It is Election Day.
I sit here in the dark, at the table on our back patio, feeling drained already. I have been up for about 15 minutes. I am drinking my coffee, and enjoying it immensely – I managed to get the proportions of creamer and sweetener exactly right today.
I can’t decide how early I should arrive at the polling place assigned to me. It is 5:53, the polls will open in 1 hour and 7 minutes. Will arriving 30 minutes early, be enough time to miss the crowds? I am not sure. It is a crap shoot. I think maybe I should have voted by mail, but then with everything that has happened during the 2 years of election campaigning, leading up to this very day, I am not sure my ballot would get where I needed it to go, if I did mail it in.
I must tell you, I have never been so obsessed by an election. The whole campaign, with Clinton and Trump, has been like slowing down to look at the wreckage of a car accident, over and over again. The carnage caused by this election, is overwhelming, I can’t take my eyes off it. I have read every story online, getting madder and madder with each word. It feels like reality TV has taken over our lives and our country.
Watching Trump and Clinton over the last two years, has been very much like watching one of those movies about the typical, cliques in High School. On the one side, you have the brash, playground bully, who doesn’t care what he says, pitted against one of the mean, rich girls who is smooth talking, surrounded by other equally mean girls, insulated by her Daddy’s money, who schemes and manipulates and has no consideration for who she hurts, all the while smiling that fake, annoying little smile.
I have read articles about the candidates’ exploitive behavior, to women, to their constituents, to everyone. I have read articles about one candidate’s supposed illness, watched videos about purported seizure activity, and I have read other articles about the candidate who some have compared to Hitler, who might possibly have ties with the Klu-Klux-Klan. And I am kind of disgusted by all of it.
And when did celebrities decide we cared about who they endorsed? They are simply entertainers, nothing more than “court jesters”. They should stick to entertaining and not involve themselves in politics. And is it fair that the President campaign for a candidate? When did this become a thing to do? It is all so mind-boggling.
I am an American citizen, naturalized, and up until these last two years, very proud to be one. I spent 18 years of my life in the United States Air Force, serving this country which I love. I know the rest of the world is watching this debacle of an election campaign, thinking we Americans have completely lost our minds. And I can’t say, I blame them for thinking so.
And so, last night, I took out my California Voter’s information booklet, read all the explanations on the Propositions, which are on the ballot this year. I circled the “Yes” and the “No”, so I will be prepared and ready to vote. I was a little confused and bewildered at having to decide if adult film actors should wear condoms and get vaccinated, and at deciding about single use plastic bags being banned, mixed in with decisions about death penalties and legalizing marijuana. I tried to make an informed decision.
Here is what I do know. As an American citizen, I don’t feel like anyone in government is watching out for the people that go to work every day, pay their taxes, follow the laws, and do the things they are supposed to do. I see big banks getting bailed out, cable TV charging whatever they want, phone companies doing whatever they want, huge corporations just taking our hard-earned money, and we the “little people” having no recourse at all. I see our military resources being spread so thin to protect other countries, that if we needed to, we couldn’t pull them back in time to protect our own country. I see the government in such shambles, I honestly don’t think any one person can save us.
Well, it is now 6:30, the sun has risen, and I must go do my duty as an American citizen. I would rather just stay here, with my fluffy Golden Retriever wrapped around my feet, and drink my coffee. But if the candidate I don’t want to run our country gets elected, and I haven’t done my part, I will have no one to blame but myself.
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Categories: Military, Modern Living, Presidential Election, Thoughts on the World
The rest of the world is watching – and has been watching the farce – wondering what will happen next. Although the view from the rest of the world, and some Americans, is how dd Trump even get so far?
One has to wonder!?
I voted early and opted for Evan McMullin, an independent third party candidate.
I don’t use the rp blog for posting political related stuff usually, except to say that my music has intersected with politics this year and that I have written a number of albums with that theme, one of them called “Foundation Wall” with titles like Bury Clinton Under the Foundation and Conceal Trump behind the wall and the album is created from soundbites of the first two presidential debates.
You can stream and/or purchase it from my bandcamp site https://scottlawlor.bandcamp.com/ just look for the title, it’ll be there along with a bunch of other albums, some of which are very unusual.
Thanks for the heads up on your new albums. Hope all is well with you!!!
Yeh. I don’t envy you. On another blogs the candidates were likened to a chilli enema versus an ebola outbreak, both pretty hideous but one might be quicker to recover from. As I understand it, whoever gets in will get a second term as that’s how it seems to go usually … that’s probably the most worrying bit.
I have to confess that as a historian, watching from the rest of the world, one of the candidates does appear to be blueprinting what Hitler did to get into power, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that person’s politics will end up being the same as Hitler’s.
I’m also pretty sure I know which one will win, too. Because a victory for that one is the only thing I want less in my life than Britain to leaving the EU. And people said that would never happen either. And judging by the way Murphy’s law is poohing on me from a great height about the things I want least in the world, a victory for the one that really scares me is inevitable.
Cheers
MTM
Ha an ebola outbreak and a chili enema, I guess I would have to opt for the enema. Been watching South Park with my kids and they called one candidate a Turd Sandwich and the other a Douche. The only thing I can say about this election, or the outcome is it has certainly snapped Americans out of their complacency. Now with that same gusto, I wish they would rally together and boycott all the cable companies, the phone companies, the utility companies, the airlines, the big banks, the credit card companies, and all the other corporations who have just done whatever they wanted to(and gotten away with it) over the last decade or so.
At least it’s all over now. What’s done is done and hopefully Americans will try to come together after things die down. The divide that’s present now is awful.
Hi my friend, what we thought was done, seems to have just started a sh*t storm across the country. It is all quite mind-boggling to see our country just crumbling into such craziness.
I’ve been stunned to see some of the reactions. I understand being upset, but what they’ve shown on the news looks chaotic. Too bad people don’t get half as upset over the whole joke of a process.
Exactly – the whole process is ridiculously arduous and I am sure rife with all kinds of under-the-table stuff. Now I hear they are pushing for a recount, so we get to live the whole thing over again.
Lovely. Had it been the other way around, we’d be hearing about how integral the electoral college is to our country.
Yeah, “they” were touting how all she needed was 270 votes, but when you-know-who surpassed that 270 votes all of a sudden the electoral votes don’t count and it is the popular vote that is so important. These politicians speak out of both sides of their mouths.
Well said! @sheilamgood at Cow Pasture Chronicles
Hi Sheila. Thanks so much. Hope all is well with you!!!!
Now that the results are out, I have been very unhappy…primarily because my investments have gone for a toss!