The Man Who Didn't Want to be President
And More Things that Suck

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Madness, Absolute Madness

Donald Trump.  Really?  REALLY?!! This is the top, the pinnacle, the apex, the zenith, the Mt. Everest of all things that SUCK!

Churchill Redux

I'd hope to begin this year's rant with the quote, "Thank God our long national nightmare is over."  But alas I fear, it is just beginning.  To paraphrase the great man, "Never in the course of US election history has so much money been spent by so many, for so long, on candidates of so little substance, expected by so many, to accomplish so little good.

Shit Happens

They say that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.  Actually, it's the price of everything.  And if you're not vigilant, shit happens.  And it has.  The stench of the campaign is still in the air,  redolent with the ripe aroma of road apples and meadow muffins, and that particularly malodorous pile of dung  we've deposited on the White House lawn. 

The fact that a man like Trump could ever have been taken seriously, let alone nominated and then elected sums up in a nutshell everything that's wrong with our electoral process:

•   The Electoral College, that elected a president that over half the voters didn't want. 

• The billions upon billions of dollars spent during the campaign which gave us a president that a large majority of the voters either don't want or regard at best as the lesser of two very serious evils.  What a staggering waste.

• The deceptions, the faked news, the outright lies spread with impunity.  Trump convinced a lot of people that things have gotten so bad, any change will be for the better. Those people may be in for a big surprise. 

• Many news sources have become ultra polarized and one sided.  Many people I talked to were totally unaware that Trump had declared bankruptcy six times, had been sued countless times for fraud and a variety of other sins, was currently being sued for fraud, and was making rude, crude, incredibly stupid,  and tactless remarks on a daily basis. 

Bad Joke Gone Wrong

Even worse, I think this all started as a joke.  I don't think he even wanted to be president.  I still don't.  It was just a publicity stunt to gain even more notoriety so as to increase his bargaining position for various media contracts he was pursuing.  That would explain his often irrationally outrageous behavior:  he was just having fun seeing how far he could push the envelope before people recoiled in disgust.  Then he'd get back to making more billions.   But-- he hit a nerve in a desperate, and perhaps gullible, segment of the public; and he proved to be such good copy for the news that neither would let him quit.  The campaign became a tar baby, and he was stuck.

A Little Help from My Friends

Of course Trump had a lot of  help.  From the Russians, for starters.  From the FBI -- Comey tampered with a federal election.  He should be in jail.  Early on, from a venal news media that thought he was such good copy and didn't recognize the beast they were feeding.  And of course Hillary helped:  snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by simply being Hillary.

What a Long Strange Trip

So here we are at the end of the trail.  We have President-elect Trump, a bad joke gone really wrong.  A couple adages come to mind:  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.   Pray (and I do mean really, really pray) for the best, prepare for the worst.  Or more succinctly:  Oh Shit, OMG, Really?!!

[I guess that "More Things that Suck" will have to wait for another time. 
See you next year -- I hope]