Things To Come

If it's an expert that you're looking for, keep it moving. Nothing to see here. My own field was the law. After fifteen years in the trenches, I found my way into a teaching position. I held steady at instructor for fifteen years. I enjoyed the work/ life balance. I lack ambition, yeah, that's it, I lack ambition. The reasons are beyond the scope of this outburst.

It's true, however, that I have maintained a vigorous amateur's interest in politics and current events for many decades, with a healthy dose of history on the side. I do have a decent education, including a doctorate in law, but my main credentials for the instant opinion piece come from about twenty years of subscribing to the New York Review of Books, and regular reading of the New Yorker magazine, the Atlantic, Harper's, and good newspapers, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and I read books, too.

Right now I'm getting a very unhealthy volume of tingling in my spider senses. I sense danger. This current bout of the yips is due to the upcoming midterm elections.

Bear in mind that I am a famously negative thinker. It is possible that the Democrats will maintain control of the House, and it is even conceivable that they will also gain control of the Senate. We could all let our breaths out a bit if that happened. To push the metaphor, that would give us a bit more breathing room to try to improve our situation.

More likely, there could be an outcome that would leave us just about where we are now. Some kind of stalemate. This would be far less than ideal, but would at least delay the final Gnandenschuss, the coup de grace, the mercy shot for a near-dead soldier on the battlefield. We're leaning in the wrong direction, though. Leaning into it, putting our shoulder into it with all of our might. The end of the American Experiment.

And the worst could easily happen. The Republicans could get the wins, take the house, and win a clear hold on the senate as well. Why not? Not only America, but also the entire world, seems more than willing to vote for any Jimbonie with a nice snarl. Look at today's Republican party. The old-school liberal Republicans are all gone, and the more reasonable centrist Republicans are retiring from politics in droves. We're left with a bunch of really unsavory characters. Hundreds of them will not even admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. That alone is a pathological level of disengagement with reality. The current crop of Republican candidates is a laughable bunch. Some actual idiots; some over-educated voluntary idiots; and many who are just so crooked that they'll say and do anything to get voted in. For only one reason: that's where the money is.

There is one prominent GED recipient from the Rocky Mountains who has only been in the House for two years and has already increased her net worth from “bankrupt” to forty-million dollars.

To be fair, there's not much that I wouldn't do for twenty-million dollars a year.

If the worst happens, what can we expect? Why would they not impeach Joe Biden? The House could trump up some charges, and the Senate would find him guilty. Isn't that a no-brainer? Why would they not then impeach Kamala Harris? Then wouldn't the Speaker of the House become the President? Why not President Marjory Taylor Green?

Does anyone else recall the speculation along these lines that circulated last year about appointing our former president Speaker of the House, and then using this procedure to anoint him President? Why not? In our current anarcho-fascist world, anything seems possible. No one, outside of a very few, smallish countries, is behaving reasonably.

No matter whose name is on the Republican ticket in any particular jurisdiction, there are a lot of folks who will vote for them. In a couple of weeks, many of these people will vote for Herschel Walker. The reason they will give for this absurd vote will be, “well, I just trust the Republicans more with improving our economy.”

What a sick joke that is! The Republicans have had many chances to guide the economy over the last hundred years, and on every occasion they have run it straight into the ditch! (Possible exception: Eisenhower.)

2023 will be the 100^th anniversary of the unexpected death of Warren Harding. He's the Republican fellow who won the presidential election of 1920. Remember the Teapot Dome Scandal? Look up “the Ohio Gang.” Harding led the most corrupt administration in modern history, and that's a tough race to win. Remember the Great Depression? Remember what happened to the value of your house and your 401K in 2008?

But if you are easily led, and watch Fox news all day, go ahead and vote for Republicans.

What you'll end up with is a borderline moron handing your money to the rich in tax cuts and the corporations in the form of deregulation, oh, and tax cuts. The middle-class will get increasing desperation, and the poor will get the gutter.

Look, I don't love the current crop of Democrats either. There, I said it. But there is a difference, a big difference. Working people right up to doctors and lawyers, even coders, are better off with Democrats in office. That's just the truth. If you have hundreds of millions of dollars, go ahead and vote for Herschel Walker. I wouldn't blame you. But honestly, would that additional tax savings be worth it? Have you no pride?

We have a secret ballot in America, and if you're one of the lucky few who have not had your vote already eliminated by gerrymandering or voter disenfranchisement, you should really get up off of the couch in a few weeks and go out and vote. Me, I'll be dead soon, so you've almost certainly got more on the line than I do. Use your head, and very carefully make up your own damn mind. Don't let anyone tell you who to vote for.

Not some random nut-job like me, and certainly not some totally bent old asshole like Mar-a-Lardo. Use your own head. That's what it's for. May the Gods guide your hand.