Just 16 days to the most important election of my time.
My voting timeline stretches back to 1972 -- 48 years. In 1972 in Boston, I cast my presidential vote for George McGovern. He didn't win. Nixon did, and you know what happened next.
I've voted for other candidates who came up short in the Electoral College. I've also voted for people who ended up in the White House. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. Pretty good record. Carter deserved a second term but Reagan swarmed the airwaves with his smarmy lies and he prevailed. I also voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016, my first vote for a woman as president. She polled more votes -- almost 3 million. But GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression, coupled with Hilary's flawed campaign strategy, doomed us to four years of Donald Trump via the Electoral College.
The New York Times editorial board today outlined all the reasons we need to get rid of Trump. Read it for yourself, if you can get past the paywall. I subscribe because I need a newspaper of record to prove that we lived through the past four years. I could pay for other newspapers that would be almost as good: Washington Post, Miami Herald, L.A. Times. I like The Denver Post for its Colorado and regional coverage. The sports section used to be excellent. Cheyenne boasts of having the Capital City paper in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. I read it occasionally. I used to subscribe. My son delivered it through the freezing early morning hours of Cheyenne's long winters. Its legislative coverage is good and it does interview candidates leading up to elections. It covers Cheyenne Frontier Days like a Pendleton blanket. But day-to-day, it doesn't have the heft of a NYT and other big-city dailies.
The NYT covers Trump with as much objectivity as it can. Its liberal bias is a given, although it's not always liberal in outlook. If you read today's Trump piece, you get a complete rundown of Trump's failures (a long list) and excellent reasons to vote him out. It's not as entertaining as reading QAnon posts, listening to Rush Limbaugh, or watching Fox News. Entertaining yet sickening at the same time.
The Times board op-ed header was "End Our National Crisis." Here's the lede:
Donald Trump's re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.
The piece goes on to list his transgressions, which are legion, and supplies good talking points to counter your crazy uncle's crackpot theories should you be able to gather with family for Thanksgiving. By Turkey Day, the election will be over but maybe not decided. Trump will not guarantee a peaceful transition. Gerrymandering and voter suppression continue. Trump asked his bully boys to come to the polls and intimidate voters which translates in Trumpspeak to "voters of color." One could almost feel as if this was an election in a Third World dictatorship in which U.N. election referees need to be called in. Jimmy Carter's election crews can't cover every polling place but they could try. Our county clerk has called for more election judges because most judges are closer in age to Jimmy Carter than to Kamala Harris. Many have been frightened away by Covid and threats from Nazis.
I've been an election judge, back when I I was a youthful chap in my 50s and early 60s. It would be much better to have a slate of young folks at the polls to report suppression tactics. I was a poll watcher back in the day, too, looking over the shoulders of judges to make sure they followed the rules. The Wyoming Democratic Party has put out a call for poll watcher trainings held virtually Mondays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. Get more info at the WDP web site or on its Facebook page.
Get out and vote and encourage others to vote. Pray or cross your fingers or chant for a return to sanity with Democrats in charge of the White House, Senate and House. We are going to need all the help we can get with the courts clogged with Trump flunkies and the Supreme Court in the hands of right-wing extremists.
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