John Andrist: A Choice Between Hate and Corruption

Donald Trump in his quest for becoming our president has said a lot of preposterous stuff. In a field of 11 candidates nobody believed he would last. They were wrong.

Doug Burgum announced his intention to run for governor, challenging the man who arguably has been the best vote getter in the last 20 years. Nobody expected him to make a serious challenge. We were wrong.

The Brits defied all conventional wisdom in their proposal to leave the European Union. Their leadership and that of almost every other European country said it couldn’t happen. They were wrong.

So, what is going on?

Is there really a pent up anger all over our free world? I think that perhaps this is overstatement, but clearly there is a pervasive belief that something is wrong in our systems of governance.

For one thing the premise of free and fair trade between nations, which has systemically been moving forward for a couple of generations, is no longer a given, even though it has been championed by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

It was the central issue in Britain’s vote to abandon the EU. And it  has also been a hallmark of the rise of Donald Trump — bringing back American jobs. Never mind we have been offered no specifics on the methodology.

Workers are disenchanted for fear of losing jobs, which at best seem to be frozen from potential growth.

Twenty-five years ago the world was celebrating the fall of a famous wall. Today we are talking about building new ones.

There is a trend in the Communist world toward more democratization. At the same time in this free Democratic world Bernie Sanders has won much support for his socialist agenda, even while in Venezuela, not far from our own shores, socialism has once again failed disastrously.

It seems no matter what kind of government is in power, the people think it isn’t working.

Legions of refugees are running from revolutionary conflict looking for new homes. Yet we don’t seem to be in agreement on who and how many we want to welcome.

We view them as a threat to our own jobs or to the safety of those we love most.

Probably most troubling is the fact that those on whom we have depended to figure things out are left guessing like everyone else.

We’ve stripped the power of our political parties, and at the same time millions of us are quietly praying that those parties can find a way to overturn our own voting decisions.

That’s because we don’t like the idea of choosing between a campaign imbedded with hate and one with more than a fair share of corruption.

And most of us pretty well believe that those who think they really know everything, really don’t know anything.

Other than for these things, however, we are essentially living longer, more healthy lives, we have so much food that obesity has become a national problem, and the only thing that keeps us from getting to shopping centers to buy trunks full of non-essentials is that there are too many cars and too much road construction in the way.

Who for vice-president?

Now that we appear to have two presidential candidates we don’t like, the search is on to find vice-presidential running mates who we probably won’t like.

Funny stuff

I’m not inclined to use internet stuff as a substitute for “home written” columns. But these are kind of funny:

“How come we have to choose between two candidates for president, but we have 50 candidates for Miss America?”

“Marriage changes passion. Suddenly you’re in bed with a relative”.

“When I was young we used to go ‘skinny dipping.’ Now I just ‘chunky dunk.’”

“I signed up for an exercise class and was told to wear loose fitting clothing. If I had any loose fitting clothing, I wouldn’t have signed up in the first place!”

“Wouldn’t you know it. Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever”.

“Why do I have to swear on a Bible in a courtroom, when the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed on the courthouse lawn?”

And finally, “Wouldn’t it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ and start all over?”