has said he will end the “monopoly” of
public education. Holy Cow. It will also say that what Trump has said and
done is forgivable, and perhaps worse, supportable.
The mere fact that the candidates appear to be running
neck-and-neck down to the wire is as discouraging a piece of news as I have
heard in a long time. It should never
have been close. It should never have
been Trump. The fact that it is both is
the scariest thing I can think of on Halloween.
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