Election Season Snapshot – The Long Strange Trip Winds Down

Every now and again, I like to take a step back and see where we are.  So here, three weeks from the presidential elections, are some of the news stories that define our present situation.  Is it a good situation?  I’ll leave that for you to judge.

First, the elections:  Trump made a run at it but as I wrote on a piece of paper on June 10 of this year and still see daily on my dresser, “It’s going to be Hillary.”  In short, it’s all over but the shouting, but boy are they shouting, daily from the headlines.  We happened to catch the 5 o’clock hour on the car radio yesterday afternoon and every newscast led off with a Trump story, strongly anti-Trump at that (not that he doesn’t give people plenty of ammo).

Then there are the Deplorables.  Oh, how Hillary is going to rue the day she called them that.  Even though to deplore means to hate or dislike very much, the term comes across sounding cute and fuzzy and slightly bad.  Moreover, it’s a bit hard to justify deploring that many people if your goal is to be president of “all the people” (we’re talking tens of millions of Americans here, some of them our relatives).  But as Hillary was recently leaked to have said, she and Bill are “far removed” from the experience of ordinary Americans.  In short, they may “get it,” but only intellectually.

Still, the real problem revealed by this election is that we are truly a divided nation, not just political elites (our representatives and leaders) from middle class people, but lower income middle class people from upper middle class, as well as politically right from left.  Much of this divide occurs regionally, so we tend not to notice that it’s there, but from state to state (Vermont to New Hampshire) and region to region (southeast to northeast) there can be big differences in the needs, interests, and political leanings of the populace.  Then there are the racial and ethnic divides, as evidenced by Black Lives Matter, Latino immigration, and Native American rights that further divide us within our regions. With all the protest and discontent, one thing stands out — no one feels like they’re getting a fair shake right now.  So far, no one’s promising them one either, although we do hear a lot about law and order….

Then there are the leaks.  Not since Nixon has the leaked document played such a role in presidential politics.  Unlike that earlier drama, wherein the leaker targeted Nixon only,  this year’s game of leak/counter-leak has given us dirt on both sides.

All along, there’s been the matter of Hillary’s email.  It’s ironic.  First, the issue was her use of a private server which she made all kinds of excuses about, even though it was a seriously insecure way to handle email and her people should have told her so.  So then what happens?  Email from everyone she’s worked with since her days at “State” starts turning up in Wikileaks email releases — compromising email, the kind you really don’t feel like having to explain.  So she’s explained nothing, you’ll notice, as to the content of any of these emails, nor for the most part, have any of the other correspondents.

Trump, for his part, got caught making incredibly stupid small talk with news celebrity Billy Bush, first cousin of former president George “Dubya” Bush. Why anyone would say anything compromising to someone named Billy Bush while sitting on a press bus full of microphones is certainly a question.  But Trump operates differently, and for lack of a better explanation, one could argue that he’s the kind of guy who’ll say anything to impress. Somehow he thought that telling Billy Bush his theories on “grabbing the pussy” was a good way to win the guy’s respect.  In real life, if you grab any part of a woman’s anatomy unexpectedly and unasked, the woman is likely to shriek and recoil, if she doesn’t just haul off and smack you, which usually gets other people to notice the encounter. Not to mention, who talks like that?  But Trump is a bit of a numbskull and that’s what he said.

So there we have it, dueling leaks, and it will be interesting to see if there are any more before the election.  The material on Clinton seems virtually endless but big, salacious stories on Trump may be more limited. Then again, one remembers the endless sex scandals with Bill Clinton in the 90s that started before his first election and continued to the end of his term.  (And yet we stuck with him all the same…).

On a related note, the Ecuadorian government seems to have cut Internet access to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the source of the leaks affecting Clinton.   Assange has been claiming sanctuary at the Ecuadorians’ London embassy, and despite the cutting of Assange’s net access, stands by its decision to harbor him.  Will severing Assange’s internet link succeed in preventing future leaks?  Not likely.  Will Hillary Clinton drone attack him in retaliation as she has jokingly suggested?  We will see as the situation develops but it seems likely that something will have to give soon.  Assange has been in that embassy for four years and it sounds like they’re starting to turn the screws, for whatever reason…

On the international front, Turkey is angry with the U.S. for (allegedly) harboring their coup-master.  China is making tut-tutting noises about the U.S. and NATO’s encroachment on Russia in Eastern Europe.  And just about everybody else is mad at Russia, especially the New York Times, for various its alleged crimes and misdemeanors.  Russia is accused of war crimes in Syria, of hacking the Democrats email, of trying to use its hackers to influence the U.S. elections, and of being dangerous and bad generally in all situations.  As with most such things, the U.S.’s antipathy toward Russia has been politicized.  Here’s an easy example:  Putin is evil,Trump is friends with Putin, hence Trump is evil.  They’re both evil and they’re friends. They are the enemies of the U.S.  Just in case you missed it.  The great part about that one is that you don’t have to prove any of it for it to be “true.”

Whoever wins the all-important U.S. presidential elections (and I still say it will be Clinton) will inherit current U.S. foreign policy — and have to preside over its fulfillment (God help us) or its unraveling.  Unfortunately, if the goal is avoiding war, neither candidate inspires unwavering confidence.

Finally, on the climate front, we just had a big hurricane that wiped out Haiti and walloped North Carolina.  This was a late hurricane, coming in early October, and benefiting from unusually warm seas for the time of year.  As has become the norm with hurricanes and big rain events these days, flooding did most of the damage.

Meanwhile, here in Vermont there have been some cool days but tomorrow, the 18th of October, is forecast to be in the 70s.  Oh well, at least the foliage is pretty right now giving us something pretty look at as this horror show winds down.