good morning sunshine.  as i sit here today, it’s november 8th.  it is election day in the us.  the oracle has warned us.  we wait.  we have the predictions of the outcomes.

we watched the tiny town of dixville notch in new hampshire, live on television, have their first live voting just after midnight in the tiny town in the tiny state.  we watched them count votes and post the results on a whiteboard.  there was one write-in for romney.  hillary won that town.  trump got two votes.  no one would admit to voting for trump for fear of embarrassment.

i am, like roughly half of the people in the usa, a democrat.  apparently, i am a “moderate”.  that makes sense, as the extreme left of the liberal scale makes me squeamish in some ways but, the extreme right of the republicans scares the shit out of me.  this year, that extreme right is jumping out of the bounds of the republican party.  even they say so mostly in private, but some in public.  the left of the democrats are not that bad.  to me, the lake is getting ready to turn over, like after the civil war (hopefully, the only one we will have), the republicans became democrats and the democrats became republicans.  that does your head in.  my grandma told me stories about this.  my family mostly are democrats.  my grandparents were republicans, my dad was, too, but my mom was a democrat in the later years like her brother, and my cousins.

this will be another election day.  how many for me?  let’s see. twelve it is, counting this one.  my first was voting against nixon in 1972, who i sensed was quite evil.  nixon won.  it was sad.  the results of his election were that his criminal behavior forced him to resign.  i was right.

the next election was in 1976.  due to that bad boy nixon’s escapades, he had resigned and ford was running against carter.  i voted for carter.  he won.  carter was actually the wisest president that has ever held office, since obama, who actually is the wisest so far – but the forces of the republican party were against him and disgraced him.  interesting that he is a go-to guy these days on perspectives about world affairs.

the next election was in 1980.  that was reagan beating the socks off of carter.  everyone loved reagan for some reason.  i didn’t.  i didn’t like his hair or his shoes.  bad hair is a bad sign.  it turns out to be true every time in politicians.  but people loved him like he was some sort of santa claus.  go figure.  i just thought he was a washed up hollywood actor.  oh well. he was in for eight years.  fading towards the last of it, he was starting to stumble.

next was the year that bush senior won the presidency in 1988.  the next one in 1992 people were a bit freaked out by what happened under bush.  bill clinton came into office and stayed eight years – it was mixed but good for the economy – he just did not always exhibit presidential behavior – his johnson got him into trouble which i consider a personality defect.

then came little bush.  oh my god.  the country changed as his presidency ended up dashing the economy, taking us into a war waged based on pretense, and it introduced the beginning of a marketing machine that has not stopped.  obama inherited the mess left by eight years of bush, and the audacity of the republican propaganda machine was to blame him for it!  unbelievable.  this is when the double-speak really mushroomed.

now we have the trump vs. hillary and the incredible and outlandish behavior exhibited and licensed by trump has taken hold.  in looking at past elections, it is interesting to see how relatively close they were in certain circumstances and how certain states have more pull due to the electoral college – which makes me wonder – is it really a good thing?  i always wonder about this at this stage of the game.

now we pray that the whole system works well.  if hillary is in, then we likely will not see drastic changes; but if trump is in – this is when we will really put the system to the test – how to deal with a president who has erratic behavior, who says one thing, then says he didn’t say it, who angrily lashes out at whole groups of people that he loved the day before, and will not be transparent about anything (even though he says he is).  what we do know is that he is a philandering, adulterer, who brags about it (at least the past ones tried to keep out of the public eye)… who allows people at his events to threaten to do illegal things (like hack, kill, or other acts of violence), and by not discouraging it, he condones the behaviors.  He unleashes the hatred, the prejudice, and the qualities that people have tried to make against the law to show in public over years of social reform.  He takes us back – he says he wants to make us great again – I don’t like his definition of great.

now we pray.
God help us all.  Please.