I have personally tried to ignore all of the political ruckus that has infected the USA. I have never in my 54 years seen anything remotely like this kind of politics. The field of candidates is piss poor to put it mildly.
Of course this is all just my opinion and I am sure some of you are Trump supporters…and am sure you know I am going to talk about the weird man too. How could one discuss politics now a days without him being front and center on is little show boat.
When I was in the 4th grade there was a Presidential election cycle taking place. Richard Nixon and his running mate, Spiro Agnew were running on the Republican ticket and Gov. George McGovern with Sargent Shriver on the Democratic ticket. Nixon eventually won every state except Massachusetts and DC…something pretty astounding and that has only every been matched by Ronald Reagan in ’84. I guess that is my first memory of politics and how we got our country’s president elected. I had to choose a candidate and sort of “campaign” for him as my class assignment. I still have the final report that I did on him oddly enough. It’s full of articles that I got out of Time magazine and News Week. I don’t recall who my parents were voting for that year, I would have to guess it would have been Nixon. This was very much toward the end of the Vietnam war, and that was the biggest issue in the election. Nixon swearing he would end the long war, and he did so by pulling our troops out of Saigon shortly after he was elected. There is a whole other story here, but for the sake of brevity here in this blog I am just going to say he pulled the troops out and our involvement in Vietnam ended. Whether that was the right or wrong thing to do still remains to be seen today.
They used to campaign on the issues, such as the wars, economic stability, health insurance, criminal justice, etc. etc, and less about things like sexual scandals, bad hair and all the weird stuff that seems to permeate this current election cycle. Personally I could care less about DT’s hair or the funny faces he makes, I want to know what he brings to the table as far as governing a country like ours.
How does he intend to fix all of the troubles we are into? Where does he stand on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Exactly what will he do about ISIS? I’d like to know why and how he’s going to build a wall between us and Mexico.
I am sure there are diplomatic solutions to the Mexican immigration problem. How about helping the Mexicans make a country that no one wants to or has to leave? I can only assume some things are pretty bad there if people are willing to risk life and limb to cross a border to come to this screwed up country, where they are not really welcome either. Many, many of them, men, women and children die trying to make the journey to cross that border near Nogales. I think if we were privy to the real story of what it’s like to live and survive in Mexico under the iron rule of drug lords and weapons dealers, facing things daily like human trafficing, kidnapping, brutal murders, beheadings, and other ghastly goings ons.
When we book a “fun” trip to Mexico we don’t see this stuff. We are shown a very sanitized place, not normally advised to travel outside of the walls of whatever compound we are vacationing at. It’s not an advisable place for LGBT folks to vacation regardless, it’s not looked upon as a favorable lifestyle in Mexico. Myself, I wouldn’t go back to Mexico. I’ve been to the border towns, Juarez, Nogales, and one other I cannot recall the name of. I was far younger, stupid and didn’t know or hadn’t seen what I do know and see now. I was also with a large group of other GI’s and we stuck together for safety on those mescal infused nights. My visit to Nogales was accidental..I was driving the back roads around Huachuca and ended up across the border. When we realized it we immediately turned around and beat feet back to the US side. But what I saw in that short time was a very sad and impoverished area. It’s one of the main hubs for illegal border crossings I guess.
There’s a miliatary fort, Fort Huachuca right there next to it. Huachuca is about an hour south west of Tucson, AZ. I love that part of the country, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah and west Texas. I could easily live there and be quite content.
One thing I noticed when I spent time there was how great the star gazing is at night. There is not much “light pollution” so you have a velvet pitch black canvas to see the stars on at night. I did some service time in White Sands New Mexico and saw more shooting stars than I could ever count. I remember laying in my sleeping bag in a foxhole and watching the stars; totally enamored by them. You could literally pick out every constellation and seen most all of the visible planets. Plus a big part of the Milky Way’s swirl was quite evident. I had similar star gazing experiences in the Suguaro National Monument in Tucson, and in the Zion Canyon in Utah. I love to look at the stars, and if I have a telescope with me it’s even more fun, but when you get to a place in the world where there isn’t light pollution from the city lights and you can see so clearly there is nothing like it – telescope or not.
I’ve read in a couple of post on Facebook where people said that “2015 was a year of people being offended by everything”. I think it’s partially true. There were lots of things to be offended about! Mr. Trump himself was – in my personal opinion – very offensive to many people, groups, and races over this last year. He has a very unfiltered mouth on him; he says it like he sees it and usually that is pretty bluntly offensive. He tends to lump all of one group into one chunk, then make some rather negative statement about them all. Such as saying all Muslims are terrorists. His idea of deporting all Muslims from America, not allowing any Muslim person in to America, etc. Is just one example. He also lumps all Mexicans into one group labeling them as drug dealing murders and thieves. To me his rhetoric is very dangerous. I should be studying what he has had to say about LGBT people, I’m sure he’s got us all lumped into some fucked up catagory.
Other candidates have said some pretty screwed up stuff too. Ben Carson isn’t really endearing himself to anyone, he comes off to me as a fairly stupid man. I know he’s a good guy, that he’s a renowned surgeon and is tops in his field. But what experience does he have in politics themselves? What has he done outside of his work to help his community/country move forward? Does he even understand who ISIS is? I don’t think he will make it as a candidate, so I am not really worried about him truthfully. He’s just too ignorant personally to hold the office of President of the United States.
Now Hillary Clinton…oh Hillary. You know this is who I want to vote for, but she has a lot of explaining to do, a lot to prove to me still and she has to endure the scathing whoopings that Trump is going to unleash on her. Is she strong enough? Can she do it without breaking down? If the election comes down to Trump vs. Clinton it’s going to be one very nasty and fractional battle. It will cause a huge divide in the US…I predict. You have the extreme right wing (Trump) against a true left-winger (Clinton). Many issues from both extremes will come to light. People will fight more about this election than any in the past I believe. Trump is teaching people to speak with unfiltered mouths. He’s saying to people that it’s okay to insult others if it gets you what you want along the way. He has no professional manners or ways of conducting himself at all. That’s really apparent.
So, like i said at the beginning of this I haven’t been paying as much attention this election cycle. I must change that immediately. I need to study up on the candidates and think about who I will be supporting. My one little vote may not count for much, but I believe it counts because if we all vote then we can exact change. If we all think that it doesn’t matter and we don’t vote then we are allowing those who do vote to dictate where our country is going without any feedback. It’s important to exercise your constitutional right and vote. Hell, you can even vote from home with an absentee ballot if it’s too hard to get out to the polls! Please vote!!!
I am sure that Donald Trump will pretty much buy his way into this office. If that is possible he will do it. I worry about that. He has more money than God…I’m sure he’ll use that to his advantage. I can’t imagine him living like a president, in the white house….oh what will he do to the interior decorating? Will it be all gold leaf and ornate objects? Maybe make it look like Trump Plaza? Will he actually LIVE there? It would be a far cry from his extreme penthouse digs for sure. I don’t know if he could take sleeping that close to the ground!
Soooo…this is the start of my ramblings on the political picture. I am sure as I research, understand and formulate more opinions here that I will have much more to say. These are all just my musings and my opinions on this topic, everyone is allowed to have their own, and if we can’t agree we can always respectfully disagree. I have to say I can see where Trump would be very attractive to a good number of people, he has his base for sure. It will be interesting to see what happens in the primaries coming up soon.
Comments and input below welcome! Also if there is anything interesting that you think I need to read/see please forward it along here or to my email address at mainelybutch@yahoo.com I’d appreciate it immensely!
What do you think is going to happen in the primaries? Who do you think our candidates/choices will eventually be?
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