Goodnight, America.

Donald Trump has put this country on edge, dragged it through the mud for nine years, and will continue to do so until he buys the farm, most likely.

Not enough people stood in his way, called him on his illegitimacy, but instead endured and even encouraged his childish, moronic behavior. People with a sense of propriety and decency have long seen through him, but that has mattered little. He has obviously touched some nerve, some smoldering sense of grievance and offense- whether real or not.

He has thrived and depended on ignorance and naivete, and a hokey, shallow, misguided patriotism. He’s the face of everything that can go wrong when one has money and power. He’s a purveyor of darkness and dread and hate. He’s a convicted felon and a liar. He’s a broken little boy in a Plus size body, yet he stands on the verge of winning another term as POTUS. Our only prayer is that enough people decide they’ve had enough of the freak show and his ugly mug, and they vote for Kamala.

The White House is a fortress, voting places and election workers are targets, the armed lunatic fringe appears to be up to something, and the election—by and large fair and free—will be considered stolen if Trump loses. Then we’ll suffer through another round of delay tactics with a side of January 6 on steroids. We’ll be looking for someone to blame for this sad situation, even though the main culprit has been omnipresent and spewing stupidity in plain sight the whole time.

And then, just to keep things interesting, whoever wins will have to deal with traitors in high places and the rumblings of WWIII.

May the winning margin be so big that we can say to him, “Shut up and go away,” and he will, at last, do just that.

We can dream, can’t we? Better do it while we can, because if he wins, he’ll take even that away.

Going solar has always seemed like a wise thing to do. Why not take advantage of an endless power source (sure, it’s gonna burn out someday, but long after we as a species have disappeared)?

We had pretty much decided that the whole solar-on-the-roof process wasn’t going to be for us, out of fear of some pesky financial burden. But the numbers we got from the local rep came in favorably enough, and after a conversation I had yesterday with someone who for some time has been producing more electricity than he’s needed, we’ve been tempted to revisit our initial reluctance– not only because of the relative cost parity with what we’re paying now, but also for equally, if not more important reasons.

In our visit yesterday, the homeowner who’s had the panels on the roof for twelve years said he’s glad he did it and won’t ever look back. It was the right thing to do, in his mind—for planetary ecosystems, for keeping fossil fuels in the ground, and for his children’s and grandchildren’s quality of life.

Committing to renewable energy is becoming less of a symbolic gesture than it once was. Of course, logistics and cost and politics are still real roadblocks—wholesale commitment to the technology on the part of power companies and fossil fuel behemoths remains somewhat of a pipe dream. But this doesn’t mean individual citizens and forward-looking developers and municipal governments can’t peck away at this slow-to-adapt, profit-hungry machinery.

The economic stakes are of course high for anyone who still thinks climate change is a hoax and “drill, baby, drill” is the mantra. But they’re just as high for the rest of us who can envision a world of increasing competition for “friendly” climate zones and faltering agricultural production and weather gone rogue and insurance companies who leave town because they can’t provide the coverages that people have paid for and expected. Among many other consequences.

In good capitalist fashion, it seems as though the challenge is to monetize the transition, to make the commitment to renewable energy financially attractive and robust enough to satisfy everyone involved AND heal the planetary systems that have kept us alive for millennia and ages.

Accelerated climate change is happening, whether people believe this or not, and it’s not a question of brain power or creativity when it comes to fighting it. It’s a question of will. And we don’t have all day anymore.

How dare he put us through this again?

It’s always been “heads I win, tails you lose” with Trump, and we let him get away with it. He lacks any sense of decency or decorum, any mature, reasonable sense for what is fair. If he wins, he’ll praise the process and we brace ourselves for Project 2025; if he loses, he’ll lambast the process, question its legitimacy, and set in motion another series of complaints and delaying tactics, holding the entire country hostage while he tries to manufacture a different verdict.

In a perfect scenario, he loses by ten million votes and suffers unexpected losses even in several red states. But even if something approaching that outcome unfolds, we still will have to endure the yelling and screaming and boisterous denial and maybe some huge decision from the Supreme Court.

And if the Electoral College margin is razor thin in his favor, will Dems accept the outcome like they say they’re going to?

It’s been ugly for so long already that it’s hard to imagine it could get even worse. Him winning is unacceptable; him losing isn’t much more palatable, sadly—unless the margin of a Harris victory is so large that it leaves no doubt even among most Trump supporters.

It seems unlikely that that’ll be the way it plays out.

OK, America. Let’s roll up the sleeves and put an end to this sleaze fest once and for all. Time to put Mr. Greenwood’s tired, sappy song back on the shelf.

Nine years is more than enough to suffer such a fool as Donald Trump, an inept pretender and loud-mouthed fake who had sufficient gall to do what he’s done with no attacks of conscience, no sense of shame or regret.

He’s been in our face and commanding the stage since before 2015. The attention he got from his ridiculous TV show did nothing but embolden him, give him a false sense of confidence, fed his narcissism. The real powers that be in the Republican Party saw him as the perfect foil—an unquestioning yes man who’d read just about anything Stephen Miller and others could get onto a teleprompter…

… a weakling who feeds off of compliments, who respects dictators and oligarchs and wants what they seemingly have. Where the hell did he come from? Is he the face of the roiling unrest that’s been bubbling since the end of the Civil War? Is he the one who’s given voice to the suppressed, latent racism that still exists in pockets all over the country?

He wins by dividing us, he prevails with threats and empty words, injects fear (and apparently bleach, if he could) into our veins. He truly does not care about the people who support him, and one reason he wants the job again is to protect himself from the myriad court cases waiting in the wings.

He’s not a patriot, he’s not a man of Christian or any other faith. He’s simply an opportunist whose contrived and off-the-cuff messaging has resonated with millions of people who’ve been deceived into thinking he was something special, some sort of savior.

He alone cannot fix anything, and he’s definitely not the kind of person who could make anyone proud to be an American.

1600

Kamala’s looking tired, and she recently sounded like she might have a cold or something. She must be biting her tongue and fighting the temptation to pull her hair out after Biden’s ill-timed gaffe lambasting Trump supporters, calling them garbage. Are you kidding me? An unforced error on Joe’s part, a totally unnecessary pot shot that just adds fuel to a preventable fire.

Geez, Joe. What the hell? This better not turn out to be a Dukakis moment. Of course, the fruit of his ill-timed commentary is that certain media outlets are siezing upon the moment and are going to use it for all it’s worth, banking on the targets of Biden’s venom being as thin-skinned and easily offended as they are often portrayed. Call it convenient victimhood.

Anyway, it’s a good thing they got Biden to step aside, though he’s still been able to do damage. He’s acting like a cranky old man who doesn’t care what he says anymore. Frail and crotchety. This has forced Harris to put some distance beween her and her current boss, which is a bit of a dance, but not a bad thing.

Lots of twists and turns, hills and valleys in this loooong, merciless campaign season. Too long, unnecessarily long. Ridiculously, painfully long.

And too often lost in the weeds, though we can thank Trump for most of that that.

Way to go, Joe. We might have had ’em on the ropes after the wannabe MSG Nazi rally, but then you had to open your mouth and call Trump supporters garbage. Even, if by chance, you were talking about the opening act who bad-mouthed Puerto Rico, it doesn’t matter now. Fox and the rest are using your gaffe for all its worth, and they’ll get some totally avoidable mileage from it.

Way to go, Joe. So glad you’re done in January.

Maybe the NY Jets hit their low last night, or at least added a signature to their nearly lost season.

A rookie running back went in for a beautiful running touch down—his first with the team—and decided he needed to do the drop-the-ball-at-the-goal-line silliness and timed it poorly. Not only did the play end up being a fumble, but the ball rolled through the back of the endzone for a touchback and the Texans took over. Zero points.

There were a few consolation pats on the back, but mostly the guy was left alone on the sidelines to wipe the egg off his face and think about the abject failure of his bone-headed stunt. Shortly after, the Texans sustained a 98-yard drive and scored before the end of the half.

Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit pounced a bit, but even they knew there wasn’t much to add in the way of commentary to such an obviously avoidable and costly mistake. Maybe a lesson was learned, though it’s hard to know anymore. Kids will be kids. 

There exists an education gap in the electorate. According to Judy Woodruff in a report on NPR, there are far more college-educated voters today than there were in 1960, and more of them vote Democratic.

Of course they do, and not only because someone with a college education is more likely to be better off financially, thus having the luxury of thinking further down the road beyond paycheck to paycheck. It’s also because their worlds have gotten bigger merely by their exposure to living on a college campus or attending college classes, and having opportunities to travel and see the world as something more than what exists in a single zip code.

Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump went to college, so it doesn’t always follow that the college-educated emerge with a tendency toward blue. I guess one can pick and choose what they get from their educational opportunities, if they have them in the first place. To me, the benefit of mobility and opportunity is an evolution of thought, a heightened awareness that moves beyond tolerance and even acceptance. Difference and diversity among Homo Sapiens are givens in this world, and not things to be feared. We can choose to see things this way, or not.

Higher education isn’t the bad thing people are told, for some reason, to be wary of. Ignorance may be bliss, but it also perpetuates itself and puts less emphasis on critical thinking, and it closes doors.

Much of the rhetoric that seeps from Trump’s pie hole, and those of other highly educated Republicans, reflects the thought patterns of someone who didn’t take full advantage of their college experience or, for some reason, arrived at very different conclusions regarding human nature and what’s important.

In any event, those who never went to college, and who harbor suspicion of anyone who did, need to understand that Donald Trump, college graduate, is banking on their ignorance. He can’t win without that.