Bumpy Night

The consensus of people in the know at the moment is that Trump is likely to win in November.

Too many people who would otherwise vote democratic will not because they don't want what they see as a doddering old man running the country.

Your vote doesn't matter, actually, unless you live in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia and possibly Nevada: 

The reason is our political system is structured not on the basis of majority rule, but so that the winner will be determined by the Electoral College.

Nothing you can do about that now. Not if you are going to insist we are governed by the rule of law.

I fit comfortably into the demographic of leftist Americans who fear a Trump victory is equivalent to the rejection of democracy, a victory for right-to-life Christian nationalists, corporate enablers of the "I've got mine" wealthy class who have succeeded in convincing a critical mass of Americans to believe it's the Democrats who are now the party of the rich. They do represent the more sophisticated better educated Americans, in fact, but this element of the population has now been successfully tagged with the label "elitist" and vast numbers of Trumpists take pleasure in blaming them for anything and everything they see as wrong with their everyday lives - high prices at the supermarket, high gas prices, rejection of traditional sex and gender roles, insistence this is not a Christian country, billions given away to fight wars in Palestine and Ukraine, to name only a few.

I've been arguing that we need to keep our eye on the ball, that we need to fear a Trump victory and vote for Biden despite all reservations about his suitability - whatever he lacks is not as bad a problem for the country as a Trump victory would be. And, by the way, if you have the capacity to look at his record objectively, he's done an amazing lot of good in the past four years.

But what ails us at the national level at the moment is that we have been led to believe that truth is elusive, that government is inherently not to be trusted, and that Trump - or somebody like him interested in tearing it down and starting over - is the solution to the current malaise.

Our media is not reliable. If you tune into Fox News, you get what amounts to the Republican propaganda ministry. If you tune into MSNBC, you get a bunch of political geeks talking not about policy matters but the horserace, who is in the lead here and there around the land.

From my perspective, the American justice system is properly functional and the charges against Trump are legitimate. He should be put on trial on 91 counts and if found guilty prevented from being relected president. From the perspective of a critical mass of Americans, truth is as he claims it to be and this is all a witch hunt. And given our lack of faith that there is such a thing as objective truth, you are free to embrace or reject either perspective.

What ought to be a healthy debate on important issues - how we spend tax money internationally and domestically, what things should be determined by government and what things should be left to the private sector, to what degree should we be the world's policeman, how important is personal privacy, to what degree do we try to control the internet and artificial intelligence - these issues are not front and center. What is are our suspicions, fears and special interests without regard to the general welfare of the country. To a great degree this was ever so and is nothing new. But I have the impression that we are living in unusually chaotic times, that things have gotten wild and out of control.

I think of Bette Davis - "Fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy night!"  (People think she said "ride"; she said "night" - Margo Channing, All About Eve, 1950.)

I know I can't get people to come around to my perspective; it's not in the zeitgeist at the moment to take others' perspectives if they don't have prior tribal approval. But we can at least broaden the range of discourse we listen to. That's my Plan B. If you're not going to listen to me, at least listen to more stuff.

Here are two bits of non-Fox, non-MSNBC stuff: The first is from UnHerd. Look them up if you don't know them. They claim to be a neutral source of information. I see them as right-of-center - but you already know I tend to take a left-of-center perspective, so figure that in...

The second is an all-out anti-Trump piece that gives me no end of pleasure.