Do I Really Have to Write About the Election?

I guess so.

One of the smartest people I know just will not discuss the election. Period.

I am commenting because a number of you have asked me to do so.

Wise guy after wise guy assured us that this would be close. The fact that it wasn’t is a blessing in a way. That the result in the contest for president was revealed on election night meant that we avoided: riots; lawsuits, the lawyers who bring and defend them, and the judges who decide them; hysteria in the media; blah-blah from higher election officials; vote theft allegations including by inanimate objects, i.e. machines; revelations from lowly vote counters working for $9.82 an hour; b.s. from that new character in the drama, the “observer;” and interim, fevered announcements of partial results.

While each of the two major candidates got a lot of exposure, only one of them was adequately revealed: Trump. A joyous liar and accomplished brow-beater, no person in public life has been so amused by himself. Going off-script as a matter of style, “weaving” as he called it, his large audiences lapped it up, especially the slander. That is until the end when its got ugly.

It turns out that Trump convinced voters that he was for them.

Harris, on the other hand, managed to avoid disclosing who she is and what she stands for. Allergic to direct, responsive answers, she ended up offering a platitudinous mishmash that turned off a lot of voters. No friend of spoken English, Harris reminded me of radio’s Robespierre, the incomprehensible baby brother of Baby Snooks whose statements had to be interpreted by his older sister. You needed a trot (a short, concise analysis of her text). I often thought, “what did she say?”

The decision to use rich, famous entertainment personality Harris endorsers was egregiously inept. Working men and women with nothing to spare after necessities don’t give a damn what Oprah and Beyonce think.

In the end, Harris did not connect.

How Harris got to be the candidate is another part of the story. President Biden, gurgling “under water,” the vivid phrase used by journalism to define his low popularity, was pushed further into the deep by big deal democrats and heavy duty contributors with the result that he stayed down there, quit the race and crowned Harris as the candidate without much of a peep from stalwarts of the Democratic Party. All too late, and not democratic, the name of the party notwithstanding.

As you have heard from others, Biden should never have run in the first place and a democratic process to select his replacement should have been required.

I’m not looking forward to the Trump presidency. I’m willing to be proven wrong. The situation reminds me of a conversation I had with Ed Koch just after his first mayoral win, the greatest moment in his life. “Ed, that’s a great new suit you are wearing.” He responded, “Tom, this is an old suit. The guy in it has changed.”