Watching the debate tonight?

Wake me when it’s over.

Those tuning in to watch Kamala wipe the floor might be unpleasantly surprised. I couldn’t stand to watch that.

The mere sound of Trump’s voice is rage-inducing anymore.

So, wake me when it’s over.

Some politicians take their jobs seriously. Donald Trump isn’t one of those. He’s a politician, alright, but about as unfit for the job he seeks as anyone in U.S. history.

It’s freaking remarkable that he still has the support he has. Some actually still worship the ground he walks on and believe he can get things done. But most, I believe, just enjoy owning the libs, trying to get under their skin and set their hair on fire—fucking mature stuff. And patriotic, of course. Can’t deny the average Trump supporter’s patriotism.

They wear it on their sleeve, trumpet it from their seats at a NASCAR race, or in their bellicose opinions about God and guns and right to life and those damned marauding immigrants with murder and rape on their minds. They’re all caricatures, all in love with and pining for a country that shouldn’t exist anymore, all buying the firehose of noisy bullshit streaming from Fox “News” and their ilk.

This country isn’t a very serious place most days, and little will be settled on November 5. How’s that for a take on things?

It’s probably best to take any politician with a grain of salt, but if I had to take sides, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the Democratic stance on most issues. I find that they align with my understanding of how governance and civic duty should be handled.

I know that, somewhere, moderate, sensible Republicans must exist, but their voice has been largely silenced by the creepy phenomenon that has been Donald Trump and the cloud of swamp gas that’s been hovering around him for nine years.

It’s difficult to explain what we’ve been seeing and hearing and going through. Most of us know it’s been exhausting and infuriating and even embarrassing at times, but most of all it’s been disheartening and confusing.

Many know we can do and are entirely capable of being better, but fear and ignorance prevail among enough of us to thwart momentum and distract us from the many tasks at hand. Often enough we are drawn down rabbit holes and brought low by “patriots” plugging hair-brained notions fraught with paranoia and old ideas, and fueled by misplaced religious fervor and a shameless network daring to include “Fair and Balanced” in its tag line. There is no cure for this, except some sort of awakening to the legitimate needs and voices crying out for redress and solutions.

Passing legislation has always been a bit of a slog, involving patience and plenty of give and take. It seems, anymore, or at least lately, elected representatives of a certain stripe are more interested in obstruction than finding a way to pass palatable legislation. When only one party is functioning as adults, then whatever is passed is liable to face the chopping block or be threatened with extinction when or if the dissenters, aka Republicans, somehow find themselves in power.

Such madness is not sustainable.

So the NFL kicks off with a full slate of games today. Let’s see how long people can go before they get season-ending injuries, or they’re out for extended periods. I guess it already happened to Jordan Love. Well, maybe not season-ending, but long enough. And in the last minute of the game. Ouch.

What’s happening to all the hurricanes we were supposed to be getting this season? Typical hype and hair-on-fire reporting. It’s not a bad thing that the Atlantic hurricane season hasn’t been as active as predicted. It’s just that there seems to be a tendency to create drama and generate clicks, even if it means getting people on edge and stressed about something that may or may not ever materialize.

Another spending bill fight. Can our leadership get any more pathetic and useless? And this time it will be used even more intentionally as a weapon, as leverage to somehow help Donald Trump. These people make you want to hate them.

The row over JD Vance’s comments on the GA school shooting is in some ways just indicative of the climate we all live in. His claim that these events are more or less a fact of life is inexcusable on the one hand but also true on the other, as hard as that might be to hear.

The Dems and others of course pounced on this seeming cold-heartedness and resignation, and that’s fair enough, but Vance’s remarks are also an easy target for outrage in the stretch run of this campaign. As a VP candidate for the GOP, his comments should come as no surprise to anyone, really. What did people expect him to say—that such events are unacceptable and something must be done about the availability of assault weapons? For 14-year olds?

What Vance said I’m sure has been uttered by others matter-of-factly, but since he was the one who dared say it, everyone’s beside themselves. All this indignance doesn’t address the issue, though. It’s just more reactive noise, but also another reminder that Vance can be pretty tone deaf sometimes, just uttering the party line.

One recent commentator posits that the Dems need to be careful when it comes to mocking Trump.

I agree. As tempting as it is, why would they want to stoop to his level? I thought they had embraced the mantra of “when he goes low, we go high,” but current behavior indicates that maybe that’s no longer the case.

In a way, why not give him a taste of his own medicine? On the other hand, why go that route and jeopardize public opinion because your opponent is such a juvenile and he sometimes gets under your skin? I thought Harris and all were doing pretty well keeping the focus on issues, but I guess since I stopped tuning in, I’ve largely missed this apparent shift in tactics.

Don’t do it, Dems. Keep your focus, keep your noses clean, at least most of the time, and don’t sink to Trump’s basement level antics. Or at least be more selective when it comes to fighting that fire with fire. Remember that he’s been the way he is for most of his life. He’s had years and years of practice.

People probably think I’m a crusty old pessimist. My take on some things might lead one to believe that not much hope dwells in my heart.

There still burns a flickering flame for things ending well, but only after one fucking trial by fire after another.

Our extrication from the Trump debacle isn’t going to happen without stress and strain and some level of violence. January 6 might have been a foretaste.

Our political place in the world demands that decisions are made and actions taken that have often served and will continue to serve as catalysts and lightning rods. I can imagine some saw the advent of NATO as a guarantee that there would never again be fertile ground for world-wide conflagration—that its mere existence would be deterrent enough to ward off any future wide-eyed megalomaniac’s designs on world domination. Putin has declared that the world should hold his beer.

Warnings and warning signs have not been heeded and we’re free-falling toward ecological and environmental calamity. We’ve been warned endlessly that the clock is ticking, but many still think that’s some sort of government ploy to take our freedom away.

Technology has given us shortcuts and, in some ways, made life easier and better, but it has also stunted our imaginations and is turning us into little islands of apathy and laziness. Social media have provided cover and a worldwide platform for all manner of skewed, incendiary darkness.

I have come to believe that there are indeed good and hopeful people in the world, but that we have not evolved enough to rise above more base instincts that tack toward self-interest and mere survival. Our moral development, our sense of duty and responsibility, our capacity for kindness and empathy is so dependent on who our role models are. Many have been shortchanged and jaded in that regard.

And let’s not forget about the mysteries that still baffle us with regard to the human brain.

We’re still behaving like hunter-gatherers—worried about supply and demand, looking over our shoulder, “protecting our own.” I don’t see a pivot toward “kinder and gentler” anytime soon, except as we make a collective effort to head in that direction.

Four dead, others wounded. 14-year old assailant. AR-15 style weapon. Previous suspicions and warning signs. Vigils and flowers and candles and prayers. I need not say more.

Because what’s the use?

One could get the feeling that Russia is just toying with Ukraine. Ukraine’s daring incursion into Russian territory is doing nothing more than annoying Putin and forcing him to unleash the next level of weaponry in the arsenal, not to mention drawing everyone closer to a wider conflagration.

It’ll be 3 years in February, and the world still stands at arm’s length, shipping arms but mostly watching, as a country with a gigantic arsenal beats up on its feisty but outgunned neighbor because a little man with a grudge feels he has a right to deny Ukrainian sovereignty.

Do Russians have anything at all to say about this, or are they just oppressed, conscripted sheep led to slaughter? It’s hard to believe their hearts are in this.

The human proclivity for domination sometimes appears terminal. How can so much power be concentrated in the hands of one person? Or is Putin a puppet, too, a prisoner of his own making?

Lindsey Graham is being too kind. “Provocateur” and “showman” are way too generous when it comes to describing Donald Trump. They reflect an attempt at saying something positive about someone who deserves no such deference, i.e. “Let’s see… how can I describe a lying, obnoxious, bloviating idiot in a palatable way, so as not to incur his wrath?”

Leave it to Lindsey. He’s pretty good at this obsequious kowtowing. It’s his bread and butter.