OK, a bit of hype there but there is a reason I didn't blog during this so-called "campaign" It was starkly apparent to me more than 18 months ago that this was not going to be a campaign with anything intelligent to offer, certainly no room for the "thinkers" of the world, the consumers and analyzers of fact for whom this blog is intended.
Instead there was no discussion of any kind of intelligent nature, just an endless barrage of made-up quotes, phony accusations and hyperbole, invented promises to voters that were illegal or impossible and a ton of sound bytes based on largely fake sources of "information".
This reminds me of George Washington's Farewell Address (which I have quoted elsewhere). He said (in part):
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
If that is not a perfect description of the 2016 "campaign", then I don't know what is.
As a result we have an election that had the worst overall voter turnout in decades, and within that bad turnout, what will probably be the fewest total votes cast for the office of President in some time. Not to mention that the 'loser' of the election has at this writing over 2.6 million more of the people's votes than the "winner". This is a greater margin than the Gore 'losing win' over George W. Bush in 2000, or the 'winning' campaigns of John Kennedy or Richard Nixon.
And yet we keep trying to "export democracy" to countries around the world that don't seem to want it...wonder why.
