The Vicissitudes of Political Campaigning in the 21st Century
It looks like this year’s presidential campaign is off to a flaming & blaming start, with Donald Trump’s campaign manager working hard to prove that Joe Biden is incompetent because he’s old and already suffering from dementia.
Bernie Sanders is, ostensibly, unacceptable because he made the silly claim that he’s a “democratic socialist”. Regardless of what that term may convey. So now, Bernie has to make a much greater effort to clarify what his political affiliation really means — what “socialism” really is — so that we who are high school graduates won’t misinterpret its connotations — which throws his relevancy and his leadership competency in question.
The fact that our nation’s current political and social stance is to provide for the social welfare of all of us, and thus our Congress makes political and legal choices that impact our social policies, is overlooked and ignored.
We the People need a good lesson in what all this means before we find fault with our candidates and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Obviously the Trump campaign, and the Republican National Committee, are concerned that just maybe Donald Trump might not be re-elected in November…if they feel they must come out slinging mud balls and cow pucky at Joe Biden. But, of course, they were planning on slinging that cow pucky at Bernie Sanders before Joe Biden volunteered to take the lead. I suppose it’s asking too much for our Republican campaign pundits to make cogent references to genuine political actions and campaign promises in their haste to prove that Democratic Party candidates are irrelevant, immoral or incompetent to serve as our future president in November. Instead, they are leading off with a smear campaign. How trite.
At the start of this year, even though I would never, ever, vote for Donald Trump, I had the disappointed impression that, try as we all might, there would be no real chance that we could remove him from office in November, regardless of how qualified or how popular any candidate we propose would be. But suddenly, this week, I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel. There is a chance that we could succeed, and that Donald Trump will not be re-elected. Why? Because there is such an upwelling of interest in Joe Biden, and many of us Bernie supporters have not yet given up on our hope for him also.
Perhaps we should all be thankful that Mr. Trump’s fanboys, in their arrogance and presumptions, have reached the premature conclusion that the Democratic Party, and our candidates, are out of the running already. Their assumptions are subject to re-evaluation and surprise before the first week of November, I’d like to think. Pride goeth before a fall, it’s been said.
This may well prove to be the nastiest political campaign season our country will have to endure, since we had to endure the campaign at which Abraham Lincoln was running for the office of the presidency.
