By the time you read this column (and I hope you are, because if you’re not there’s no need for me to waste precious space adding this parenthetical insert, which I just did), the midterms will be a thing of the past and, depending on the results, I’ll either be continuing my mundane life as usual, or moving north and in with my Canadian relatives in Ontario, Saskatchewan, British Colombia, or on to Victoria Island. There’s always the possibility that some of Donald Trump’s handpicked troglodytes will win elections, necessitating my northward move. The orange-faced, yellow-haired, con man has even indicated he may run for president in 2024 provided he’s not breaking rocks in the hot sun. I think it’s just a ploy to keep members of his slack-jawed MAGA crowd sending him money to pay off his seemingly unqualified lawyers defending him in more than 150 lawsuits.
I’m amazed (really?) at the number of those fans who are sucked in by Trump’s line of B.S., not recognizing a scam when they see one. I see and hear many of them on the news who’ve fallen for scams that, for anyone with more sense than a Dr. Scholl’s Shoe Insert, should flash a big fake into their psyche. The flash doesn’t appear and many lose their life’s savings to the scammers. Scan Man Donny T. is even on the record deriding those who send him money. Back in the 1950s, Andy Griffith made a movie called A Face in the Crowd, about a guitar-playing drifter who gets discovered by a radio station. He’s turned into a Will Rogers-type folk hero who reaches TV-star status, hawking products and stumping for politicians. The public believes in his sincerity, while he gradually shape-shifts into a con artist. At the end of one of his TV shows, the camera is accidentally left on and he’s seen and heard joking with his staff members on what fools and saps the viewers are for believing anything he says. In one night, his career is doggy-doo and he’s back to his drifter status. Can you imagine anything like that happening today? Trump calls his supporters fools and suckers and they scream for more debasement and throw money at him.
Where are all the decent Republican hopefuls? Couldn’t we get even a couple to run for office rather than totally unqualified-election deniers, who have their lip prints all over a certain part of No. 45’s anatomy? We could use some Republicans with integrity such as Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger whom, I assume, would do the right thing even if the GOP will not do the right thing. These are two Republicans I’d vote for because they are interested in us (as far as I can tell) more than the GOP. I want politicians who won’t be trying to destroy democracy for their own selfish purposes. Maybe we need more independents such as Bernie Sanders and Angus King whose support for causes is determined by value to Americans rather than loyalty to a party.
There’s a lot of grumbling about inflation, which higher than 10% worldwide and blame Joe Biden for causing high gas and grocery prices, by Republican candidates who say they’ll end it. But they don’t say how. They conveniently overlook the fact that corporations involved in coal and oil and pharmaceuticals are fleecing people while making record profits, and use inflation as an excuse. Donny Dum-Dum, for example, was a good one to make outrageous promises off the top of his head to fire up the public, with no idea, or plan, how to fulfill those promises.
That’s my rant for this edition. I’m off to smash a few pumpkins, ingest mass quantities of leftover Halloween candy, and check housing prices in Saskatchewan.