SACRAMENTO — Here’s my take on the painful 2024 presidential election. And I’ll keep it simple.
OK, I’d say it’s simple. This absurd election season certainly lends itself to simple thinking.
Mainly, what I don’t fully understand is how Americans can vote for an uncivilized weirdo like Donald Trump.
Many people may think they are voting for a strong person, even if they are mentally weak.
Many people clearly hate the Democratic Party more than they love traditional American values of civility.
Many people, perhaps most people, undoubtedly agree with Scott Jennings, a former aide to President George W. Bush and now a political commentator for conservative CNN.
Jennings wrote in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on Friday that he and Trump have “nearly fallen off a time or two” on the “Republican roller coaster.” But he would “vote for him again as a bulwark against the cultural and governing excesses of the American left.”
“Simply put, I’m more concerned about the future of this country than any issues I’ve had with Mr. Trump in the past.”
I feel uneasy about the excessive number of left-handed people. But I don’t understand why anyone would rate them worse than Trump’s despicable character and reward them with a second term as president.
Would you reappoint him as the leader of this great country? He refuses to acknowledge its greatness, instead calling the United States “the trash can of the world.”
Someone who habitually spews hate and insults against Latinos, Puerto Ricans, Haitians…women, Californians.
A vengeful bully threatens to cut off federal disaster aid for California wildfires if the state doesn’t support his policies.
A would-be authoritarian who says he will send troops against “the enemy from within,” a term he uses for political opponents.
I lost all respect for this man when he mocked a disabled New York Times reporter while running for president in 2016. Trump stood in front of television cameras, trembling and stuttering as if paralyzed, as he mocked a reporter who had written an article he disliked. And he is chosen to be a role model for the children of the country.
Here we have a pathological liar who speaks falsely about almost everything. President Trump knows he lost the 2020 election, but he still can’t admit it. Or that he incited a mob to storm the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying the referendum.
If Trump really believes he won the election, things will get even worse – a despicable emperor with no clothes on.
This is unprecedented. A jury of presidential candidates has been found guilty of sexual abuse and 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, including paying hush money to a porn star. But evangelical Christians adore him.
Someone who starts a campaign speech by glorifying the size of a famous golfer’s penis.
He boasts of being friends with communist dictators, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, yet are we going to elect him to be the leader of the free world?
A mentally unstable 78-year-old man with daily signs of loss of mental alertness. And will he be in charge of our nuclear codes?
But when you point to these character and cognitive flaws to his supporters, they rationalize that life was better when President Trump occupied the White House than it was under President Biden.
There was no inflation, they point out. That’s true. However, the pandemic had not yet completely devastated the economy. Biden and Congress helped fuel inflation by spending heavily on freebie incentives and infrastructure. But it actually started under the Trump administration.
Russia has not yet invaded Ukraine, and global supply lines have tightened, creating gasoline shortages and increasing pump prices.
Illegal immigration has declined dramatically under the Trump administration, but at the cost of the inhumane practice of ripping young children from their mothers’ arms and locking them in cages.
Trump supporters are tagging Vice President Kamala Harris as the “Biden-Harris Administration” for some of Biden’s mistakes, real or frivolous. Never mind that the Vice President has very little responsibility or authority over anything.
Unfortunately for Democrats and Ms. Harris, she was unnaturally slow to distance herself from Mr. Biden’s mistakes, especially those regarding border security.
She was initially given the unofficial role of illegal immigration officer, but failed. But she rightly noted that Senate negotiators had reached bipartisan agreement on immigration reform and persuaded members of Congress to block the bill so that President Trump could run on a divisive issue. I am doing it. He selfishly put himself above his country. No surprises.
But no matter the issue, foreign or domestic, no one justifies putting a narcissistic, far-sighted con man in the Oval Office. Patriotic Americans should not be so self-deprecating. Mr. Trump is unfit to lead.
Harris is not ideal. However, she acts within the bounds of normal decency.
Democrats probably could have found a more marketable candidate who distanced themselves from Mr. Biden, who won votes in the primaries and built a national base. But the 81-year-old president stubbornly refused to acknowledge his physical and cognitive decline and did not withdraw from the campaign until it was too late for the party to undertake a healthy transition process.
Although Harris is a very late candidate, she has grown in the role better than many skeptics, including myself, expected.
The “San Francisco Liberals” have waged an excellent and energetic campaign while pivoting ideologically towards centrists.
Indeed, Ms. Harris is afraid to answer reporters’ questions directly and is vague in her answers. I wince.
But she won a debate in the one head-to-head contest that Trump courageously allowed.
I’m voting for Harris. Because she projects hope and is a normal human being. Trump is an embarrassment to America and the true enemy from within.
