by Max Humana, March 2016

The presidential primaries are over. The people have spoken. The citizens of the United States have selected who they believe to be the two best options, from a large group of applicants, for the most powerful elected office in the world.

How did it go? All I can say is, great job, America! In a true and undeniable vox populi, obviously achieved by minds shrunken by far too much smartphone gaming and so-called ‘reality television’, a breathtaking lack of political insight, education and history, plus a truly frightening amount of bigotry reminiscent of the worst days of the civil rights movement, you have picked two of the most odious candidates our nation has seen in a very long time.

Yeah, great job, America! Way to pick ‘em! You picked the Do Nothing and the Know Nothing. Fantastic.

Granted, the field, particularly on the Republican side, was not overflowing with men and women whose education, experience and ability were matched by an honest desire to lead the nation on a path to success, freedom and enlightenment for all citizens. To the contrary, the process on both sides was nothing short of a national embarrassment.

On the so-called “Democratic” side, the DNC’s mission was to get Clinton nominated at all costs, regardless of either her fitness for the office or the fitness of her competitors. At times the process most closely resembled a mafia operation, where an invisible hand continued to intervene while trying to remain unseen (I’m looking at you, Debbie Wasserman Shill). The outcome was foreordained. Every hurdle in the preferred candidate’s way was lowered or eliminated. Others were marginalized, ignored, trivialized and cut off from life support. For a variety of factors, the wrong candidate won.

This is not because that candidate happens to be female; this country sorely needs a female President. This should absolutely not be Hillary Clinton, though. I don’t say this because of Benghazi. I don’t say this because of Whitewater. I say this because she is a power-hungry, deceitful person who cannot be trusted with the power of the office. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who served in the military who worked at the White House when the Clintons were there. Ask her for the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street. Ask her why she knowingly and deliberately set the conditions to expose Top Secret information to the entire world. Ask her for the records of her government-mandated information security training. This particular candidate should never hold office higher than village dog catcher. The Congress, the military, industry and mayor’s residences across this country are populated with a great many outstanding women who should be President. I’m sure even Mitt Romney could find a few candidates from his ‘books full of women’. Not Clinton. I guarantee a major scandal will erupt if she is elected – you read it here first. I can’t say if it will be of her doing, or of Slick Willie’s, or of one of the cronies who will be appointed in the fiefdom, but it will happen.

But for all of the sickening and corruption on the Democratic side, at least there were qualified candidates. Bernie Sanders should have been the nominee, and was the best candidate on that side by many a country mile. Martin O’Malley would be a better nominee than Clinton. Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee deserve credit for all their honesty and integrity, though they were clearly not ready for the office.

The Republican spectacle, from the debates to the process to the candidates, was like a horror film where demons or evil spirits take over unsuspecting people and make them do and say thoroughly evil and despicable things. Which, to be fair, is pretty much par for the course in today’s Republican party at all levels of government, but for it to be so blatantly displayed during the presidential primaries for all to see clearly indicated how rotten the entire fruit basket is. The list of candidates was a Who’s Who of theocrats, bigots, failed businesspersons, detested governors and others, nearly all of whom have left a trail of stinking foul slime wherever they have gone throughout their careers. Not a single one passed the smell test for a decent, honest, inclusive, human-positive person with honest intent and desire to achieve positive national goals and raise the floor for all Americans. Many have connections with the worst elements of American money politics, such as the Koch brothers and other wanna-be kingmakers who know their dollars invested in the winner will return many times the initial amount once their puppet is in office (in full honesty, the same is true for Clinton).

The Republican party today is a distillation of the worst evil and bigotry present in American society today. Congratulations, Republicans, you have nominated the modern equivalent of a fascist dictator. You should be proud of your boy; he already wears the pointy hat of ignorance. Good thing that hat’s white, as that will make him fit in just fine in the ‘good old boy’s’ meetings around some burning crosses.   Or perhaps they’ll change out the crosses for the star and crescent, to make a nice change of pace and to bring that venerated practice more in line with modern times and modern targets.

One is tempted to say that the fact that these two repugnant specimens of protoplasm made it to the nomination for the White House is the final straw in our grand national experiment, and that a once great democratic republic has leaped off the abyss and is rapidly approaching sharp rocks far below.

But that is not the case. As with guns, it is not the object but the user that is at fault when something goes badly. A gun cannot kill anyone while it sits in a locked case. It is only when it is removed and inappropriately handled by someone that bad things happen. The same applies to our government. The process, when used improperly, or by ignorant or corrupt individuals, will result in not just a single or localized tragedy, but a regional or national tragedy. And if the process enables a categorically unqualified and feeble-minded puppet to occupy the Oval Office, as we have suffered not too long ago, it can be a multinational tragedy, as when our nation invades other countries for contrived reasons then spends years racking up body counts on both sides along with failures to apologize for any of it.

The Democratic party today is the Republican party of not too long ago, with a few edges rubbed off and minor changes in planks. The Republican party today has devolved to ideologues, the ignorant, robber barons and their stooges come to Washington to steal the money.

Stupid people kill democracies. Stupid people are killing our democracy, and the only way to get it back is to vote for good people. If you don’t know any good people running, then dammit find one or run yourself. I guarantee you’ll do far better than what we have now. A wise man once said something to me many years ago that has stuck with me ever since. He said he’d rather hire a motivated person with good intent and a solid brain over a much more talented and experienced person, because the good person would work hard to do the right thing. He was right.

America needs a Clintonoscopy and a Trumpectomy, and to have a government that is worthy of us and all the hard work our predecessors did to build this country. You can do your part by not voting for either of these two individuals, or by write-in voting for other candidates who are truly worthy of the office of President of the United States of America, the nation which the rest of the world looks to as an example of moral and global leadership.

To paraphrase a famous line from the movie Ben Hur, America needs to “vote well, and live”.