It’s the waning days of the national election to pick the next President of the United States and most of Congress.  This is a time when most people with exciting ideas get to cast their constitutional right to vote ourselves and for our children’s future.  A time when we can tweak a nation that is no way perfect, but always trying to get one step closer.

The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, night fall comes early, and we all sit around our television sets (ok millennials…maybe around your smartphones) and anxiously watch as the results come in every hour, on the hour, after 7pm Eastern Time.  Every network has their superstars in the studios. The political pundits are revved up as it is their Super Bowl on steroids.  It only comes every 4 years!

Interestingly, for the rest of us, we are counting down the minutes for this season’s election is over.  I hear people complain that the baseball has such a long season with 162 games.  We never think that the new presidential seasons last 760 days!  Now, mix in a lot of arsenic, bitters, sodium pentothal and crack cocaine to the brew, and you end up with a real possibility of a life long depression when this national disgrace of an election actually ends.

Can anarchy be around the corner?

I would be less than honest if I did not say I am scared as can be with the results.  I am nervous what America will be like on Wednesday, November 9th.  I am wholly depressed what we have lost as a country for a long time to come as a result of the raw sewage dripping over our democracy and institutions.

I do have friends (very few and far between) who are smart and are voting for Trump.  They think Clinton is a crook and cannot be trusted; that she uses politics for her own personal gain, and if people benefit, that is simply the by-product.

Although some of that might be true, that is pretty much what every politician does.  Then, they leave politics, go to Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Monsanto, Exxon Mobile, or the speaking circuit to cash in the gains for serving in a government job.  We all know how it works.  Is anyone really surprised?

If we do not like the revolving door, then let’s get off our butts and make a difference.  Vote for people with a human conscience.  Vote for ideas that move us one step further along this most imperfect nation  Let’s stop saying we are “exceptional” in the way we think of it, as if we are perfect and the world needs to revolve around us. Vote for term limits.  Vote to overturn Citizens United and keep the “bought and paid for” politicians out of government and the uber-rich from controlling our policies that do not reflect who we are.

Hillary Clinton is not the monster the Trump campaign is making her out to be.  Heck, she is not my first choice.  She is flawed in many ways.  However, she also has served our nation for 30 years.  She is very smart and deliberate.  The reason why she has been cast in the worst light possible is because many Americans have disregarded their moral compass due to the anger they have towards the politicians who are not doing their job. I get that. However, you do not make a change for a misogynist and a racist under any circumstance who does not have the temperament to hold the most important office in the land.  People are being conned, in my humble opinion, because they so want a change to happen.  Sometimes, the change has to come from within us.  It should never come as a result of a candidate that has managed to destroy our democracy and institutions.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, can ever be worth that.  We need to understand the long-term damage Donald J. Trump has done to our country, whether or not he wins or not.  He already blew it up and we just have not realized it yet. Depression is sinking in faster now.

Trump’s caustic rhetoric is beyond any bounds…period.  There are thoughtful Republicans out there who I applaud that have put country over party.  They see him not only as a fraudster and an indecent human being, but not even a Republican!  He does not carry the mantra for the Grand Ole Party, just like every Muslim does not support ISIS.  This misinformation is grounded in real hate.  There is nothing pretty about this.

Here is the problem, we have not learned from history.  Do I really have to mention when a person as radical and indecent as Trump came into power and took over Democracies?  How many millions, maybe a billion, people have we lost because of the wrong direction we took based on our worst instincts.

Do we treasure democracy?  Arlington National Cemetery is the testament to this pride we have for the best democracy in the world.  Do we want to lose it?  Do we think it cannot be broken and we will simply survive when we start chipping away at it as if it was a sculpture made of titanium?  It’s the opposite…a woven silk fabric that needs to be delicately handled all the time before it unravels before ours eyes.

What about our institutions?  Do we not care about the existence of them?  Trump not only seems not to care, but he is ignorant what they are and why they are imperative to make us exist as a nation of laws and stability.  I would be so scared of anarchy arising as a result of the politicization and demonization of our institutions.  It can happen.  Remember the moniker, “Yes we Can?”  How would you like the new one “Oh no, we didn’t!”

Trump’s Misogynistic comments about Megyn Kelly

Donald J. Trump wants to restrict a free press.  Did you hear that?  He wants strict libel laws on the books that directly infringe on our First, not Second, Amendment Rights.  If that does not want to make you go to the next gas station’s public toilet, I really do not know what will. That single idea should frighten all of us.  I do not care if all his other ideas were solid. This one is clearly dangerous.

But that’s not all (I did not purposely say that like a pitchman for Oxy Clean).  He has supported our arch-enemy Vladimir Putin and there is more than convincing evidence that they are behind truly “rigging” or “interfering” of our free and fair elections.  How comfortable do you feel with the present Russian hacks, even if it is not against your Party? Is that being a patriot, or is it treasonous? Is that the change we want?  He not only says it, but does anyone with a straight face believe that he has not released his taxes because of a standard audit?  Folks…don’t lose your common sense that I know you all have.  He has not shown his taxes because he would be unmasked for the fraud he really is.  He does not want to show his business dealings with the Russians, his failed companies, his lack of charitable giving, etc.  He must be the ‘least transparent’ candidate in the modern era.  When dealing with a more robust Russia, do we really want that man behind the desk in the oval office?

The unprecedented intervention of the FBI Director to put his “thumb on the scale’ of such an important election just 11 days prior to the date is not only wrong but dangerous.  We have a rich tradition (and for good reason on both sides) not to mix an investigation with an election within 60 days.  Now if your reason is that it is because she is a “crook” like Trump likes to say, or “lock her up” as his most rabid supporters say with his approval at his rallies, to some saying “electrocute her” or Senator Burr implying to take a gun and put a bull’s eye on her back, this should frighten us all.  Let me be crystal clear…Hillary Clinton has not been indicted on any charges to date.  To assume that she will be at a later date with no evidence to back it up is the way they run a criminal justice system in every authoritarian country.  It is wholly un-American and the people making those chants and statements should be ashamed of themselves.  Our institutions are based on the principal of being innocent until proven guilty.  Did we forget that for the sake of change?

Now, we have serial leaking going on in the FBI to the Trump surrogates.  The FBI was known not to discuss an ongoing investigation for a good reason.  Now, Trump applauds innuendos as if they are facts, furthering the deterioration of our once highly respected FBI institution.

This is a campaign so mean, so vile and so small and diminishing.  When Trump says “let’s blow the whole god-damn thing up” are you really listening to what he is saying and doing?  Do you understand the changes he is advocating and what he will “crap on” in order to fulfill his own ego to be the winner.  The winner of what? What ‘broken patient’ will we be caring for after this election?  Once we lose a limb and a liver, you do not normally get them back.

Racism – two steps forward, one step backwards

The Tea Party was not this movement.  They were people fed up with Bush and Obama due to the bailouts and their homes being foreclosed.  We are now seeing the Alt-Right movement becoming a realistic force in our country.  Hey Jews out there voting for Trump, you got David Duke with you and the KKK guarding your back!  Don’t worry though, what can possibly go wrong with that?  Hey white blue-collar workers out there, I bet you are excited to one day afford to go into one of Trump’s very expensive properties and hotels!  When you get to the front desk, just tell them “I voted for your boss” and I am sure they will drop the price to $69.99 a night.

To think that Trump has ‘anything remotely’ in common with you is bizarre on its face.  Have you disregarded his upbringings?  Have you disregarded how he has screwed so many businesses like the ones you work at for his own personal greed?  There is nothing he has in common with the working class.  As P.T. Barnum said in the mid 19th century, “There is another sucker born every minute.” Please do not be one of them.

The GOP was once a proud and ideological Grand Ole Party started by an amazing President Abraham Lincoln.  Just think who he would be voting for today…please. This is not an election that most people see as loving one side over the other.  I understand that.  But we are all at fault for letting this happen.  This is a democracy still. Lets not let the horrific override the imperfect.

Now you see why I am so depressed.  This is why on November 9th, we will be in a zero sum game because of our dark divisions.  There will be a complete winner and a complete loser.  The end of partisanship.  In fact, there are some Republicans that have actually said that they will start the “impeachment process of President (Clinton)” who has yet to even be elected, and other Senators who have said they will not seek a vote for the ninth Supreme Court Justice for the next 4 years!  I kid you not folks.  Is that what you want for our institutions?  Didn’t we hear last March from many of the Republican Senators that they wanted the people to decide at this year’s election who would be the ninth Supreme Court Justice?  If this anti-American value blockade happens, as you can see by the rhetoric already, do you really want the paralyzation or destruction of the Supreme Court?

Donald Trump’s image of girls

Finally, I have two daughters.  I am ashamed of Trump and what he has said publicly about women. For the decency of all of us, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.  Let’s strive for change by being involved in politics, going out to vote even in off-year elections, and demanding more transparency and fixes to some of our broken laws.

I hope we still have a chance after November 9th.