It’s a sad commentary that Pete Buttigieg is viewed as too much of a risk as VP, apparently because he’s gay and the country still isn’t ready for that (really weak excuse), and because he’s too smart, too cerebral, too wonky.

Have these naysayers been listening to him at all? Yes, he does try to fit a lot into the byte-sized time frame he’s often given, but if one listens closely, Buttigieg is not speaking over most peoples’ heads. He’s reasoning things out on the fly in a way that makes it easy to believe he’s done his homework.

He’s a Rhodes scholar who speaks 8 languages. He’s a smart man who pours himself into his work. Maybe he’s the consummate politician, but that’s a moniker which, in his case, we should be able to live with comfortably. We should consider his cognitive abilities to be an asset, a reason to dare trust him.

Imagine—a level-headed, worldly brainiac who hasn’t lived under a rock or in his parents’ basement playing video games. Instead, we have someone who welcomes the opportunity to appear on Fox News and more than hold his own against anchor after anchor who dreams about being the one to bring him down, to expose weaknesses and flaws in his arguments and persona.

If he can work with Kamala, and Kamala can work with him without being intimidated by him, then we have the ticket. If we– and they– dare.

Well, at least intentions aren’t a mystery.

If she is to be believed—and I trust Maddow—the reason Trump has been telling supporters that he doesn’t need their votes is because, already at this point, Republicans have been able to fill at least 70 polling positions with sympathizers who apparently have said they’d refuse to submit results on election day.

In certain states, as I understand it, any doubts about or non-submission of results can jeopardize the results for the entire state.

This is what we’re dealing with. This is the only way Republicans feel they can win.

Imagine having a platform, or lack thereof, that is so weak, so bereft of desirable content that a political party has to resort to bald-faced desperation and cheating.

The thing that gets me is that we’ve spent the last months and years watching this plan hatch. Before our eyes. Who knows how much Putin and others have been involved, and there are still 98 days to go. It’s not like everyone isn’t aware of this underhandedness, or will be. Whether or not they choose to believe it’s happening is another thing.

We’re talking about Donald Trump here, along with the solid and upstanding folks who would love to bring us Project 2025. We best believe it’s happening. 

Style over substance. Bluster over restrained silence, boasting over humility. These are what move people, impress people? Speaking before thinking. Audible stupidity.

Of course I’m talking about Donald Trump. He has always been the unwelcome outlier, the pretender, the one who somehow elbows his way into a conversation and then doesn’t say anything, except all the quiet parts outloud.

If he is what makes for excitement and “something different,” then for all who still think this, who still think he’s funny and just trying to yank our chain, there’s still time to reassess. Because his antics and rhetoric are far from harmless. He’s just the tip of a jagged iceberg, the bulk of which is below the surface, out of sight, in the shadows. Trump is a mere talking head, in love with notoriety and power, reading someone else’s poison off a teleprompter.

Get him off-script and he just wanders aimlessly, because that’s all he’s capable of.

I’ve reached the point where I am no longer moved by motivational speeches and the plethora of opinions flying around. I am tired of anyone who feels the need to always pontificate, or to always be accomplishing something, always moving in a “forward” direction. Keeping busy.

Ugh.

I’m glad that not everyone thinks this way, because how would we ever make progress? How would we ever have developed technology that allows us to live in a shell and never look up? How would we ever have developed weaponry that kills people with more speed and efficiency and in larger quantities?

We can argue that we’ve needed the Newtons and Jobses and Edisons and the host of others who saw and see things not as they are but as they could be. It’s just that I have no inclination to be busy for the sake of being busy. I guess I’m just not that ambitious.

Don’t get me wrong—I notice things. My curiosity can be piqued. I have a sense of wonder. I am moved by beauty in its many manifestations. I am entranced by a starry night and a glance into the heavens. I could sit and talk until I’m blue in the face about God and whether or not God even exists. I am endlessly fascinated by color and composition and the power of natural forces. And I feel most engaged when I’m trying to do what I’m doing right now: write down my thoughts and attempt some sort of breakthrough that opens a window on insight and understanding.

I’d say that, so far, these ventures have been largely fruitless. I’m just spinning my wheels, putting words on a page to pass the time. I figure if I stay at this long enough, maybe there will be a breakthrough at some point. The right words will come and I will say something meaningful and significant, if only to me.  

The low road. Trump’s insistence on taking it will hopefully do him in. Between developing an updated arsenal of insults to fling Kamala’s way, and painting such an inaccurate and unnecessarily dark picture of America’s current circumstances, one might think that voters are going to tire of the dissonance and the laziness and the endless dog whistling.

If this is the best the Republicans can do, one could rightly wonder what chance they have of prevailing in November—across the board, from the top on down the ballot. Seems like it would take a heart transplant, at this point, for their prospects to improve. And what are the chances of that happening?

The brain drain behind Project 2025 will do their best to see that it doesn’t.

He’s a self-involved felon, a habitual liar. He banks on his supporters being narrow-minded lemmings. He yells a lot, and he’s coarse, loud, and lazy. He might have some chops in the “savvy” department, but so what? If that’s all he’s got, then one can figure he’s just another calculating SOB.

A fish out of water.

He’s never had any business running for POTUS, because he’s almost incapable of caring about anybody or anything beyond himself and his own little world. He doesn’t know anything. He’s not a student. He talks big and delivers little. His moral character is in the shitter. He has no backbone. He’s one of the worst people to ever run for public office, yet people seem to love him. There is something wrong and troubling about that, and the explanations for it have never made sense.

What is really troubling is that if he loses in November, we won’t be done with him– again! We have to wonder what’s in store for Election Day and the lead-up to it. Will the USPS, still headed by a questionably competent Trump appointee, be able to handle the influx of mail-in ballots? Will votes get counted properly, will poll workers be threatened? Will the Supreme Court be called upon at some point to make some critical decision after Trump claims yet another election was stolen from him?

Does this end? Or is this what circling the drain looks like?

Israel’s insistence on eradicating Hamas is a fool’s errand. As much as Hamas needs to go away, and even if Netanyahu does exact retribution on every single one of those involved in October 7, does he think his work will be done? Does he somehow believe that Hamas—or some offshoot—won’t rise from the ashes with a long memory for the scorched-earth Israeli response, including the death of 39,000 (or is it more like 92,000) civilians and counting?

The rest of the world doesn’t understand, Mr. Netanyahu. I suppose in part because we aren’t you, we can’t plum the depths of your personal motivations or the extent of the scars and the long memory you and fellow Jews must have of the Holocaust– never mind the long history of exile and assaults on identity that have come before and since.

From the outside looking in, though, the incessant revenge cycle is simple madness, nothing more. Winning means nothing, because it’s not really a win. It’s just a lull in further violent payback that will, with something approaching inevitability, rear its ugly head.

What happens if your no compromise stance prevails? Will everything and everybody just fall in line? Will peace finally come?

Religious wars are the worst, the height of irony and disingenuity, and deception. What kind of god condones this insanity, on an ongoing basis?

Bibi says he wants to finish the job, destroy Hamas, and bring the hostages home—both the living and those who have died. The numbers of the living are slowly dwindling. Is there any connection between a prolonged conflict and the likelihood that more hostages will die as a result?

Netanyahu obviously has some sort of plan, but his obstinacy and consistent reluctance to consider any ceasefire proposals seems counterproductive, somehow heartless.

His address to Congress yesterday was vintage Bibi—predictably blunt, bordering on belligerent, critical of the “useful idiots” protesting outside, since he makes no distinction between Hamas and the masses of civilians who have been caught in the crossfire, and he makes no effort to hide his disdain for anything Palestinian.

Netanyahu and the military minds around him have made the decision to ignore the Hamas tactic of hiding among civilian populations, which really is a cowardly, bush league move but also contributes to the devastating and mind-numbing casualty numbers.

Israel attacks wherever they think Hamas figures are hiding, regardless of civilian losses. They will claim that they try their best to be careful, even… surgical? But that’s much easier said than done in the fog of war. It must be easier to lump innocent civilians and complicit combatants together, and let history decide who held the moral high ground.

The Olympic Summer Games are off to a smashing start, with the misbehavior at the opening match of Men’s football. Spirits run high and all that, football fans are passionate, blah, blah, blah. We all know there’s no excuse for the hooliganism and hysteria that often unfold at these matches.

And here’s hoping no one gets dysentery from swimming in the Seine.

The wait now is for the Harris team to choose a running mate. If I had wagering tendencies, I’d place money on someone from a swing state—Shapiro or Kelly. But I’m hoping it’s Pete or Gretchen (also from a swing state). The Republicans may spontaneously combust either way—a Black woman of Asian descent and a gay man, or an all-female ticket. A few heads would likely explode, or at the least they’d have something else to criticize and gripe about.

Harris has options. There are many who are supposedly capable—at this point, anyway, before the mudslinging and closer looks commence. Things have already gotten ugly with the racist, misogynistic invective directed at Harris, so much so that even Republican officials are telling their colleagues to find better words, tone things down. That’s unlikely to stop, especially with Trump at the top of the ticket.

So, the Democrats will have to choose between engaging these ignorant attacks, or focusing their energy on traveling the country and telling people what their plans are. I hope it’s the latter.