Tag Archives: 2020 election

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Trump unhinged

I am trying to fathom the reasons that millions of American voters are continuing to argue for the re-election of the man pictured here.

So help me I am at a total loss.

Donald Trump keeps threatening to do bodily harm to our democratic process if the November presidential election doesn’t turn out the way he wants.

He is indicating he might not accept the result of an election that favors Joseph R. Biden Jr. He already has said that a Biden victory would guarantee a “rigged” election. So he’ll do what? Demand a recount? Toss the ballots out? Start over?

Then he said he deserves a “do-over” because President Obama and Vice President Biden “spied” on his campaign during the 2016 election season. Spied? Oh, that was when the FBI and others reported to the Obama administration that Russians were interfering in the election, so the Obama folks wanted to take a closer look at it.

The FBI already has determined there was no “spying.” That hasn’t shut Trump’s pie hole.

The latest gem is that he might seek a third term if — and I am swallowing hard to say these next few words — he wins re-election.

Oh, but wait. The U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says a president can be elected twice. That’s it. No more. Is he going to demand an amendment to the Constitution? Good luck with that one, Donald.

Watching The Donald flail and flounder this way simply brings to mind my astonishment in the support he continues to pull from the roughly 40 percent (give or take) of the American voting public. What on Earth, in the name of political sanity, do they see in this individual?

The third term suggestion might be some sort of Trumpian joke, although The Donald seems to possess no discernible sense of humor. The “spying” allegation is just one more smear that Trump insists on leveling at Barack Obama, given what I believe is his intense envy at the sophistication his immediate predecessor demonstrated during his two terms in office.

Whether to accept the election result if former VP Biden wins? In some sort of macabre way, many of us saw that one coming long ago … about the time he rode down that Trump Tower escalator to declare his candidacy for the only public office he ever sought.

Trump is unhinged.

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Voting early: an option for sure

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I cannot believe I am about to admit to possibly doing the following thing: voting early.

Donald Trump’s open warfare on the vote by mail process being promoted by Democrats has given me serious pause to break from my Election Day tradition.

I much prefer voting in person, at the polling place, on Election Day.

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with Trump’s campaign to dismember the U.S. Postal Service is giving me second thoughts.

I am not exactly a full-throated backer of mail-in voting. Given the threat of standing in line with dozens or hundreds of other voters while we’re battling a killer pandemic, I prefer voting by mail to the normal voting process. Trump is threatening to forestall mail-in voting by cutting funds for the USPS. He even admits to seeking to derail the Postal Service for political reasons: mail-in voting favors Democrats, Trump says, and we just cannot have that.

This is a disgraceful politicization of an agency that for many decades has been held in the highest regard by the American public.

Meanwhile, I am left to ponder whether I want to stand in line on Election Day or vote early, when the crowds traditionally are much thinner.

Given the stakes, I am leaning toward voting early. Oh, man. I cannot possibly articulate why that troubles me. It just does.

However, if the option — absent a vote-by-mail program enacted in Texas — is to wait on Election Day in a crowd of strangers while we’re all fighting a viral pandemic that could kill us … you get my drift, yes?

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Time for a vision

There won’t be cheering crowds. No balloon drops. No demonstrations of delegates wearing goofy hats and festooned with buttons of all sizes, colors and slogans.

No. The Democratic National Convention is going to be a “virtual” event with speakers talking to the nation from their own living rooms, or their dens, or their basements.

What has to happen at this event, in my humble view, is not unique to this uniquely delivered political event. What we need is to hear a vision for the future from presidential nominee Joe Biden, from vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris and from the assortment of speakers who will talk to us over the course of the next four days.

You see, that element has existed in political conventions going back through the history of our great and beloved republic.

I do not expect to hear a futuristic vision from Donald Trump, the Republican whose party convention occurs next week. Trump is trading on division and disunity, on distrust of others and on fear. I look for him to keep beating that drum all the way to the election.

What’s left for Democrats? They have to lay out a plan for how they intend to fix what Trump has damaged. Trump has wrecked our international alliances; he was impeached over his attempts to bribe a foreign leader for dirt on Joe Biden; he has sought to dismantle environmental protections; Trump has threatened to deport U.S. residents who came here as children because their parents sneaked into the country without proper documentation.

The Democrats’ strategy is as traditional as any part of this nominating process that hasn’t been altered by the coronavirus pandemic. They need to speak plainly and honestly to Americans who will tune in.

I will be one of them. I am awaiting a message of hope and revival and I damn sure don’t need a cheering crowd to persuade me to prefer their message over the fear-mongering that will come from Donald Trump.

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The general is correct

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”

—U.S. Marine Corps Gen. (Retired) James Mattis

Back when James Mattis served our nation a defense secretary, I along with many other observers, noted that he emerged immediately as the rare grownup serving in the Cabinet in the Donald Trump administration.

Then he got fired. Why? Because he differed with Trump on a whole array of defense and foreign policy decisions.

His highly critical assessment of Trump, delivered in this widely circulated quote, speaks volumes about what Gen. Mattis saw up close during his time as defense secretary.

Tragically, Trump is campaigning for re-election as president by continuing to divide the nation. He is campaigning exclusively to the base of voters who propelled him to the White House by virtue of the Electoral College majority he eked out over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I don’t understand how this process is supposed to work as he fights for re-election in a campaign against Joseph R. Biden Jr. Trump’s approval rating stands in the low 40 percent range. The average of public opinion polling puts Biden up by about 8 to 9 percent. The former vice president figures to get a big bump from the virtual Democratic National Convention that convenes Monday.

Trump is going to campaign for re-election by telling us about all the ills that continue to plague the nation. But … wait a minute! Didn’t he declare that “I, alone” can solve those woes? Hasn’t he served as our chief executive for nearly four years? Didn’t he pledge to “drain the swamp” and “make America great again”?

Instead, Trump is going to proceed according to the Mattis Mantra that the retired Marine Corps general identified earlier this year. He will try to divide the nation he pledged to unite.

Go figure.

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Battle is now joined

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We have just witnessed the first exchange in what is going to be more than likely the most miserable campaign for the U.S. presidency that many of us can remember.

Maybe in all of American history.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris spoke to us back to back about the abject failures of the Donald Trump-Mike Pence administration.

My initial takeaway, though, has to do with a personal aspect of the relationship between the members of the Democratic Party presidential team.

It is that Joe Biden does not carry a grudge. It was Harris, you’ll remember, who drew a bit of Biden’s blood during a Democratic presidential joint appearance when she hit him hard over his Senate opposition to federally mandated busing of school children.

The fact that Biden would select Harris to run with him tells me in stark terms: That’s OK; you took your best shot and I survived. Now, join me in this fight to the finish.

I am looking forward to watching this campaign unfold, even though the misery we can expect will be deep and will be intensely personal. That’s how Trump rolls.

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Welcome to the show, Sen. Harris

There once was a time when candidates joined national campaigns and their opponent would offer them a tepid “Welcome to the fight” greeting.

Not these days.

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris became former VP Joe Biden’s running mate this week and Donald Trump began a Twitter torrent lambasting the California Democrat for being a weak Democratic primary presidential opponent.

Trump said Harris is the kind of candidate he dreams about. He calls her a champion of the “far left.” Hah! I’ll go instead with some of the progressive outfits who complain that Harris isn’t “far left” enough for them.

In reality, the more I consider Harris’s candidacy, the more I buy into her mainstream moderate approach to governance.

She is a former prosecutor, meaning she hunted down bad guys and put ’em in the slammer. She is no one’s fool. Harris is tough, resilient and vows to work as hard as she can to elect Biden as the next president of the United States.

Harris teamed up once with the late Beau Biden, the former VP’s son, in pursuing fraudulent bankers. Beau Biden happened to be attorney general in Delaware while Harris ran the California justice department.

The old days of common courtesy are gone. Donald Trump is lying in wait (pun kind of intended here, if you get my drift). He is going to cast every possible aspersion he can on Sen. Harris, not to mention what he plans for the former vice president.

Neither of them needs to respond in kind. They have plenty of political action organizations ready to do their own version of the kind of dirty work they can expect from the Donald Trump-Mike Pence team.

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Digesting this VP choice

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I admit my political bias regularly and without apology. I mean, we all have bias, we are imbued in it, it propels our political principles.

At least it propels my principles.

I lean toward the Democratic Party. I have been voting for president every four years since 1972 and not once have I cast a presidential vote for a Republican. I don’t regret my votes, although as I look back on one of them with decades of experience under my belt, I might have thought differently about the 1976 race between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

I say all this as a cautionary tale to the excitement many of my fellow pro-Democratic Party voters are feeling today with the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as the party’s latest vice-presidential pick.

She’s already made history by being the first woman of color to be chosen. She is black and she is of Indian descent; her father hailed from Jamaica, her mother from South Asia. That’s historic!

Sen. Harris now stands on the brink of making even more history in 88 days by being elected the first woman as vice president.

I am trying mightily to temper my excitement. I am going to succeed in tamping it down. How do I know that? Because I fear that Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, has the resources and the willingness to deploy them to win re-election to a second term. He will do whatever it takes to win.

Now, I most certainly don’t want that to happen. It is a fear that well might keep me up at night as we get closer to Election Day.

My bias remains as strong as ever. My desire to see Joe Biden elected president is at full boil. I intend to use this blog toward that end. I feel compelled, though, to reel in my excitement at the prospect until we get much closer to the election. I need assurances that the excitement is warranted.

I am hoping Kamala Harris can excite millions of Americans who are as frightened as I am at the prospect that Donald Trump can repeat the astonishing political fluke he performed in 2016.

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Wish list for next POTUS

I want the next president of the United States to undo the damage done by Donald J. Trump. My to-do wish list is a lengthy one.

And by the way, I hope the next president is Joseph R. Biden Jr.

So, for the record and in no particular order of importance, I want the next president to:

  • Reinstate our participation in key international agreements, such as the Iran nuclear arms deal; the Paris Climate Accords; remaining a part of the World Health Organization.
  • Issue a new executive order reviving the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals for those undocumented immigrants who were brought here illegally as children by their parents.
  • Look Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in the eye and tell him he faces severe economic and diplomatic sanctions if he continues to interfere in our electoral process.
  • Restore environmental protections seeking cleaner air and water.
  • Revive our alliances within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  • Start working immediately on comprehensive immigration reform. Accordingly, I also want the next president to strengthen border security without erecting a wall along our southern border.
  • Restore policies that welcome gay men and women who want to serve in our nation’s armed forces.
  • Stop the effort to kill the Affordable Care Act and instead work immediately to improve it and make it truly more “affordable” for millions of Americans.
  • Develop a sensible and comprehensive national strategy to fight the pandemic that continues to kill and sicken too many Americans every day.
  • Redeploy resources to developing clean energy.

I am sure there are other initiatives worth pursuing once we get a new president.

My hope remains that the day will arrive next Jan. 20 and not four years after that date.

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Where’s the second-term message?

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Donald J. Trump continues to flail and flounder not only on the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic but also on the president’s re-election message.

I suppose the two things are connected, given that he can’t craft one strategy let alone two at the same time.

Truth be told, I care only about the first thing, the response to the coronavirus that has killed more than 160,000 Americans. I don’t give a sh** about the second matter, the re-election effort. I want his butt tossed out of the White House.

However, I want to look briefly at the consequences of Trump’s failure to craft a message worthy of re-election.

He is running against himself. Trump continues to paint a gloomy and forbidding picture of life in America. He’s been president for nearly four years. He was going to “drain the swamp,” provide health care for everyone, unify the nation, make America great again, put America first. He said that “I, alone” can do all those wonderful things.

He has failed to deliver the goods.

What’s left for him to promise? More of the same?

That ain’t a winning strategy. Again, it’s not that I want him to craft a vision for a second term. I want him kicked out. I want him as far away from the seat of power as he can possibly get.

One way for him to ensure his earliest possible departure — short of resigning from office in the next 15 minutes — is to continue on the clumsy path he has blazed for himself. That’s fine with me.

Joe Biden stands poised at this moment of relieving the nation of the misery that Trump has brought upon us all. That, of course, will depend on whether he can withstand the withering assault that is coming his way.

Look, the former vice president wasn’t my first choice to challenge Trump. Biden did survive a grueling primary process. He’s now the only choice we have. I now am all in.

The campaign will unfold –, given the pandemic’s effect on political life — in a way we haven’t seen ever before. Be smart, Joe. Be restrained. Be presidential, which I know you can do.

Just let Trump be Trump.

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Fool me twice?

You know how it goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Are we really ready to fool ourselves once again by sending Donald Trump back to the White House for another four years?

I see these compilations of public opinion surveys and notice Trump continues to rake in about 42 percent approval among registered voters. I am left to ask: Who in the name of political sanity is actually continuing to support this guy?

Are they not paying attention to the idiocy that pours forth from this individual? Are they giving him a pass on his dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, when he called it a “Democrat hoax”? Or when he stands before TV cameras as recently as this week and pokes fun at the name of the virus, while it is killing 1,000 Americans every single day?

I am left to scream at the prospect of this guy keeping the keys to the White House for another four years. This is a dangerous, perilous time. We must exercise some wisdom in deciding who leads us out of this nightmare. 

It ain’t Donald Trump.