How Did it Come Down to This?

The economy is a complete mess.

The economy has been bad for eight years, good jobs are fewer and harder to find, more people than ever are on some kind of government assistance, the middle class is shrinking while the income disparity between top and bottom is the greatest in at least generations. Companies that should be creating jobs for American workers are leaving the country because of high taxation and severe overregulation, and we have an albatross of a healthcare system that is making it all worse. The nation is almost 20 TRILLION dollars in debt, and the dollar could go bust any time.

The world, and our place in it, is a complete mess.

America's standing in the world is the lowest it's been since at least the Carter administration, perhaps even longer than that. We've had a woefully ineffective foreign policy that has allowed Russia, Iran and China to step up and create extremely dangerous hotspots in the world (one of which, Ukraine, I live in now).

An uncontrollable rouge nation, North Korea, has been allowed to develop nuclear weapons and continues testing the means to deliver them. An even more dangerous rogue state, Iran, is on the verge of doing the same. And in the midst of all this world danger, America's military strength continues to fall to dangerous levels, both in terms of size and resources, and preparedness.

The combination of Bush's unwise intervention in Iraq, together with Obama's and Clinton's fumbling with Iraq, Libya, Syria and other places, has helped to create the most dangerous religious-extremist fascist organization, ISIS, the world has seen, and this organization reaches out to visit death upon the innocent all over the world.

Europe is being destroyed by the uncontrolled migration of muslims into its heart, and America is reeling under an onslaught of almost similarly unchecked illegal immigration while having a legal immigration system that makes no sense.

Our society is a complete mess.

American society has become coarser, more superficial, more divided and more hateful than at any time in my life. People harbor deep hatred, almost ready to kill, over political, religious and other views. Most people are made blissfully numb to what's happening by the pablum of sitcoms, reality shows and other garbage on television, or they numb themselves on the Internet. What little information they do acquire before they go off and do important things like voting is carefully crafted propaganda dished out by the news media and Hollywood.

Those who do actually pay attention and care are at the end of our collective rope with the self-enriching, do-nothing-else establishment politicians, and their mega-rich corporate supporters, but we are afraid to give control of government to those who might actually get something positive accomplished. We're brainwashed to believe that only "experienced, professional leaders" can do the job. And although we were duped into giving the presidency for the past eight years to someone who was neither experienced, professional nor a leader, we still swallow the myth that third-parties and other "outsiders" are wasted votes.

Too many people have been taught by a corrupt education and media establishment that somehow they "have a right" to things they have not earned. Someone (the government, society... just someone else) owes them stuff simply because they exist. The unwarranted sense of entitlement has superseded the ideal that you should work for what you get and that no one owes you anything. Cynical politicians increase this sense of entitlement and use it to their own advantages by promising free stuff (at the expense of taxpayers, of course).

Our system is a complete mess.

So... we have all these serious problems. And we have a major election in just a month. And what are our choices? The two most flawed, unpopular and wholly reprehensible candidates the major parties have ever thrust upon us in the same election. These two morons spend all their time digging up dirt on the other, talking about the other, and making their campaigns only about how bad the other one is (and to be honest, they both have a lot of material there).

We have all these serious problems, but the two losers we have on the ballot are NOT addressing them. And the media are not forcing them to address the issues. The mainstream media have only one mission: protect Clinton and destroy Trump. Other media are all about defeating Clinton, despite the truly head-shaking statements and actions from Trump.

When it comes to critical issues, both candidates and the media are basically sitting around with their thumbs up their... I mean, in their mouths. Do you know what Clinton or Trump will REALLY do about ISIS? What about Russia, China or other problems in the world? Of course not, neither of them really has a clue. Neither of them has a truly viable plan to reduce the debt and make the economy work to its potential, to create good jobs. Trump talks and talks about bringing jobs back, but I don't see a real plan there. And Clinton just wants to tax businesses more and drive more jobs away (and give away more free stuff, of course).

Neither of these clowns has any idea of how to solve the many problems the country faces and bring back prosperity and strength to the nation. When I look back at the field of 17 that started the Republican primary process, I simply cannot believe that primary voters believed Trump was the best of the bunch. He may well have been the worst. If they really wanted an outsider (good idea) why not Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina? There were some good, experienced governors to choose from. But they gave us the megamouth.

And there certainly had to be at least one better candidate on the Democratic side than the cackling joke that party has forced upon us. But the Clinton political machine cleared the field even before the primaries started. Only Bernie Sanders had the gumption to go up against her, but he was swimming upstream from the start, and in the end, he sold out to that same political machine.

An ugly process begets ugly choices.

To be honest, some of the very best and brightest on both sides of the political landscape simply did not want to run. I have one person in mind, a woman, a black woman, who I think could be a fantastic president. But she did not want to put herself through the process. Considering how ugly it is, I guess I can't blame her.

And that's the rub: the process is so ugly, that only the ugly (not in appearance, but in heart and mind) need apply. Only the worst sort of egotistical, power-hungry, in-it-for-themselves, borderline psychotics run for president. This election proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

There is going to be a debate on television tonight between Trump and Clinton. It will be the second of three debates, and I have no doubt that important issues, things that really matter to the future of the nation and the lives of its people, will again be pushed to the sideline as the candidates castigate one another over private remarks made 15 years ago, hacked emails, the sexual shenanigans of one candidate's husband, and other matters that really just don't matter.

And in a month, millions of Americans, most with no real understanding of the stakes and no information other than what their favorite sitcom star happened to say or what they heard in a 20-second commercial, will go to the polls and cast votes for either Clinton or Trump. A few, acting on principle, will select the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. But those two won't make a difference.

For the next four years, barring some completely unforeseen circumstance that delivers us a President Pence or Kaine, we will have to endure having one of those two losers in the Oval Office. On the one hand, it can't be much worse than what we have had to endure for the past eight years, perhaps even longer; but on the other hand, we've really never had two choices as bad as these (and we have had NO good choices for decades).

No matter who wins the election in November, the losers will be the American people, all of us, who did not demand better than the choices we were given.

The past eight years might have been just the opening act of America's decline.

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