Republican debate tonight. Yikes. I’m sure it will be a scintillating display of wit and charm and informed commentary. Maybe we’ll see if anyone dares put some distance between themselves and Donald Trump.

Debates seem almost useless to me, especially when there are multiple participants (8 tonight?). The moderator asks a question, then the candidates change the subject and go off on either a rant or some other stream of consciousness. Or they just go on the attack and never say anything substantive.

I’m not sure how much anyone will learn, if they make the effort to tune in in the first place. Hopefully it won’t just be a free-for-all, and the Fox News moderators avoid serving up softballs and the temptation to feed the candidates a steady diet of Biden-bashing entrees.

And get ready, Ron. They’re probably coming after you.

It’s not just the mass shootings. It’s the one-offs. The irrationally angry and misguided gunman who walks into a store that’s displaying a gay pride flag and shoots the owner to death. Senseless, gut-wrenching, shocking, breathtakingly violent. Another life snuffed. Just like that.

And we all die a bit more.

Well, except for the far right and homophobes everywhere, who probably think the guy did the world a favor and wonder what all the fuss is about. 

The last time California was hit with a tropical storm was just about 84 years ago, around the time Hitler was planning his invasion of Poland and all hell was about to break loose.

Currently, everybody’s favorite megalomaniac, Vladimir Putin, is doing his best Hitler imitation, and China has its boxers in a bunch over Kamala Harris’s visit to Taiwan.

May there be no connection whatsoever, no rhyming history.

In addition, whether people believe it or not, global warming has come home to roost. Yesterday, the heat index in Lawrence, KS– not Death Valley– was 126.

I think a piece of rhubarb pie might be in order.

I don’t care what anyone says anymore. There’s no sense trying to make sense of any of it.

I don’t care that so many are still Trump junkies. Don’t care that Republicans in Congress and state government are still weaving marvelous tales and creating mythic explanations– excuses all– for the walking disaster that is Donald Trump. I don’t care that so many can still bring themselves to take him seriously.

Tom Cotton has resurfaced, vomiting up the latest jaw-droppingly tone deaf defense in the form of “let’s leave it to the voters to decide Trump’s fate,” conveniently ignoring and sidestepping the whole messy reality of four indictments and their potential consequences. They’re trotting out the same old playbook, the oldies but baddies. And millions continue to buy it, which may be the most mystifying thing of all.

Even if they can stomach the indictments and never move beyond seeing them as evidence of the witch hunt that Trump always claims them to be, couldn’t they also, finally, come to realize that Trump just has too much baggage for anyone’s good?

The fact that Trump has survived two impeachments and countless lawsuits and numerous assaults on his lousy name, and fully expects to run for President from jail, if it comes to that— these aren’t achievements! These aren’t rational, honorable aspirations.

Might all of this perhaps, maybe, cause even diehards to pause for a moment and think about America—the land they say they love—and finally admit that Trump is too much?

Trump is a prima donna. He is a selfish, immature, excessively damaged one-man wrecking crew who simply thrives on attention, loves to brag. He’s a 77-year-old empty suit, and we’ve wasted at least 8 years paying attention to this clown.

He’s never gonna do anything more than try to talk a good game, though with his limited vocabulary and scorched world view, even that could be a challenge.

He’s a lightweight. He’s got nothing, except a penchant for causing trouble and wasting everyone’s time.

The intransigence goes way back, though it became real for me when Mitch McConnell said the Republicans’ main goal was to make sure Barack Obama was a one-term President. Stunning, to this day.

In Obama’s book, A Promised Land, he recounts the opposition he faced all along the way. Passing any meaningful legislation was a slog. Along with the usual philosophical differences, there was foot-dragging, back-room wrangling, watering down, and just plain arms-crossed stubbornness.

I guess I understand it, to a certain point—the party out of power isn’t going to just hand the party in power anything that looks like a legislative win, since that would make them look weak, likely only win the opposition party favor with the electorate, and go a certain ways to assuring the party in power stays in power. But how the hell can anything get done if the minority is intent on laying mines and saying No to everything? I guess that’s democracy in action? You get things done, eventually, though big donors loom large and concessions are made, and pork is often added.

Still, it’s difficult not to think that in Obama’s case, there was also an undercurrent of racism at work, an added impetus for feet dragging. Obama’s time in office lit a fire under those who wouldn’t stand for another person of color in the Oval anytime soon. And voila: we got Donald Trump.

I suppose I’m just another guy shooting from the hip, spouting opinions based largely on perceptions and feelings, less on conversation or debate. Yet if what I hear in interviews with Trump sympathizers or conversations between Fox News junkies is any indication, I feel like there’s really no need to parse things much further or seek out more information. I’m not gonna change any minds.

All I know is that Donald Trump has never been and is never going to be a person I consider capable and competent to serve in public office, and it is extremely difficult for me to understand how others could feel the opposite of that and can’t see through him.

To me, it looks like smart, and some not-so-smart people being duped, committing to a person who apparently is saying the right things, but who also seems a bit dead inside, incapable of empathy, averse to normal human emotions other than anger and vindictiveness.

He may very well feel picked on, but he apparently can’t see that the treatment he gets—especially lately—is the result of his own actions and words. He’s made a good living claiming either ignorance or victimhood. These things are hard-wired in him.

He’s a spoiled, deceitful paper bully, though. Soon to be a totally cornered rat. Which means hold onto your hats, because it’s gonna get even uglier than it’s already been since he wandered down that escalator, trying to carry himself like a damned king.

Donald Trump has an ego the size of Jupiter, and people still insist on feeding it. To me, it is crystal clear that he is not worthy of anyone’s allegiance or adoration. I’ve never understood the buzz he’s generated, beyond this sick fascination we have with celebrity.

The trouble is, he’s been around long enough to poison the water the Republican party is drinking. In some ways, Trump is just the poster child for a metastasizing cancer.

Another day, another indictment.

How can supporters believe that Trump is on their side? The idea of this self-involved, federally and state-indicted billionaire(?) being anyone’s champion is preposterous. He doesn’t care about them, especially this time around. He’s running for his life, literally. He has no need for his dutiful supporters other than as one who needs the attention they pay him, the votes they cast, the million$ they donate, and the positive vibes they give him at his spectacularly odious rallies.

One thing Trump and his supporters have in common is that they all like playing the victim. They like bad-mouthing Democrats. They like not doing their homework, shooting from the hip, saying stuff with no basis in fact, but just to piss people off. They live for “owning the libs,” and nothing more. They don’t have ideas or plans. They just get their rocks off by airing grievances and being mad about… something.

All of this is right up Trump’s alley. This is why they love him—because it’s so easy for him to simply pay lip service and not really try and yet somehow still touch a nerve. He just has to be loud and gripe about stuff and talk about himself, and people eat it up. This is viewed as being in touch, somehow, coming across as a champion of the downtrodden white people who feel threatened by a changing world, a changing complexion.

Trump uses people. It’s amazing his base isn’t bothered by that, because he’s been using them all along. He can do nothing for them except teach them how to complain and master a twelve-word vocabulary.

“Witch hunt,” “disgrace,” and nine or ten others.

I think about things. All the time. Admittedly, my thoughts aren’t always fully formed or fleshed out, but I’m hopefully refining things as I go.

I was awake at 3:40 this morning thinking about Maui, and Ukraine and Putin and the political mess we’ve been facing with Trump still hanging around. I was thinking about the unnecessary pressure we put on ourselves to impress those whose opinions matter to us more than they should. Thinking about how none of us had a say in being here, and apart from a certain moral imperative to avoid chaos, how dare anyone tell us what to think or how to live our lives, or what to be interested in vocationally!

I think about this stuff all the time. It weighs on me, it angers me to think about unrealistic expectations, to think about people who want things to be so different and so rancorous and ugly. Sure, democracy is messy. But it shouldn’t be this messy.

It infuriates me to think that Trump can still be so damned popular!

I overheard a conversation yesterday that had me thinking, “Wow, a Fox News junkie, in the flesh,” spewing bullshit and opinions he probably hasn’t given much thought to, but apparently wants to believe—about how solar panels and wind farms are next to useless, electric vehicles are part and parcel of some nefarious cabal, and the Democrats are evil and to blame for everything.

Fuck you, you unthinking lemming, you cackling parrot.

I obviously have some things to learn about expressing myself in a calm, level-headed manner. It’s just that I hear stuff like this from one person and realize I need to multiply it by, what, 70 or 80 million?

What’s inexcusable and truly tragic is that we’ve taken a perfectly good environment and pretty much neglected to care for it. There has always been a balance to be kept, and every reason to tread lightly and avoid excess. But instead we’ve treated this planet like it’s too big to fail.

In true literalist fashion, we’ve filled the earth and done our best, i.e. worst, to subdue it.

It won’t fail, though—in the big picture. It’ll fail us because we have failed it. The earth will heal itself, or continue on in some wounded fashion, but without us, without the source of its pain, the source of its neglect and abuse. It is us who have to go.

That process seems to have begun.

My proofreading needs improvement. In the previous post, please note the quote is from Wallace Broecker, not Walter. And in the next paragraph it’s breathe, not breath.

Going forward, I will take more time looking things over.