We missed the official anniversary of the Stonewall Riots by five days, but better late than never.
I’d like to keep this short and simple and just say two things:
Vermont’s not doing much, election-wise, in 2019. We’ve got select board and school board voting and we’ve got to vote on town and school budgets, but this isn’t really a “wallpaper the area with campaign signs” year.
That said, there’re a few signs still up from last fall’s election cycle here and there around town, and Carole and I periodically comment to one another, speculating on how long it’ll be before the last one finally disappears. (Probably not until the new crop go up in late 2019 and early 2020 for the 2020 fall elections.)
I keep wanting to order up some signs of my own to put around town one of these years… just to mess with people’s heads. Something like this:
Double-sided yard signs with the wire frames for mounting on lawns and curbs and things are fairly expensive in small numbers. If you order more than 50 the price starts to really drop — $4.55 each for $50, $3.29 each for 200 or more, etcetera. That said, $250 for a random experiment in surrealism is kinda outside our budget, but I can still dream.
As far as I can tell, I’m the only person (or close to it) in my Facebook circle of friends who isn’t venting spleen about Trump and his deranged, totalitarian antics.
It’s not that I’m not disgusted and/or worried sick. I am.
It’s just that my brain literally can’t make sense of how so many people still support Trump. He’s going to do to the USA exactly what Chavez did to Venezuela, and even then, there are going to be tons of jingoistic fools, racists, and reactionaries who will support him. I can no more think of rational things to say about that than I can explain quantum chromodynamics. From where I stand, both are literally incomprehensible.
Words fail me.
Parenthetically, I won’t miss the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus.
I believe I last went to a circus in Blacksburg in 1978 or so. I have the vague idea that they set up behind Gables Shopping Center, but won’t swear to it.
In any event, despite the tradition of the circus, I’m much more interested in animal protection… myopically, since I still continue to eat at McDonald’s now and then and don’t take pains to investigate the source of the groceries and clothing I buy.
I guess there’s always Circ du Soleil when you want acrobats and trapeze artists and so on. On the other hand, I don’t see a huge tragedy in the elimination of clowns as a national menace. Silver lining in every cloud, and all that.
I am fairly disinclined to take part in political mudslinging in social media, but the news from the Trump campaign in the last 24 hours inclines me to a bit of fascinated notice, in a slowing-down-to-watch-the-trainwreck way.
Trump has literally almost no money in his campaign account. Trump has only 30 staffers in his entire campaign. He’s run zero ads. He won’t call donors. Every time he opens his mouth he says something whose only purpose is to get attention in a there’s-no-such-thing-as-bad-attention way. The free-the-delegates-to-vote-their-conscience movement is growing.
The Republican Party right now reminds me of the sort of person who marries a “billionaire” only to get divorced a short time later when it is discovered that the “billionaire” is a scam artist with no money. The slowly-dawning-Oh-My-God-realization is exactly the same… and for good reason. Trump is a scam artist with no money. There’s a reason he won’t release his tax returns.
Right now I can’t figure which is more likely:
1) Either because the delegates are freed or because Trump can’t stand the criticism and withdraws, some other schmuck winds up as the nominee,
Or
2) Trump goes down to a thumping unprecedented in modern times — and I mean worse than Mondale in 1984 or McGovern in 1972.
And just imagine the looks on the faces of the people who fancied themselves as Trump’s running mate this morning. I can’t imagine who Trump’s going to get now: David Duke? Joe the Plumber?
SpongeBob SquarePants?
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branchandroot
