"WEIRD" Election 2024

Unprecedented, Unpresidential S__t Show

Egad, what an election year, right? I hadn't posted anything since March of last year when I started again to drop a few lines in June, just a coupla months ago. Though I am admittedly not a politcal scientist, politics have always interested me, which might be apparent in the full run of the Rogues Gallery of U.S. presidents and their birthdays I completed about two years ago.

As this election year started, I was disgusted, at worst, and all "meh," at best, with the prospect of a rematch of the 2020 matchup: Grandpa Joe Biden and Orange Duck Donald Drumph. While Biden has accomplished much in his four years, time was not on his side. Even before the disastrous June debate, I was concerned with his age and was convinced that, were he to win the election, he would not serve out the next four years, health and cognizance concerns being uppermost in my mind. 

And the Orange Duck, OMG, what can I say? The day after his electoral college win in 2016 I was in deep depression, and that depression did not abate for the following four years. It would be one thing to debate his policies, and had he focused on policy in the election of 2020 instead of his prediction that the election was going to be "stolen," months in advance, he probably would have turned another electoral college win. But, as with everything else in this guy's view, the world spins around him, from his perception of other people's "loyalty" to him to a persecution complex, as is typical with narcissists... and he is the textbook definition of a narcissist. It's this self-absorption that turns my stomach.

So heading into July, we had 81-year-old, faltering Biden, obstinate in his intention to run for a second term and this Orange Duck, Clueless Classic Narcissist. And I, along with a lot of the nation, couldn't understand how, out of 350 million people, this country couldn't come up with two people who could excite the electorate.

When the crazy Pennsylvania kid tried to shoot the ear off the Duck, I could not help but be amazed at the Narisscist's presence of mind when he got up from the ground in the middle of a Secret Service group hug and raised his fist for a huge photo op. I saw that inspired moment, and I figured the election was sealed in his favor.

The Republican Convention came and went, and the Gross Old Partisans were riding on a sugar high of self-appreciation, corporate greed and disdain for the common citizen.

Then Grandpa Joe took one for the country and bowed out, leaving his vice-president the ticket for the Democrats. The rest of the last couple of weeks is a blur. Kamala is riding an almost instant wave and picks the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her VP mate. Orange Duck Drumph's VP pick, JD Vance, insults cat owners and/or childless women. (Note on this last bit: if he and the GOP were so focused on childless folks' lack of a vested interest in the country, wouldn't you think this "drill, baby, drill" party would alternately exhibit their vested concern for the climate they're leaving their children?)

Now someone needs to talk Kamala into talking to the press during this honeymoon phase. Yeah, she and Walz have the 'weird' and 'strange' tags they're labeling the Drumph/Vance ticket, and that was good for a couple of days of aggravation for the GOP, but it's not enough.  (Another note: funny that the Duck used the old schoolyard comeback of "I know you are, but what am I," when saying "We're not weird; they're weird.")

How many more election cycles will come and go before some intelligent civility takes center stage? I may not live long enough to see it, I fear.

Peace to all, and we still need to vote, no matter how weird this whole s__t show is.