After the RNC, the polling gap will close because people will have believed the four-day advertisement for a person who doesn’t exist.

I’m fighting the urge to look at YouTube late night clips about the RNC, even though I’d probably enjoy the commentary from Colbert and others.

I know that there will also be clips of the actual speeches from various Republican luminaries and loudmouths, and I just don’t want to listen to any of it. Sounds like they painted quite the apocalyptic picture last night, which wouldn’t seem to be the most enlightened way of inspiring American greatness. It’s difficult to imagine anyone but the flat earthers and anxious bunker builders actually believing any of it.

Fear sells, sadly, but maybe folks can step back and ask themselves whether or not such tactics are the most honest and appealing approach.

Neither candidate is an angel, of course. They both have flaws, they’ve both said things they probably wish they could take back. Well, at least Biden has. Trump can’t admit that he’s ever done or said anything wrong or off-color or untimely or anything else. He conveniently forgets, simply denies, lies, or blames someone else.

He’s gotten a pass for most of his life. And people seem to appreciate the fact that he continues to get away with that, like it’s somehow admirable and commendable that he can continue to find ways to be deceitful and avoid consequences.

The bottom line for me is that I neither like nor respect Donald Trump. He’s an arrogant, insincere, twisted Forrest Gump without the heart who somehow lands on his feet, despite being an unsympathetic bottom feeder. He is eminently unlikeable. I will never understand how so many can rally around him or believe a word he says.

Even though I can’t think of one reason why this election should be remotely close, we should probably prepare for its being contested.

I know I should watch the RNC, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. There is nothing to be gained from it, except higher blood pressure and unnecessary angst. I truly don’t expect to hear anything of value, or anything that would appeal to my sense of country or patriotism.

I don’t know what has happened over the years, because I used to listen to people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and found them at least entertaining if not occasionally lucid. That was during the Bill Clinton years, I think, and I wasn’t exactly a Clinton fan. He did seem like “slick Willie” to me. But anymore these guys are lunatic fringe, and they support the likes of Donald Trump and everything he says he stands for.

Just hearing Trump speak raises my anger and anxiety levels. Everything that exits his mouth is shit. And to know that so many still hang on his every word… It’s clear that pro-Trump PACs are just going directly to the fear and smear tactics with their latest batch of commercials.

So the Republicans have the floor this week. The whole country, if it chooses, can tune in and listen to what I can only assume will be speech after speech heeping praises on Trump and painting the worst possible picture of Joe Biden. It’ll be a whole cast of characters who appear to have drunk the kool-aid.

Trump himself will offer up more than his share of self-praise. It’ll be all Trump all the time. It’ll be obscene and ugly and hard to watch. But millions will watch, and they will eat it up. God help us.

-So the Dems got to draw first blood. I can’t imagine what sort of nonsense the Republicans will be spewing in their convention. Sounds like Trump is contemplating acceptance of the nomination from the White House, which no one has ever done, but he doesn’t give a shit so he’s gonna do it because he feels like he can. I won’t watch a minute of it because it’s just going to be 4 days of weirdness and paranoia with faux patriots and a bunch of people who make exaggerated claims about the Dems. They’re gonna tear Biden and everyone else apart, and make Donald Trump seem messianic. So, no thanks. I’ll pass.

-It bothers me that Trump supporters can be so cavalier about their man. I swear they don’t really respect him, either, but they do love the way he makes Democrats cringe and squirm. I’ve never been a real Biden fan, but he’s miles ahead of Trump. Biden-Harris will get my vote. Trump can walk east till his hat floats.

-Of course the face-to-face experience is preferred to virtual learning. Of course it is! And it would be happening without reservation IF THERE WASN’T A PANDEMIC GOING ON!!

I’m tired of the coarseness and the arrogance. I’m sick of the sycophants, weary of the fog and rain clouds and oil slicks– all the ways Trump has maligned the office and dragged the nation down.

I’m trying to understand what could possibly be attractive and inspiring about him, and all I can come up with is that it’s less about him and more about an irrational fear and distrust of anything Democratic. It’s about having one’s understandings and beliefs affirmed by somebody, anybody. It’s mostly about winning and being right, even when you’re wrong.

What bothers me about the campaign rhetoric is that, while they’ll do their share of Trump-bashing, the Democrats will at least use reasoned and thoughtful words, while Trump will be almost as effective simply by spitting and steaming and spewing. He’ll try to appeal to a blind and unformed sense of patriotism. He will vilify, spread rumors and untruths, send out Tweets in all caps full of bitterness and unadulterated blather, and in all other ways simply go low and try to take everyone with him. It all betrays an astounding immaturity masquerading as nefarious strategy.

He will lash out relentlessly, accuse unendingly, all the while offering nothing of substance– no vision, no plan, no ideas reflective of any forethought or attempts at reasonableness. He has next to nothing, and what he does have is awful. His acceptance speech next week will be someone else’s words and ideas. He’ll be energized merely by the opportunity to be the focus of attention. He’ll get caught up in the moment. He will claim victory and progress on many fronts. It will be as if the pandemic and the economic downturn never happened. But when all is said and done, he’ll still be an empty suit, a wind bag, a puppet.

Trump has dredged and expanded the swamp, and those around him have emerged from it. They are the ones whispering in his ear and trying to temper his melt-downs. They’re the ones writing speeches and filling his head with delusions of grandeur and their own poisonous venom.

With Donald Trump, there is nothing at all about which to be hopeful. Except his possible exit from the scene.

Trump is taking advantage of unspoken norms that include a respect for the office he holds, as he knowingly runs rough shod all over it. Maybe this explains why he’s able to get away with so much. It’s not that people are afraid of him. It’s more that he, simply, is the POTUS. There is power inherent in the office. And Trump has abused that power, bigly. He’s also being played.

I can’t say for sure that he is rotten to the core, but there isn’t much worth saving. There are times, though, when he evokes a certain sympathy, but only because he appears to have missed out on so much that would have made him more fully human.

“Make America Great Again.” What a cheap, lazy, empty slogan.

The latest twist of the knife is an attempt at gutting and neutralizing the USPS. It’s hard to fathom what we’re witnessing. There are wildly different understandings of what makes for greatness, I guess.

I want to know who thought it was a good idea to throw support behind Donald Trump in the first place, to even consider allowing his name on a ballot. People couldn’t have mistaken him for someone else. The power brokers apparently thought they had someone they could control for their own purposes. They couldn’t have seen a virtuous, upright figure. It was more that they had someone who was weak and malleable.

They had to have done their vetting. Trump was a known quantity, most likely with many skeletons in numerous closets, yet party operatives and enough of the public in general thought it appropriate to throw their support behind this genuine slimeball, this reality TV host. Do they really despise the Democrats that much?

If we can trust what our eyes are seeing, then we have to question the judgement and intentions of anyone who stands with Donald Trump.

It’s time for a palate cleanser, time to seek some beauty in the world.

I guess Rachel Maddow could be considered part of the fake news corps, perhaps sensational and alarming. I find her honest and refreshing and smart. The stuff she’s been featuring lately is unsettling, to say the least. But also thought-provoking.

The latest news about what Trump is blatantly trying to do to the USPS is case in point. He’s not even hiding the fact that a denial of funding to the post office would help his cause. He’s abusing his power in the light of day, he’s laying the groundwork for manipulating and contesting election results. And it seems he’s daring somebody to stop him. What else does he have up his sleeve?

He’s also desperate to stay in office for at least four more years, because if he loses the election he knows what awaits him either later in the day on January 20, 2021, or the next day. He just may be indicted, and headed to court as a defendant.

A transformation of our government is happening before our eyes, and we’re too preoccupied with fallout from the coronavirus to really notice or care. All the talk about this coming election being about the heart and soul of America is not hyperbole. It’s a referendum on a criminal who appears to have designs on being President for a lot longer than 8 years.

Just four more years of Trump and we will no longer recognize our system of governance. These will be the good old days, virus and all.

Imagine that.

Platform and philosophy aside, another reason I detest the Republican party is because Donald Trump is its poster child. The party’s policies, its stances on many issues are onerous to me, but what makes matters worse is that Trump stands as the figurehead. He, of all people, is the one with the high profile, the same one who makes guttural noises and attempts at pontificating, who treats his office as just another conquest, another “win.” He embodies the selfishness and ugliness that are poisoning this nation and driving it into the ground.

Trump is like a kid in a candy store who gets big eyes when he sees something he wants behind the counter. Except he doesn’t ask if he can have it– no matter to him if there are some things he can’t have. He just breaks the glass.

How can anyone be proud to say that this pretender, this over-sized child, is their President? What remains his appeal? He traffics in fear and deception, and he banks on peoples’ gullibility. He’s as shallow as they come, and he couldn’t care less about the people who support him.

Who would aspire to be like him? How is it possible that he commands anything approaching respect?

Woe to all of us if he can muster enough support to prevail in November. I don’t see how that is possible, apart from some shady dealings.