Smoke in the sky, smoke and mirrors from the president

Smoke on the water 

Fire in the sky 

Thought about those Deep Purple lyrics yesterday evening as I surveyed the pall of gray-brown smoke lurking over the western mountains. It was overcast, too, but the main problem was smoke from the Mullen Fire in southern Wyoming west of Laramie and the Cameron Fire north of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. There also may be wisps of smoke from the dozens of fires burning on the West Coast. The sky looked hellish. I smelled the smoke and felt and tasted the fire and brimstone.

Welcome to America 2020. 

Global warming yields raging wildland fires and prompts hurricanes to grow more mean as they suck up the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Wyoming could use some of that rain but not in such prodigious amounts. The National Weather Service retires names of destructive hurricanes. Andrew, Katrina, etc. Maybe some entity could also retire the year of 2020. Now! We don't have to wait for Dec. 31. 

The only big thing we have yet to do is elect a new president on Nov. 3. The current one knows all about smoke, as in smoke and mirrors. The time-tested technique for bamboozling what H.L. Mencken once referred to as "the booboisie." A combination of bourgeoisie and boobs, the latter slang for a clueless populace which will believe anything. ANYTHING!

It won't be easy to send Trump packing. The GOP spent the past couple decades gerrymandering the hell out of states and intimidating voters. Their goal is to hold on to the power they have accumulated and a voting base that skews white and male and uneducated. The GOP knows that demographics are not in their favor. They have driven away young people, Hispanics, African-Americans, the LGBT community, and college-educated adults of all persuasions. They are sunk if everyone turns out to vote. And they know it. 

We see democracy burning. We smell it. Our task is to put out the fire by electing Democrats. After that, the long struggle begins. We must undo the damage that Republicans have done to the U.S. since Reagan. A huge amount of work to do. We will have to mobilize as we did in World War II. Because it is a war. And right now, we're losing.