You have got to be kidding, right?
In the weeks that should be highlighting their qualifications to be president, we have a convention in Cleveland that highlights how unprofessional Trump's bid is and a convention in Philadelphia that highlights how corrupt Hillary's bid is.
And the world laughs at circus clowns.
Of course, with Hillary, the surprise is how blatant it was, and that her camp wasn't able to kill the story before it broke. Had the perfect storm of demographics and discontent that fueled Barack Obama's insurgency campaign in 2008 welled up again this year, maybe Bernie might have had a chance. But the "inevitability" of Hillary pushed out of the process anybody else who may have credibly challenged her, so this sort of thing never saw the light of day when something could have been done about it.
The Republican side is a little harder to sort. First of all, it started with more candidates than pitchers who have lost a game for the Rockies this year, and most of them were creatures of Washington (which, strangely, is an even worse affiliation than "Rockies bullpen"). But that only partially explains Trump - the rest is, well...
Consider this:
On Sept. 12, 2001, the U.S. flag was everywhere - houses, trucks, bridges, inappropriate pieces of clothing - everywhere! Now, not even 15 years later, people are being ordered to remove them from in front of their houses, students wearing flag clothing have been suspended, and many flags are at the bottoms of bonfires these two weeks.
In 1996, a Democrat President Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and it was a major controversy just four years later when Vermont created a statutory provision for civil unions. These days? Not only is gay marriage the law of the land but, a scant 20 years after DOMA, unwilling people are being ordered to participate.
In 2005, one of the more contentious and intractable political debates was about illegal immigration. Today ... OK, never mind, bad example.
In 2001, we felt like we had a grasp of who the enemy was, and we called it as we saw it ... sort of (until we got distracted-but I digress). Now, barely 15 years later, we're all so afraid to offend that many refuse to even call the enemy by the terms it uses to describe itself.
I list those and I highlight the timeframe that we're talking about to point out the pace of change in our culture over the past two decades, which is independent of political leaning. Agree on the issues or not, the world has undeniably changed in 20 years. I know, to some brought up in the world of the smartphone, 20 years seems like an eternity. But to many who have seen a few 20s in their lives, the speed at which the world is changing is dizzying.
And I use the word "dizzying" advisedly. For some, their sense of what this country is has been completely unhinged and, like the carnival ride that suddenly rotates in a third plane, up becomes down and the world starts spinning. For Democrats, who generally like those changes, Hillary, in spite of her weakness, is a known quantity who has been in the carnival for so long they trust her. And Trump is the carnival barker who some in the GOP are hoping can rein in all the chaos. Whether Trump can, or even wants to, is an open question, but nobody in the bullpen was ever going to be the solution.
So, we, the people, like the parent who gets stuck on too many spinny rides with his child, are left sick to our stomach, wondering what happened, and how did THAT get in my system.
Michael Alcorn is a teacher and writer who lives in Arvada with his wife and three children. His novels are available at MichaelJAlcorn.com.
from Lakewood Sentinel - Latest Stories http://lakewoodsentinel.com/stories/Politics-has-turned-world-upside-down,231476
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