80: Wide Awake......and NOT On the Fence.

What a difference a day makes! Sunshine and flowers! The gloomy monotony of watching a forever mud wrestling match, what it looked like at times, is over. It was two, a bit feeble, old guys, both trying to convince voters they should be the next President of The United States. The majority of us didn’t want either one of them. Now we don’t have to pick either one of them.

It all happened in not much more than twenty-four little hours. If you blinked, you missed it, what was maybe an extraordinary act of political skill. The current president who is a little past eighty, passed the baton, and the new runner was ready. In a flash she had support in every corner of the Democratic Party, and then she chose a running mate who is a natural fit. Both are workers, and they both smile. Party leaders and the rank and file are smiling now, too.

The sky is brighter, polling indicating a complete turn in voter preference away from Chaos Man, the almost-eighty remaining candidate. The better election outcome, the permanent end to Donald Trump’s noise and distraction that slows the nation’s business, is not assured, however. It now appears more people will vote the Harris-Walz ticket, but that relic from our founding, the Electoral College can thwart the will of the voting public. That is exactly what happened when Chaos was elected in 2016.

We vote to hire someone for an incredibly complex work assignment. It is not a job for one of questionable rationality, nor has it ever been filled by a felon. Unquestioned loyalty to the country is a requirement. Good judgement in the choice of friends is also a quality we consider. Chaos Man’s comfort with the likes of dictators in Russia and North Korea are not comforting.

Of even greater significance than those character issues may be the risk of the loss of time on task for solving our two most pressing problems. If Chaos returns, count a lost eight years of progress against the climate change problem, the next four and the last four under President Biden. Chaos will do as he’s asked (or told) by fossil fuel interests, and their interest is to keep us burning and emitting carbon dioxide. Trump will reverse the Biden climate initiatives. The other problem, inequality, will also grow worse, more extreme. The sometimes-irrational old guy will listen to the few with the money, not to the vast majority of Americans who don’t have it.

As we approach the election some of our fellow citizens are asleep and some are still sitting on the fence, though there aren’t nearly as many on the fence because Sleepy, that still skilled politician who’s still the president, decided to step down. He moved the fence. Our tasks are to wake the sleepers and to bring the sitters down on our side. Both tasks are doable and will be most satisfying when achieved. When we succeed, we’ll know again that our place is a good place and that it will become a better place during the next four years, and the outlook will be better for our kids and grandkids during the next forty years.

This is a conversation about the coming election. It started as a bit of a rant, complaints about billionaires, bad food, and oil, and the sense that we are stuck. Paying too much for health care and the craziness of MAGA is also in the mix. Eighty is a number to play with, and it popped in because the one guy who is almost there claimed the other, who is slightly past, is too old. Eighty years old may be too old to be president, or it may not be. Understanding numbers is important, knowing the difference between a million and a billion, for example. Stepping back once in a while, going for a walk to think about it is important, too. Sometimes a rant will turn into almost humor, like a peak of sunshine from a Jon Stewart or a Samual Clemens, aka Mark Twain, a hundred plus years his senior.

Enjoy the sunshine and flowers, and then do all you can to get the votes we need in November.