7 Comments

I wholeheartedly agree. I think the other countries do it a bit too quickly, but my gosh, we can't even let the last 2 years of an administration play out because we are already on to the next one and are ignoring the present. It's insanity. With that being said, I do wish we could all stop with the Electoral vs popular vote comparisons. Our system was designed only for the Electoral College. The popular vote is not relevant. There was never meant to be tyranny of majority. The reasons are obvious.

Expand full comment

Oddly, this is a RETURN to the way things first were with the original Democrats, the Jacksonians, who waged permanent political warfare all the time. Van Buren and the party bought up "newspapers, which weren't news at all but 24/7 party propaganda organs.

This changed with the American Civil War, wherein people saw the malignant effects of a "full time presidential campaign" and longed for normal times where elections happened only in November every 2 years. The combination of the modern Democrat Party and the 24/7 news media, that is 100% in alliance with them, has brought this back.

I sincerely see no way of going back to very limited campaigns without a cleansing of the type that occurred from 1861-65 to remind people of how deadly this non-stop political warfare is.

Expand full comment

Agree, I'm tired of Trump, Biden,Harris and particularly the mainstream press with all the lies. Maybe they should start Jan 2 of the election year. don't want to spoil New Years daY.

Expand full comment

While the state of the economy, both short and longer term, is abysmal, there are still better things to spend one's energy on than:

1) Worrying about politics

2) Fighting (or arguing) about politics

3) Reading too much political news

For one thing, there's family - my closest living relation, my sister, and I agree on more things than we might, but she's a staunch Democrat voter and I'm not affiliated with any political party, but lean right at this point.

For another, there's friends - while most of my friends agree more with me than with my sister, I have to steer conversations with some of them away from politics when they get obsessive.

For a third, there's one's health (both mental and physical). I've been faving serious concerns on a number of issues for over a year, and major surgery, with pain, a long recovery, and all that entails is in the offing.

I'm husbanding my energy for positive things - and there are so many of them in God's beautiful creation. There's the beauty of nature, there's love of family and friends, there are many fine books, and a lot of other creations of humans to appreciate.

There's also one's relationship with God, first, last, and always.

Expand full comment

"... given vested interests in party politics and the media, nothing much is likely to change." And given that reality combined with the near impossibility of eliminating the Electoral College, American democracy - what's left of it - is already circling the drain. If Trump gets back in the White House, democracy will finally be strangled in Grover Norquist's bathtub.

Expand full comment

What's left of it? Do you mean b/c we don't have an president leading the county, but a committee of (?) --

Expand full comment

Are you attempting to say we can save democracy by electing a president selected by backroom politics, who has never received a primary vote from a single citizen - or even an illigal immigrant?

Anyway, the U.S.A. is not a democracy, but a democratic republic.

Expand full comment