“Deport ‘em all” seems to be the extent of a Trump campaign strategy

Donald Trump may well have said stupid things about just about every group of people possible who isn’t like himself, but he’s the guy who kicked off his time as a political person by calling Mexicans “drug dealers,” “criminals” and “rapists.” 

TRUMP: He wants to stay in D.C.!

So it really shouldn’t be surprising that to kick off his bid for re-election, he’s going on a rant about deportation.

AS IN HE’S going to have federal immigration officials begin the process of kicking out millions of people whom he wants to believe have no business being in this country.

Of course, that’s just Trump his role as the twit who Tweets – using his Twitter account Tuesday morning to send out messages to his followers about how he’s going to get serious about removing all these foreigners from this country.

Which may well be a task too large to take on. It may well be that trying to get rid of that many people at once is too great to accomplish. It may very well overwhelm the infrastructure of our immigration department.

But then again, I doubt that Trump is seriously intending to accomplish much of anything – other than spewing cheap trash talk to get his ideologue followers all worked up.

AND SINCE MANY of his backers seem to have a xenophobic streak behind their thought processes, saying he’s going to get the foreigners out of this country so that only people like themselves will remain will be just the kind of trash talk that will get them all worked up.

Which makes this perfect for the rally Trump planned for Tuesday night in Orlando, Fla. – the one where he officially kicks back into campaign mode and becomes the guy trying to win himself re-election.

Actual governing? He’ll leave that to the geeks whom he has appointed to various federal government posts. And when they turn out to be incapable of getting anything done?

 

OCASIO-CORTEZ: She's not leaving, either!

Well, he’ll blame it all on Democrats for standing in the way of everything he wants done on behalf of people just like himself.

OR MAYBE HE’LL blame it all on Alexandra Ocasio Cortez – the congresswoman from New York whom the far right seems overly obsessed with. Even though many of them don’t even appear to know her name, instead merely referring to her as “that AOC woman!”

Who knows? Maybe Trump, in his own delusional way, thinks she’ll be the first one he can have deported. Or maybe one of her relatives – even though as one of Puerto Rican ethnicity, that means her family consists of U.S. citizens going back generations.

For all I know, she’s more a “real American” than any of the Trump backers whose families came here a generation or two ago from somewhere in Eastern Europe – and view nodding their heads in accordance with Trump trash talk as their way of “fitting in” with our society.

But back to Trump, who’s more than willing to use his xenophobic scare tactics to stir up support.

TAKE TRUMP’S SON, Eric, who had an e-mail message sent out Tuesday telling people that his father wanted $7 million in contributions made to him that day – a “huge” and “incredible” gesture meant to show that everybody loves Donald. “Even the Radical Left won’t be able to lie their way out of this one,” Eric said.

 

BIDEN: Can he even beat his 20-plus opponents

Although going through my e-mail, I also found a message from the Joe Biden presidential campaign – announcing his own Internet-based fundraising effort.

Both men are seeking donations of $5 or more per person (although Trump claims the average donation he’d like to see is $42), all in a grand to try to one-up each other. Which makes me think that Trump’s trash talk about deportations is meant more to inspire donations toward his $7 million goal, rather than being about removing a single soul from this nation.

And making believe all the moreso that Election ’20, regardless of its outcome, is going to be an incredibly depressing period in our society – as we all dive down to the bottom of our pit!

  -30-

Did we get a preview of the ’20 presidential “brawl” this year in Chgo?

Could Lightfoot campaign give us clues as to how … 

Let me state up front – I don’t have a clue who I support for president. Although I’m inclined to think that both former Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are too old to be taken seriously as candidates.

A notion that I’m sure will offend certain political people who are viewing the 2020 election cycle as one in which their guy can finally achieve long-desired aspirations.

BUT I HAVE to admit to dreading the Democratic primary for president, largely because I fear the twenty-some people saying they want to run for the office will all get so pig-headed and believe there’s no way they can lose.

There’s no way anybody would vote for Donald Trump over them, and it’s everybody else who needs to get a clue and get out of the election.

All I know is that I fear it will be that very attitude that will enable the re-election of “the Donald” and ensure that this Age of Trump stretches out to the maximum length permitted by the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

With also the likelihood that Trump (already 72 years old) could theoretically be the oldest president ever surpassing Ronald Reagan if he were to live long enough to finish a second term in office.

… we get the re-election of Donald Trump?

IT BECOMES POSSIBLE because the large number of Democratic presidential aspirants will do nothing more than create confusion amongst the electorate. People won’t have a clue who to cast ballots for.

Which could mean the followers of this Age of Trump will feel emboldened to the point that they’ll be the ones who feel compelled to vote. Which means they’ll get all wrapped up in talk of presidential mandates – as in Trump’s minority voter support would have to be treated as though it truly represents the will of the American people.

Ugh!

Now why is it that I feel like this? Largely, it’s because I feel like I’ve already seen this saga play out with last week’s election of Lori Lightfoot as mayor of Chicago. An election cycle I have to confess I was glad to see come to an end.

HAVING TO WEED through the dozens of people who talked of being mayor weeding down to 21 people who finally put their names on the ballot – with 14 of them ultimately qualifying.

BIDEN: Past his presidential prime?

I don’t think there ever was a consensus behind any one candidate. Even after the process weeded down the candidate field to a two-person run-off.

I know the Lori Lightfoot backers are going to be offended that I don’t see an overwhelming victory for her over Toni Preckwinkle. Because even a week after Election Day, I still can’t get over the atrocious voter turnout.

For an election cycle that was supposed to be historic and a case where, to have a chance to dump Rahm Emanuel, it really seems that the bulk of Chicagoans didn’t care.

REALLY! SOME TWO-thirds of the registered voters of Chicago didn’t bother to vote. They didn’t care enough – brought about largely by the confusion from having so many candidates convinced that everybody was destined to fall in love with them. It was nowhere near the swarm of voters (about 83 percent) who turned out in 1983 when Harold Washington became mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: Can he pop out of masses?

And now, that the Chicago election cycle of 2019 is complete, I almost fear we’re destined to repeat the electoral chaos come 2020 at the national level. As if the electoral nonsense wasn’t absurd enough this year, we get to do it again next year.

Double Ugh!!! And groan!!!

So if you’re asking me who I back for president, I have to say I want most of these current wannabe candidates to come to their senses and drop out so we can have a manageable field from which to pick. Either that, or we’re destined to get an encore of Inaugural ceremonies in 2021 in which Trump will claim even more people turned out to celebrate his greatness than did back in January 2017.

  -30-

2020 starts already – Sanders does Chicago in campaigning for president

Bernie Sanders, the Congressman from Vermont who stirred the imaginations of certain people of the Democratic Party persuasion when he ran for president in 2016, kicked off his active campaigning for the party’s nomination in the 2020 election cycle.

SANDERS: Will it ever be Bernie's turn?

And in realizing that Chicago is a significant part of the process for any legitimate Democrat, he’s already been here – making an appearance Sunday night at Navy Pier hoping to stir up the passions of potential voters to take him more seriously than the other dozen-or-so people who have dreams of winning the White House.

ALTHOUGH IN MOST cases, it seems that what really motivates them is being able to have history record their names as the person who “took down” the presidency of Donald Trump.

Too many people are gambling on the fact that the majority that despises the notion of Trump will eagerly accept them as the replacement.

Creating the potential for infighting amongst Democrats that could very well put The Donald (or someone of his ilk, if all the rumors of Trump being willing to resign if he can avoid criminal prosecution are true) right back in the White House.

While I personally despise such a thought and see an overwhelming majority of people who’d like to Dump Trump, I can also see how political chaos could result in Democrats shooting down their own desires.

Do we want Hoosier (Buttigieg) or … 

I’M ALSO PONDERING the large number of Democrats who seem to think everybody else will get out of their way to let them be the one who takes on Trump.

It has far too much potential to create confusion that could cause many people to decide “the heck with it” and find something else to do on the Elections Day of 2020.

Think I’m kidding? Just look at the large number of candidates (14, who actually managed to make it on the ballot) for our recently-completed mayoral election.

We’re down to two now for the April 2 run-off, but there literally were 67 percent of people who cast votes who didn’t want either of the candidates who prevailed. Plus, there were 66 percent of registered voters who didn’t even bother to cast ballots.

… a Tejano (Castro) as nominee?

WHY DO I fear this could be the end result of the 2020 election cycle? A whole lot of people ultimately disappointed because they couldn’t get their act together and decide on a candidate most strong to defeat the Trumpster!

Particularly if it turns out that Sanders, who began his campaigning Saturday in his birthplace neighborhood in Brooklyn, then came to Chicago the next day to try to sway over our voter support, insists he thinks he’s entitled to the nomination.

Out of the belief that he put in his time in 2016, and it’s now his turn! When the reality may well be that 2016 was his turn and he lost to Hillary. Now maybe he should move aside and let more credible candidates make their pitch for voter support.

Now for those people who are thinking that it was establishment Democrats who somehow cheated Bernie of their support, I’d argue it was absurd to think they’d ever back someone who throughout his time in Congress has insisted on using the “Independent” label. Why should Dems be eager to back someone who doesn’t really want to be a part of the political party?

IF ANYTHING, I’D say the fact that Trump was able to so thoroughly undermine the Republican establishment in 2016 is more pathetic than anything that happened to the Hillary/Bernie brawl of that same year.

TRUMP: Could it be 'four more years'

It will be interesting the degree to which people want to re-fight the Bernie Sanders brawl of three years ago. Will they have a desire to move forward? Or get bogged down in the trash-talk that ultimately gave us “President Trump.”

Personally, I’m not sure who to think of supporting. The notion of the South Bend, Ind., mayor, Pete Buttigieg, and his revival of that city has some interest to me – although I also wonder if a mayor is just too low-ranking on the political experience totem pole to take seriously. Why not offer up Gary, Ind., mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson if we're looking for a Hoosier mayor? There’s also former San Antonio, Texas, mayor (and former HUD secretary Julian Castro); whose presence would probably most offend those Trumpites most motivated by their ethnic hang-ups.

Anyway, the process of “making up our mind” begins now. We’re going to have to figure out who we want and what is most important to us. Because if we don’t, it could easily be “four more years” of Donald Trump.

  -30-

Will anyone really read Fire and Fury?

I recall back some nearly two decades ago when Monica Lewinsky (as in the presidential intern) felt compelled to write a memoir of her experience, recalling how then-President Bill Clinton took advantage of her sexually.

Plummeted down the charts quickly

“Monica’s Story” went into detail about the man she later publicly called the “big creep.” It jumped immediately to the top spot on the “best seller’s” list of books.

BUT WHAT I recall is that the book released in March of 1999 quickly plummeted. It’s as though anybody who felt compelled to read it rushed out to buy a copy. I remember buying my copy of the book in a bookstore remainder bin about one month after it was released.

I think I paid $1.99 for it. I can’t remember the last time I saw a book plummet so promptly to the discount bin in a bookstore.

Quite a bargain, for that time. Although nowadays, someone going on Amazon.com can buy a used hardcover copy for $0.25. A brand-new paperback copy could be ordered as cheaply as $1.34.

What makes me remember this? It’s all the hoo-hah we’re getting over “Fire and Fury,” the recently-released book about the presidency thus far of Donald J. Trump.

THE ONE WHERE former strategist Steve Bannon questions the patriotism of Trump’s namesake son and also the intelligence level of the president himself.

Will Trump drop as quickly?

The one that has caused Trump to publicly announce that he’s “really smart” and “a stable genius.” Which is really pathetic to think our society is at a point where many of us seriously question the premise of such statements.

The one that also has Bannon himself now making statements to try to imply that regardless of what he actually said, he still has respect for Trump and his presidency. And Trump insisting that such a book is all the more evidence of the need for more stringent libel laws in this country – which is a very un-American concept, if you think about it.

The new Trump book is already being billed as a “best seller” by Amazon.com – marked down to $18 from its $30 cover price. But I question how quickly it will plummet in price to something along the lines of the Lewinsky book.

It's a wonder this children's book hasn't done better

I WONDER IF this will be one of those books most of us hear about, but never manage to find an excuse to buy – or even borrow.

Some of it will be the influence of the Trump-ites of society who will not want to believe anything that would indicate they cast ballots for a complete incompetent to be president back in 2016. But many of them don’t read much anyway – which is why they dismiss reports about how little the president himself has faith in the written word.

As for the majority of us, I’m sure we’ve already reached the conclusion that Trump is living proof that formal education (he constantly boasts of being schooled at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business) isn’t a guarantee of intelligence.

How many of us want to spend our hard-earned money on a book that merely confirms what we already know, and what we have seen several bits of evidence already.

OUR PRESIDENT IS a dolt. What we need to do is move on to figure out how to cope with the situation, rather than emphasize the man’s lack of intellectual curiosity about anything.

Working my way through this lengthy bio

For most of us, it’s going to mean having to accept the situation and learn from it come the elections to be held this year and in 2020.

I know I personally don’t feel compelled to buy this book – and yes, I do see the irony of writing some nearly 700 words about something I have no intention of ever reading. Let alone buying (Ms. Lewinsky was my sucker book purchase in life).

Which may be the biggest blow to the Trump ego – as much as he complains about the content of this book, he probably relishes in the idea that somebody thought his life was interesting enough to write about. And probably resents all the thousands of books (some 6,924, according to Amazon.com) that were written about Barack Obama.

  -30-

Rauner or Rahm – Who gets hurt the most by Trump presidential presence?

It may seem odd to some that a person who appears to be as clueless about Chicago and as uninterested in learning about its realities as the president is, that he’s going to be a significant factor in two of the upcoming election cycles we will engage in.
 

RAUNER: Could he suffer more severe blows?

Yet that’s going to be the case – the existence of Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office is going to create headaches both for Gov. Bruce Rauner when he seeks re-election in 2018 and for Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he tries to retain his post come 2019.

IF ANYTHING, THE president may become a bigger pain in the behind for the guy who’s supposed to be his partisan colleague – both he and Rauner claim to be Republicans who want to bring their business-type ways of doing things to government.

While a part of me wonders if many of us who truly want to dump Rahm Emanuel may wind up coming to see his antagonistic ways as being the thing that protects us from the whims of Donald J. in the White House.

I don’t doubt that if Trump himself were asked the question about our political scene, he’d cite Emanuel (the man whose “crimes” in the eyes of ideologue Republicans is that he does not hang his head in shame at the thought of having worked on the staffs of both presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) as the guy who has to go.

The one upon whom he’ll focus his wrath – just as he’s already delivering the first of what will be many pot shots against Chicago during his presidency.

HE’S GOING TO talk a lot of trash meant to make Rahm Emanuel look bad, and perhaps he thinks he’s stirring up the resentment against Rahm for the ’19 election cycle.

 

EMANUEL: Chicago's defender?

Yet the problem is that Trump’s underlying views on so many Chicago-oriented issues are the exact opposite of what we want to see happen. Rahm and his “Go to Hell” approach to political life may come to be seen as our most solid defender!

As in someone we can’t afford to lose, no matter how much we may despise the man personally. And I don’t doubt that sentiment exists – it already has Jesus Garcia talking in terms of trying once again to challenge Emanuel for mayor.

Yet the kind of people who’d back Trump most likely are the ones who would view Chuy as the absolute worst option for mayor – someone who’d take the city in a direction even further away than what they’d desire.

 

GARCIA: Would anybody back Chuy in Trump brawl

EVEN TRUMP-ITES WHO reside in Chicago (and I realize their numbers are few, as little as 2 percent in certain wards of the city) may wind up preferring Rahm if 2019 comes down to another Emanuel vs. Garcia brawl like we had in 2015.

Then, there’s Rauner, who ever since the name “Trump” popped up in political circles a couple of years ago has gone out of his way to distance himself. It actually rivals the way Emanuel tried to avoid saying anything during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary that would take sides between Obama and Hillary Clinton – the latter of whom actually believed that Rahm actually belonged on her side.

Rauner does not want to get tied into any of the ding-dong partisan policies that Trump is cooking up to appease the nativist element that was key to his presidential election.

But it also seems that the same elements were largely responsible for the political gains Republicans made in rural parts of Illinois. Rauner may want us to believe those folks simply hate Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, but it’s more likely they love Trump in Cairo, Ill., as much as they do in Jackson, Miss.

SO IF RAUNER tries too hard to distance himself from Trump, will he wind up losing rural Illinois types who could suddenly find themselves in a “shotgun weddin’” with Chicago-area voters who already have their own reasons to want to “dump Bruce” more than any rural voter wants to “dump Madigan.”

 

TRUMP: Will dumping Donald in '20 be bigger?

Then again, if Rauner doesn’t join in the Trump bashing with Emanuel, he may wind up stirring up the resentment of the more urban parts of Illinois who already are looking at political life for the next few years as crafting ways to keep that orange-dyed goof in the White House from making a complete mess of issues.

A part of me almost feels sorry for Rauner, since I suspect he’s going to get hurt no matter what he does.

Then again, for those of us who are disgusted with the inactivity of Illinois state government the past two years and Rauner’s role in creating the logjam, perhaps getting caught in the Trump crossfire might wind up being the appropriate penalty before we shift focus to a “dump Trump” effort in 2020!

  -30-

EXTRA: Even with the sides changed, partisan politics will carry on

My e-mail Friday morning about an hour before the presidential swearing-in ritual contained a plea for cash from the Democratic National Committee.
 

TRUMP: The official presidential photo

Now that we have Donald J. Trump as our president, the party wants to have as ample a cash flow as possible to pay for their many efforts to counter the activities likely to occur in coming weeks, months and years.

FOR IT WILL be a busy time of political people trying to undermine everything that has occurred in recent years of the now-departed Barack Obama presidency. After spending eight years of obstruction, now the Republican partisans are going to try to erase the actions they weren’t able to stop from occurring in the first place.

Personally, I’m less bothered by the election of Trump himself. I think the man has the intellectual heft of a Glad bag, with most of his “policies” worthy of being stuffed in such a bag and left in the alley for weekly collection.

It is the Republican caucuses in both chambers of Congress who will gain power for their members of a conservative ideological bent because they now will no longer have a chief executive capable of standing in their way.

Of course, it could turn out that Trump becomes capable of standing up to people. At which time, I have no doubt that the GOP types will be more than capable of turning on Trump and depositing his political aspirations into the aforementioned Glad bag. They're backing him because they expect him to be their political lap-dog.

TRUMP IS GOING to learn the hard way that he is a business-oriented guy trying to play politics – and showing thus far that he has no real knack for it. He is the kind of guy who seems to think he can become a real life version of that clownish character he played on television.

 

PENCE: Would presidency be ideologue dream

The executive who goes about bellowing “You’re Fired!!!” at everyone who offends him.

The baseball fan in me wonders if Trump is the equivalent of the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner – who may have put together a few championship ballclubs but also had a string of teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s where the Yankees (a franchise of baseball tradition and glory) turned to garbage.

Garbage that could easily have been stuffed into the aforementioned Glad bag.

IS THE UNITED States of America in the late 2010s about to become the equivalent of the 1990 New York Yankees – who were a 7^th Place (a.k.a., last place) team with a dreadful 67-95 record.

Newly-inaugurated President Donald J. Trump watching a ballgame with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. I wonder if hard-core Yankees fans have the best idea of what the nation faces, considering how low the Yankees sank in the early 1990s back when Trump was a regular Yankee Stadium presence

Ironic, since back in that era Steinbrenner used to like to draw pseudo-celebrities to show up at his ballpark, and those people often included Trump himself. Since with all his gaudiness, he was capable of drawing some sense of flash to himself.

That is what we’re now headed for in these coming years. As for those who call for the impeachment of Trump, keep in mind that putting an ideologue like former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence into the top post might well be the fantasy come true of the hard-core conservatives who are celebrating Friday the departure of Barack Obama from the White House.

Now I don’t doubt there will be an opposition portion of our society that will try to reduce the amount of damage being done to our nation due to the politicking being celebrated today by that segment of our society who thinks it interesting that singer Jackie Evancho is performing at the Inaugural balls taking place in D.C.

WHILE MANY OTHERS are making a point of not going (Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., has been sending me and many others her partisan e-mail messages explaining her lack of a presence in Washington), and many may even be preparing for the marches to take place across the United States on Saturday – including Chicago.

I won’t be there, and not just

Should we buy stock for all the trash we'll generate?

because the management of the newspapers I do some work for sent us all a note informing us that such activity is considered inconsistent with a so-called objective news reporter.

Although I could say that the Dem political operatives already are aware of my absence, since just a couple of days ago I received an e-mail informing me their records showed I had never contributed a dime to their cause.

Should I feel guilt that my vote wasn’t enough – even though I’d argue the ballot is the ultimate political expression one can make to respond to the many Glad bags we’re going to fill up in coming years with all the nonsense our federal government is going to produce.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: I happened to be on the Internet at 10:59 a.m. (CST) looking at the whitehouse.gov website, filled with the Obama administration information. When my clock turned to 11 a.m. (Noon, in D.C.), I hit "refresh." The screen turned solid white. Another quick refresh, and I got to see the official website pronouncing "President Donald J. Trump" (and a campaign photograph of a crowd all excited about making America great again) take its place.

We’re on verge of Obama finale

I find it somewhat amusing to see the amount of attention being paid to the fact that Barack Obama will soon no longer be president.

The next time Barack and Michelle Obama check out Chicago, it will be as D.C.-residing tourists. Photograph provided by the White House

All presidents are meant to be replaced, and Obama managed to win himself election to the post twice – the maximum allowed. Which is a good thing – no one should last too long in that particular post.

IN FACT, THE reality is that it is a good thing that political posts rotate around various political parties – neither of which should ever have total control. Not even Democrats, who in all honesty don’t do as much harm because they’re usually incapable of working together.

Which means that the real threat to our federal government during the next two (perhaps four) years isn’t that we elected Donald J. Trump as president. It is that we elected so many knuckleheads of the GOP persuasion to serve in the Senate and House of Representatives.

People who will be willing to rubber-stamp Trump’s egomaniacal actions so long as they coincide with their own partisan desires. Trump’s blow-hard tendencies wouldn’t be a threat if there was someone willing to stand up to him.

Which may well be why many people are so willing to make a big deal out of Obama’s departure. It will be the last bit of celebration that many of us will have in connection to our federal government for years to come.

WE LITERALLY HAD Michelle Obama make an appearance on Friday that was billed as her last public event as “first lady.” Then on Saturday, people were queued up as early as 6 a.m. all lined up to get the free tickets being issued to the Tuesday event at the McCormick Place convention center that is being billed as Barack Obama’s last public appearance as president.

For every crackpot out there whose political partisanship wants him to denounce this as the ultimate political non-event, there are the masses who truly want to hear one last bit of wisdom from the lone president our city has produced.

It has been quite a while since that moment in Metropolis (the version in Illinois). Photograph provided by Obama for America campaign

Personally, I think those people who are now expressing a willingness to pay mass amounts of money to get tickets from those who got the freebie passes given away during the weekend are a bit foolish.

I wouldn’t pay anything, particularly not the several thousands of dollars that some are asking for in order to be able to say they were there when Obama gave his national farewell.

EVEN THOUGH I’LL admit to feeling a twinge of regret that the Obama years are now over. Obama is someone I have been aware of since he first got elected to the state Senate (I was still a Statehouse reporter back then, and our times in Springfield overlapped by three years).

In fact, I still remember the first time I was introduced to the man – it was on the January 1997 day when he was first sworn in as a legislator. We were given a brief “hello” and handshake, and the token offer of “doing lunch” someday – which never actually happened.

Maybe I’m just the pinhead who didn’t fully appreciate the significance of the man I was meeting. Because I suspect that of all the people I have encountered during some two decades of writing about the Chicago and Illinois political scenes, Obama is most likely the only one of them with the ability and ambition to become U.S. president.

And now, all of that is over. A Hillary Clinton presidency would have given us someone born in Chicago and raised in its suburbs, but it wouldn’t have been the same for Chicago as the Obama years have been.

HILLARY, AFTER ALL, did leave us to attend college, then follow her husband, Bill, to Arkansas.

How many figured the one-time legislator from Hyde Park would become an admired (and reviled) chief executive? Photograph provided by Obama for America campaign.

It will be interesting to hear what, if anything of significance, he has to say on Tuesday. Personally, I’m not expecting something too profound!

It may well be a ceremonial farewell. A chance to say “Goodbye,” while the followers engage in one last chant of “Oh-Bah-Mah! Oh-Bah-Mah!!!”

While that 46 percent segment of the nation that actually voted for Trump to be president will shudder in disgust, then come up with a whole bunch of lame reasons why they think the next four years will be an improvement – even if it turns to be a loss of health insurance and a whole series of other actions that harm their own personal interests.

  -30-

An ongoing education of the American electorate in ways & means of voting

The 2000 election cycle is the one that taught us about the “hanging chad,” and gave us a crash course in just how subjective the process of counting votes can be, while this is the year we learn of the realities of the Electoral College.
 

BIDEN: Will confirm next month that Trump won

I’m all for anything that gives the public a better comprehension of the processes by which we elect people to public office. Yet it disturbs me that it takes instances of screw-ups for the bulk of us to show any instance in learning the lessons.

I BELIEVE WE’D be better as a society if we put some serious thought into who we choose to hold public office. Yet we don’t. In fact, some of us seriously resent the notion that public office even exists, and that people like me think they ought to be thinking about it.

Seriously, I suspect that most of us remember the term “Electoral College” as something that came up in a high school class taken long ago that they promptly let slip from their memories. I’m sure that upcoming party with a beer keg was more interesting, and the alcoholic consumption probably killed off the brain cells that once contained government details.

So it takes an instance where a presidential candidate takes nearly 2.9 million more votes than her opponent, yet loses under the rules we have in place, to get people to think seriously about the Electoral College – which personally is something I consider to be an obsolete concept.

It was created at a time when the Founding Fathers believed the public (or at least the white, male portion of it) would not know enough to properly pick a president. So they were supposed to pick learned people to represent them, and those people would pick the president.

TRUMP: He and Bush beneficiaries of quirks

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE process has evolved since then into one where the electors are supposed to represent the mood of the people of their state. The electors who gathered in Springfield on Monday were Democratic partisans who made sure Illinois will go into the history books as a sensible place that resisted the rancid rhetoric and twittish Tweets of one Donald J. Trump.

But no one seriously expected any significant numbers of electors to change their stances. I suspect those who were chosen to back Trump’s campaign are taking pride in being able to say they gave us “President Donald J. Trump,” and probably think it was a sense of cosmic justice that their guy “won” despite losing the popular vote!

BUSH: Is he embarrassed by any tie to Trump?

All of this means that come Jan. 6, when Congress holds its joint session to formally affirm the Electoral College count taken Monday, I suspect there will be at least one (probably more) political pundit eager to proclaim the look of depression on Joe Biden’s face (don’t forget, he serves as Senate president) when he has to formally announce that Trump really will be Number 45 in the line of men who served as U.S. president.

Anybody who was paying attention in school would have learned about this lengthy process that leads up to the naming of a new president – although I’m sure there are those for whom this is new.

AND ALSO SOME who are upset that the unofficial vote count from back on Nov. 8 didn’t just make the whole thing official.

CLINTON: How many non-voters overcome Trump?

Just as I’m sure there were people who back in 2000 couldn’t comprehend the need for another vote count to answer questions about the one in Florida that first gave the state’s electors to Al Gore, then to George W. Bush, and left enough questions in the public’s minds that there are people who will forevermore think we don’t know what it was that Florida voters intended to do. Because a ballot's intent isn't always blatantly obvious.

Of course, understanding the process is one thing. Actually getting off one’s duff and casting a ballot is all the more important. Because of the evidence that certain segments of the electorate that might have been disgusted by the concept of “President Trump” were too lazy to bother to vote at all.

As odd as it might sound that Clinton needed more than her 2.86 million lead in votes to actually win this election cycle, that is the reality of our current system. The sooner we all realize that, the better off we will be!

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2…, 1…, blast-off!!!!! Or will it just be another round of rhetorical nonsense?

Tuesday is the day; the one in which we cast our ballots and put an end to all the nonsense that has become Election Cycle 2016.

Which one will we pick...

One way or another, we’ll have a winner. One of these people will slink off the stage for us to forget about, and we can go back to thinking there’s a touch of decorum to what passes for the process by which we pick our political people.

YEAH, RIGHT! I bet you’re still waiting for the Cleveland Indians to win that fourth World Series game that puts an end to their 68-year streak of seasons without a World Series win.

To me, the scary thing about Tuesday being Election Day is that it isn’t going to put an end to any of the nonsense that has been taking place in recent months. The electorate is way too worked up into a frenzy for a mere counting of the ballots to bring an end to anything.

There are too many people convinced that a scam of epic proportions is about to take place. There will be those who absolutely will refuse to accept the legitimacy of whatever outcome they’re presented with in the late hours of Tuesday.

Or perhaps even the early hours of Wednesday, if there wind up being glitches that delay the ballot-counting process.

AT THIS POINT, I have to say I don’t have a clue just how stupid the process is going to get at the very end. I do realize this is going to be a turnout election – as in it will be one that gets settled by which candidate has the better organization in terms of getting their faithful loyalists to get off their derrieres and out to the polling places.

Personally, I believe that if every single person whom Donald Trump and his presidential campaign went out of their way to demonize during this election cycle actually get out to vote, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

A butt-whuppin’ of historic proportions for Trump – he’ll learn that it’s no longer the 19^th Century where certain types of people could be told they had no business thinking about politics and ought to leave the governing to the real people.

 

... on this day 3 days before the Armistice of old?

Who are all the individuals who are exactly like themselves.

BUT WHETHER THAT will happen is the big story for Tuesday. I have no doubt that those “deplorables” that Democrat Hillary Clinton says comprise the Trump camp are truly motivated to show up. I also know that, in general, the public gets downright lazy when it comes to turning out to vote.

So if the masses get lazy and the deplorables become a large-enough group, then we get “President Donald J. Trump” and first lady Melania – along with first ex-ladies Ivana and Marla and all their kids. Which in some ways does bear resemblance to the American family of the 21^st Century.

At least moreso than that of Hillary and Bill, their daughter Chelsea and grand-daughter Charlotte. How downright traditional an image they would present.

Although it is Trump, to listen to the ideological crackpots, who is the one bringing back the all-American image. The ideologues would have you think the House of Clinton is the one subversive to what our society stands for.

ALL OF THIS will be fodder for people to complain about in coming weeks, months and years. Because the public is not going to be pleased, regardless of who “wins” the election. I suspect Trump himself will be particularly tactless in his Election Night conduct, yet the hard-core of his followers will be convinced he's merely telling it like it is -- at least in the depths of Trump's own imagined reality.

 

Do we wish we could keep Barry O for 4 more years?

It will be particularly tactless if it becomes “President Hillary R. Clinton” (sense says she is the overwhelming favorite to win), since I wonder if the ideologues will hit her with so much in the way of delaying tactics that we’ll wind up thinking someday how much more harshly they’re beating up on her compared to Barack Obama – who has faced nothing but obstruction during his time in the presidency.

Of course, I have always thought that the Obama presidency was so much harsher in its treatment by the opposition than was that of Bill Clinton.

After all, all the ideologues did was tried to impeach the man and embarrass him by unveiling his sexual fling with a young girl – an act that Trump appears to have committed so many times that people have quit counting!

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When it comes to Election Day, can’t we just get it over with already?

Labor Day has come and gone. Officially, the time period for active campaigning for public office on Election Day is now upon us.
 

Just 63 more 'shopping days' for a candidate

We’re supposed to see a batch of activity that steps up the level of rhetoric that gets spewed about why the opponent is a repulsive idiot and the only sensible vote is one for my candidate.

YET THE REALITY of the 21^st Century is that Tuesday isn’t any more important to the candidates seeking election this year than on any other date. Any campaign that waited until now to get serious is one that is seriously dead in the water.

I’m not saying the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump spat for president can’t get uglier than it already has. Or that Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, have been doing through various legislative campaigns.

After all, Rauner would love to have real political power – which he would get if only he could have a General Assembly composed of people who don’t feel their allegiance is to the people in organized labor whom the governor views as the root of state government’s “problem.”

While Madigan and labor view the new governor as the problem that must be kept in check, People in Illinois, or at least in certain legislative districts, will have a choice to make when it comes to picking that schleppy, anonymous representative they usually pay little attention to.

OF COURSE, THE presidential campaign is offering up a similar choice for voters.

MADIGAN: Continued gov opposition?

It’s less about Hillary vs. The Donald and more about whose influence do you want over government. Particularly with the Supreme Court of the United States.

That vacancy caused by the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia is still open, and the partisan desire to control who picks the replacement is still just as intense.

Heck, for many of the Republican Party operatives who are appalled by the presence of Trump at the top of their party’s ticket, they’re voting for Trump because they want to ensure it isn’t Clinton or Democratic interests that get to shift the balance of the nation’s high court.

RAUNER: Giving governor his way

THEY DIDN’T OBJECT when Ronald Reagan used his presidential powers to shift the leaning of the federal courts to Republicans back in the 1980s, but they seem to resent the idea that partisan leanings are not permanent.

History could wind up seeing a “President Clinton” (the second) as one who reversed the political tinge of the courts’ partisanship.

Which is why some people who personally don’t think much of Hillary will wind up voting for her – the notion of a federal court that isn’t hostile to our ever-changing society and doesn’t seem determined to hold us back in the 18^th Century is something that does appeal to some.

Which also is intriguing in the way Illinois’ legislative races may wind up being influenced by presidential politics. Will people have to choose between federal and state governments, or which way they want the whole mess to lean?

BECAUSE RAUNER HIMSELF is one who has tried to tamper down his own leanings in the presidential campaign. Because the last thing he wants is people becoming so disgusted with Trump that they don’t bother to vote for the Republican in their home district who’d represent them in the Legislature.

TRUMP: Impacting more than his election

Or maybe the first thing he wants is some of those people who pick Hillary for president deciding they don’t want Madigan to influence their local legislator, so they choose to vote Republican instead, on that part of the ballot.

The one safe prediction we can make about what will happen 63 days from Tuesday is that none of the usual rules will apply. The whole thing could become a free-for-all – one that will make the next two months one of those time periods we recall for years to come.

And some of us certainly will wind up having to learn to live down the shame of explaining in the future why they actually cast a ballot for whichever knucklehead they wind up voting for come Nov. 8.

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