Tonight's the Night

 

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed 

 --Things Have Changed, 

Bob Dylan  

 

Why do I find it hard to write the next line?

I want the truth to be said  

I know this much is true

 --True,  

Spandau Ballet 

 

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
--The Genius of the Crowd,
Charles Bukowski

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you
--I'm Your Man,
Leonard Cohen
________________________

 

Twas the night before Election 2020, and does anyone think Joe Biden is the best candidate the Democrats could have run? Really? Doesn't it feel like a re-run of 2016 with HRC -- like a warm beer and stale chips are on the bar.

This is why Mr. Trump will win re-election: Because the sky did not fall post election 2016. Because he has opened dialog with North Korea; because a peace accord with Israel and UAE has been signed, and a slight domino effect is following on; because the economy was very well until the Pandemic affected the world. Because Americans don't like changing horses midstream, and primarily because he is sui generis among presidential candidates and he doesn't self-flagellate for being pro-USA.

The bad things in our country have always been there: racism and casting-couch privilege. If they have not been dealt with before, that is not the fault of this President.

Finally, Mr. Biden neither inspires nor excites, a must for winning even a seat on the local school board.

Just like in 2016, the press has been drumming up the DOA Biden excit-o-meter for months, and Nate Silver at the polling site FiveThirtyEight still doesn't know what time it is (favoring Biden to win in the upper 80's low 90's tonight, hedging his bets from his badly misread slam dunk for HRC in 2016). But one must march in line, after all.

The Biden campaign has spent $6.6 billion to beat the incumbent, and it is a losing proposition. Joe is as electable as Bernie ... not. You don't need to wait up on election night; this will be 2016 Redux.

If a politician has no platform, and the best he can do is to crib from his opponent and shoot low ("Make America Better"); if he sets himself to be the cleaning crew ("I will bring adult leadership to the White House and clean house") but doesn't notice that both he and Mr. Trump are both well into their adulthood, well, there isn't much bright and shiny on tap.

 $6.6 Billion is an obscene sum. Does anyone actually vote based upon 15 to 60 second commercials? If so, heaven help us. Instead, the Democrats could have done something close to noble and capped their spending to that of their opponent. Better yet, chose an arbitrary but lower number beyond which the campaign will not go; set a standard for some decency.

With the extra money which flowed into the campaign coffers, why not do something actual for the constituents over whom they cry crocodile tears? Why not build parks and update recreation centers in blighted neighborhoods? Take a hint from the dying bureaucrat in the Kurosawa film "Ikiru". Live for something beyond the results of an egomaniacal election.

When Mr. Trump won the presidency in 2016, I was curious and hopeful. Sadly, what ensued was daily disdain and insults directed at the man. The MSM had one goal alone: "How do we keep him from being re-elected?" Why they took this agenda into editorial is beyond me.

Any photo shown was of the KSM variety. It was always a Jerry Ford falling out of the plane moment; an exhausted and disheveled leaving AFO moment.

And he was a racist, don't you know? Please forget Obama's "Guns and Bibles" put-down; certainly Hillary's "basket of deplorables". Those people referred to aren't really Americans, after all.

For those who watch the news, it is like we all live in a Russ Meyer's film from which we cannot escape. The Democrats showed themselves to be mean and petty with their daily ad hominum harangues. All are following the now-stale template of comedian Jon Stewart, the daily evisceration. They can no longer claim to be on the right side of the fence.

Experimenting with Yahoo! news for three days to see what some of my friends are consuming, I felt unwell and dirty by the third morning, realizing that every headline dealing with President Trump was insulting, or worse. There is nothing more to say.

To leave today on a flight of fancy, were I to have been Mr. Trump's stage manager during his final debate with Mr. Biden when the later smugly stated that he and Mr. Obama would not meet with Kim Jong Un because the latter refused to lose his nukes, Mr. Trump would've said this:

 

"You can't demand he lose his nuclear warheads until you are willing to do the same. He is a dictator, and making scary threats is what dictators do.

"What happened to realpolitik? The goal is to reduce the boil to a low simmer. Let him save face; it is all he has. That is what we did, and it doesn't matter if he later rolls out a big rocket on a caisson that looks like Slim Pickens ought to sit astride it. It is showcraft for the little man.

"I regret only that I did not have Elton John perform "Rocket Man" and have Dennis Rodman present him a signed team jacket. Oh, and have a luxury block of Emmenthaler wrapped up in a silver box with a red ribbon.

"Laugh, but I'm your Monty Hall, your 'Let's Make a Deal!' guy. I met with Kim not once, but twice. Now he reaches out to his Southern enemy. Kim likes summits cos that increases his cachet. The Big Fear is detonated for now. No has done that in over 50 years.

"We give the Peace Prize to people like Yassir Arafat, not to make him not be a terrorist but to recognize him as a world player. Then Peace Accords become possible. Look at what the normalization accords we have brokered between the UAE and Israel.

 "What we achieved with Kim and the Abraham Accords should have been Peace Prize material, but the politicization of everything demands we not be recognized, even at the expense of world peace."

 

Well, that's what he should have said, IMHO.

May the best man win.

 

[by Lisa. These views do not reflect those of the eponymous Ranger. They are editorial staff opinions.]