True Sadness Over Donald Trump

I have not met anyone who thinks what is happening in this presidential election is anything but shocking and shameful.  I start this post with that fact due to the many political types who live in our neighborhood and those who I have conversations with about this cycle.  As I write there are 27 days until our national election.  The end to this awful chapter in our national story can not arrive soon enough.

What simply boggles my mind in the slime and mud that Donald Trump has unleashed and now promises to only increase.  The latest commercial showing Hillary Clinton sick and exhausted due to pneumonia as she tries to get into her vehicle is the most insulting and degrading thing I have yet witnessed.  And like most of my readers we have seen far too much over the past year.    Having had pneumonia in April this year I know precisely how Clinton must have felt–minus the world watching.

To then have such a medical problem highlighted and mocked in a political ad makes me more than angry.  It makes me extremely sad as to what is happening to this nation and how so many of my fellow citizens are participating in the madness.

Every day I read and watch new ways that Trump finds to bring the race further into the mud  There is only one reason for this and that is play to the most unsavory element in this land and get them so riled and charged up on red meat that come Election Day there will be a purely base turnout.   Two things might happen when such a vile attempt is made so the race is so rancid that it turns off swing voters who just throw their hands up and stay home.

First it creates a more competitive election as some of the citizens who should vote do not, and the tragic outcome of such a tactic should Trump win, would be indescribable.

But second it means that with a base election the next president–and I strongly feel it will be Clinton–will not have the governing mandate which is required to do the work this country needs to have happen.

Instead of trying to expand his appeal the GOP nominee is playing a very dangerous political game.  He is not working for the better of the people or the country but is doing all he can to splinter and harm the electorate in the process of feeding his ego and scoring points against those who disagree with him.

This nation is at a place which is near the edge of a cliff and it is distressing and extremely sad to watch such a dangerous demagogue play so fast and loose with the fabric of our republic.  It is perplexing and equally sad to see so many of my fellow Americans play with this political fire in such a way as to make me wonder if they ever had any civics education of any kind.

We take our republic and our brand of democracy for granted.  If Trump has taught us anything it is that we no longer have the time to do so.  We are at the edge of the cliff and those who share the common bonds of our nation must work overtime to make sure we do not slide over.

All hands on deck, my fellow citizens!