American Election Blues

As a true democrat (with a small ‘d’), I firmly believe in the right of every citizen to have his/her own political opinion and to support the party of their choice, even if I don’t agree with them. That’s what’s called democracy.

This year’s American election ordeal is, however, shaking my beliefs in the foundations of American democracy. I do not understand, nor can I even fathom, how anyone in their right mind can support Donald Trump. It goes beyond human understanding.

The choice this November is between the possibility of electing Hillary Clinton – who may turn out to be a good, bad or indifferent president – we’ve survived all of those in the past – or the possibility of electing Donald Trump, which is akin to national suicide, if not worldwide disaster. The man is a crook, a charlatan and an unabashed liar, whose role models abound in our history! Lie all you want – if you do it often enough, people will believe you. Anyone who doesn’t agree with him is, by definition, a crook and deserves to go to jail, and this allows him to insult them, debase them, and sully the memory of their loved ones, only because of their religion. And he equates the ‘sacrifice’ of multiple bankruptcies with the ultimate sacrifice of losing a hero son on the field of battle, in defense of his country. How low can you go? He brings to mind a quote from 1954, from the Army McCarthy Hearings. “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Apparently not.

Nothing is sacred to this man, nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of his desire to rule America. Made up stories, baseless complaints of ‘voter fraud’ originating from fake news stories, anything he and his minions can think of that might bring in another vote. This is not democracy, this is demagoguery – pure and simple – designed to dupe the uninformed and the frightened into casting their vote for Donald J. Trump.

What is almost more disturbing is how many people actually do support him, and by definition support chicanery, bigotry and a total lack of human compassion. Whatever happened to “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”?

And let me make one more thing clear – this has nothing to do with political parties. There have been great Republican presidents and there have been great Democratic presidents. There have been awful Democrats and there have been awful Republicans. But never has there ever been anyone like Trump.