Really Thinking About It

IN 1964 I WAS NINE YEARS OLD, and I thought it was funny when someone told a joke that went like this: How do you clean? Wash it with goldwater, and shine it with Johnson wax. Please bear in mind that the nineteen sixties was an era of corny humor. In 1968, better educated, I started out supporting Hubert Humphrey, but I got tired of his incessant insulting Richard Nixon, so I switched. By today's standards, both candidates were liberal. Nixon, had it not been for Watergate, would have proposed national health insurance. In 1972, I was a senior in high school, and a friend of mine, the leader of our pack, enticed me into campaigning for Nixon. If I had a mulligan, I would of course go straight McGovern. He favored a minimum national income, which might not be a bad idea today, to replace the rest of the welfare state. In 1976 I was tired of Gerald R. ford vetoing all progressive legislation, and went with Carter. Disillusioned by 1980, not willing to vote for an ultra conservative grandfatherly type, I went for John Anderson, third party, a big mistake in retrospect. Democrats in 1984 and 1988, good men with good ideas, losers, because America was not and is not ready to address the shortcomings of capitalism and freedom. Bush the first deceived Saddam Hussein into a war he wanted (google April Glaspie, scroll down to conversation with Saddam). Saddam, understandably, felt deceived, and tried to hire a hit man to knock off a war criminal named George H.W. bush. Bush'es born again formelyr heavy drinking boy started another war in Iraq in revenge. I like John McCain, but not as well as Obama. Now we come to the Hillary Trump thing. Is anybody choosing for whom to vote based on stated policy positions? No, I didn't think so. Donald J. Trump wants to build a superfluous wall, which would serve no purpose other than to assuage the self esteem of right wing lunatics. Trump wants to renege on America's responsibility to protect the environment, and save the planet. The Paris climate change accord must be strengthened and enforced, not abandoned. Trump, like every other right wing demagogue who ever came down the pike, wants to "rebuild the military", which does not need to be rebuilt, but rather, downsized. And like Bill Clinton said, Bill Clinton is a seventy year old southerner who knows exactly what Trump means by "make America great again", and so do you, if you really think about it.