Political distractions

Like most people I know, I am ever so slightly (extremely) obsessed with the US midterm elections taking place tomorrow. It seems as if it would take a miracle for the Democrats to regain control of the Senate, but control of the House of Representatives seems a strong possibility. Despite not being religious, in my own way I am praying for at least the latter outcome.

Oh, the hearings a Democratic House could hold! They could demand and get the Tangerine Wankmaggot’s tax returns. They could demand to see the terms of reference he gave the FBI for the Kavanaugh investigation. They could poke their nose in everywhere. And they could provide those much vaunted checks and balances designed by the founding fathers on an out of control President. Gosh. The possibilities are endless. When not typing, my fingers are crossed. Rumour has it that TW is shitting his pants. Lovely.

Whatever happens, at least the midterms have provided multiple opportunities to see and hear a President speaking in complete, often beautiful and inspiring sentences. Yes, Obama’s been back, speaking himself hoarse at rally after rally.

One day last week they were both stumping in Georgia (where Democrat Stacey Abrams could become the state’s first African American female governor). Joy Reid, who attended both rallies for MSNBC, later said it was disturbingly like being in two completely different countries on the same day. As indeed it is. Like chalk and cheese.

I could go on and on about the current president of the United States. Indeed I have in the past. (I eventually gave up because I couldn’t keep up.) I could go on at length about his supporters, the diehards who turn up at his all too frequent rallies.

I will never understand them, never understand how it is possible for anyone to see this clown as anything other than the flim flam man he is. I will never understand how anyone can support this poisonous huckster. (I could almost understand it in 2016 when large, disenfranchised sections of the country just wanted to blow up a system that had left them in the dust when their jobs disappeared first to Mexico, then to China. But they’ve had two years of this clown now. And he’s done nothing for anyone other than himself, except fan neo Nazi flames.) The thousands of people who turn out to his rallies can’t all be white supremacists. Nor can they all be stark, raving mad. Nor can they all be masochists.

I just don’t get it.

After tomorrow, whatever happens (oh, please, please, please let me wake up on my birthday Wednesday to the news that the Dems are in charge of something), I will have to move on to my next political distraction.

Will my mother country really throw itself off the white cliffs of Dover?  Is there anything that can stop Brexit?

Last month hundreds of thousands of people marched in London demanding a final vote. It was inspiring to see.

It was also inspiring 15 years ago to see a million people marching in London against the war in Iraq. (I was at the large rally in Amsterdam that weekend, which was inspiring, until it came to the speeches, which I couldn’t understand.) And we all know what the impact of that 2003 march was: nada.

Still, I can’t help hoping. I can’t help believing that somehow, even at the eleventh hour, sanity will prevail. In my heart of hearts I know I’m probably wrong, that it’s too late to reverse course, but I can’t help myself. Even if I don’t have to live through the dire consequences of Brexit myself, I have friends and family in the UK and I cannot bear the thought of their futures (and in some cases retirements) destroyed by disgruntled, xenophobic middle Englanders.

That will keep me distracted until March.

Then I will have to start worrying about the federal election in Canada next October.