My pick for President of the United States

The noise of the nominating conventions is finally over.  On one side, the gears are grinding as the monkey wrench known as Donald Trump continues to confound the Republican Party, the media, pundits, Democrats and pretty much everyone else.  He has and continues to alienate the traditional big money Republican base, all of whom are taking their balls and going home to pout, while bringing together a populist gathering (minus the overt racism) that hasn’t been seen since the days of George Wallace.

On the other side, The Democrats have again made history.  Fresh from nominating and electing our first mixed-race president, they have nominated the first female candidate for the office.  Whoopee for that.  I find it far more interesting that they have nominated our first communist candidate for president.  E. Jeffrey Ludwig’s American Thinker article, “Hillary Is a Menshevik” makes a very reasoned case for Hillary Clinton as communist, just not the sort of communist that we are familiar with from the Cold War.

We’re into the home stretch of the presidential campaign now.  Trump appears to be far better on things like the Second Amendment and defense of our borders, and possible better on less international adventuring.  He may be better for the business climate as well, but that’s a hard call to make.  He does seem to scare most of our nominal allies.  We can bet that his most far out tendencies will be tempered by Congress.

Hillary, on the other hand, is an absolute enemy of the Constitution, Second Amendment and all the rest.  She will rewrite it via a friendly Supreme Court every time it gets in her way.  Our borders will be wide open.  She doesn’t seem to make our nominal allies afraid, although as a woman, most Muslim nations will play nice to her face and stab her in the back.  She may or may not be better for the business climate, at least in the short run.  Depending on how long her coattails are if she wins, her worst tendencies may not be tempered by Congress.

We have a hell of a choice before us.  Never in my memory have we had such shit choices for president.  Hell, at least we could all hope McCain would stroke out early on, and Romney was a typical County Club Republican, and we’ve done fairly well under several of those.  Bush 41 wasn’t a complete bumbler.  As much as I hate saying it, even Bill Clinton wasn’t a disaster.  OK, he wasn’t a *total* disaster.

So, what do we do?

I think staying home isn’t going to help, and while a number of folks are yelling “Third Party” and “Libertarian!”, neither of those stand any chance of getting elected this time around.  I understand the logic of “But if you don’t vote for them…” but I also understand that we have the Wicked Witch of Wellesley running for President of the United States and she has a damn good chance of winning.  If she does, the last 7+ years of Obama are going to look like the Good Ol’ Days.  For me and the sort of people who generally visit this blog, her belief system is utterly opposed to what we believe in.

I don’t see Trump as a great choice either.  He’s a bombastic loudmouth, and I can figure out if it’s an act or really him.  I hope it’s an act, a cunning ploy to psyche out his opponents.  I fear that it isn’t, and that he’ll wind up writing checks this county can’t cash.

Both of them are promising government spending out the wazoo.  Great.  More debt, just what we need.  We can’t repay what we owe already.

So, all things considered, I’m going to go, probably during early voting, and tap a touch screen button (we don’t get the physical satisfaction of “pulling the lever” any longer) for Trump.

Shortly thereafter, I will be going to the range to practice.  One way or the other, I’m afraid that skillset may come in handy.