I have been the proud voter in Presidential elections for 33 years. Even when I was not particularly enthralled with any of the candidates, my right to partake in the political system was fully exercised with enthusiasm. Let's sum this up by year.
1992: Bush-Clinton-Perot
1996: Clinton-Dole
2000: Gore-W
2004: Kerry-W
2008: Obama-McCain
2012: Obama-Romney
2016: Clinton-Trump
2020: Biden-Trump
2024: Harris-Trump
Only 1 name showed up 3 times, can anyone see it?
I will say that in many of those elections, I voted for the lesser-known names that were not on the main ticket, simply because, well, the main names meant nothing to me. That said, I voted for Gore and Kerry because I had zero confidence in the ass clown son.
Even in the one that began the era we have been stuck in for about 10 years now, I voted for some underdog name. I proudly confess that. Even since the mid-80s, I'd been more or less subjected to the Trump name because a friend of mine had all these magazine articles about him like he was a role model. And back in those days in terms of real estate, Donald Trump was a force to be reckoned with, and if you also had millions, you too could have a real estate empire.
And like many restaurant chains that overexpanded, some of his holdings had to suffer, particularly casinos.
For some reason, Trump felt that he could be President of our country and threw his hat in the ring in 2015. OK, now at some point between then and the 2016 primaries, there was a possibility of another Clinton-Bush ticket, almost like history was going to repeat itself in a yin-yang kind of way. So I was a bit relieved when Jeb was not the GOP choice...but Trump was not an improvement.
I bet many of us did not think of it then, but after all this time, I think there was an underlying reason for Trump to want to be in the White House. The resurfacing of Jeffrey Epstein this past week frames this narrative a bit better.
That's who was elected in November of 2016. Once again I was relieved to a point, because the DNC had played some dirty pool that year in terms of shutting out Bernie Sanders supporters...which showed that even when you're in the same club, not all are equal.
From 2017-early 2020, there was only one thing that bugged me and that was the tax cuts, but only because my tax refunds had paid for our summer vacations for 4 years...no longer. Eh, whatever. Trump said wild things and he tried wild things, all to the chagrin of the legislators who thought they could rein him in, Mitch McConnell comes to mind. It was Trump this and that all the time, making me understand even more fully that he was an attention hound. He dealt with the press in a fairly decent way and answered their questions pretty directly, even when he was full of it.
Then came COVID. To this day I have no idea what it was all really about, but the fact that a worldwide pandemic was pretty much done within 2 years does ring some alarm bells. I really wanted to think that our President was handling it the best he could, but things changed daily and we never knew what was really going on...ever! And because of that flip-flopping, I believe, he lost the election against Joe Biden.
I was surprised. I did not vote for either. However, until COVID, I was convinced that Trump had the election in the bag. I was resigned to it. As his Presidency had not hurt me or my family or others around me directly, it was like having the ass clown son in office for a while longer, only Trump had not created an absence of attention to domestic affairs like W had, which led to the recession of 2008.
I will not delve into the aftermath of that election in terms of theory and suspicions, I heard enough of them. But Trump could not conceive that he lost and he surrounded himself with people who not only convinced him (and his voter base) that there was a wide swath of election fraud (they STOLE the election) but that they would find ways to keep him in...and those methods were the fraud itself.
And all that led to January 6, 2021. It happened, it failed, and 2 weeks later, Joe Biden was inaugurated, and Donald Trump was temporarily defeated. And when I say temporary, it was for a day or so.
This portrait was 4 years after his first inaugural portrait. Older, grayer, angrier. Beofre getting re-elected, he had gone through investigations and trials, but also had effectively taken over the Republican Party without the hint of a fight. Yes, after the events of January 6, he licked his wounds for maybe a day or so before going on the attack.
He had promised to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war, to end inflation, to resolve the border situation...and to make America great again.
Quite frankly, we were great a year ago despite what he wants the optics to portray.
We had a solid place in the world economy. Illegal immigration according to the numbers was not the catastrophe Trump was making it out to be. And yeah, eggs were a problem but it was a bird flu thing which resolved itself a few months ago like it had once or twice before. Plus, between you and me, the Ukraine thing was just dragging out and we had put no dent in it...neither has Trump.
The tariff game (because it is a game to him) has alienated world leaders from the United States. We even alienated CANADA!
He approved ICE agents to storm Los Angeles and then sent in the national guard due to ensuiing riots even though many of the supporting optics were old.
A prison camp was built in RECORD time in the Everglades recently.
We attacked Iran without any really clear solid unbiased intel.
And now Trump's past with a crooked mega investment guy/minor girl trafficker is coming back to haunt him.
Unlike his other endeavors this year that have failed, his MAGA supporters stop at child rape. He keeps begging his supporters to forget the past, but who can get that image out of their head. It's right up there with Catholic priests molesting Catholic youth, particularly male youth. And Trump wants his previous actions, like the actions of priests, to be forgotten or swept away.
We have been led by 2 Trumps. One was not exactly benign but shook the Federsl government up, which the establishment needs from time to time. The other is an angry, vengeful man who lashes out at anyone who does not lavish praise on him, particularly the media. And he still lets Vladimir Putin do whatever he likes to Ukraine. He still idolizes his dictator role model.
Or maybe this is the Trump we would have gotten in 2021? Maybe in some ways, but others not. He did not have the legislative support in 2021 that he gathered for 3 years after. This year was his time to go after those he had perceived to hurt him. And who knows what the next 3 1/2 years will bring? It is a scary thought.
We are not greater than we were a year ago.
It is not because of Biden.
It is Trump and those who kiss his...whatever is kissable anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment