I am not one to wish away entire years.
Usually I take them as they come, slogging through the events as they transpire. I then wait for the ball to drop in Times Square and welcome the new year.
This year is vastly different. 2020 has been a serious downer, as in uber serious, man.
Right around the first month of the year we began getting word that some folks in China had been stricken by something called a “coronavirus.” Then … just like that it became a pandemic.
Donald John Trump, the “very stable genius” who runs the executive branch of our government, blew it off. It’ll disappear like a miracle, he said. Fifteen cases and — poof! — it’ll be gone. Well, it hasn’t just vanished. It has killed more than 115,000 Americans. Many more will die. The economy shut down, sending us into a recession. Trump resisted the seriousness of it. Then it dawned on him: Hey, we’d better do something; I mean, I’ve got a re-election campaign to run and those jobless numbers won’t look good as I campaign for another term.
And then came George Floyd’s death. The Minneapolis cops killed him after arresting him for trying to pass a counterfeit bill — allegedly. His death has ignited a firestorm of protest and recrimination. It’s still blazing out of control.
I want the year to end. First things first, though. We have this election coming up. I want Trump to be defeated by Joe Biden. I want POTUS gone from the White House. My preference would be that he escorted by the cops, maybe even the Marines who guard the White House.
I do have a serious concern about that election. It is that the coronavirus pandemic is going to frighten folks, keep them from voting. That plays in Trump’s wheelhouse. He proclaims a phony belief in “rampant voter fraud” if we vote by mail, which is his way of covering his a** against a big turnout that would boot his sorry backside out of office.
States should enact policies that enable voters to cast their ballots in a safe and secure manner. Texas isn’t likely to be one of them, as we are governed by Trumpkin Republicans who are faithful more to the man than to the Constitution they all swore to protect.
We’ll get through it. I just want the election to turn out the way I prefer. The rest of the year? I want it gone.