The Third Debate

     A couple of news sites called it the “rubber match,” which I feel is unnecessarily disrespectful to the game of contract bridge (if not to rubbers). I declined to watch it, as:

1. I simply can’t take any more of this campaign,
2. There was a N.Y. Rangers hockey game to watch;
3. If I’d turned it on, the CSO might have divorced me.

     Moreover, the comments I’ve read so far this morning suggest that I wouldn’t have heard anything I don’t already know. For example, consider this comment by a fellow participant at Gab.ai:

     WARNING! Americans! Be on the lookout for toddlers - most of them will try to shoot you if they get a chance.

     It seems that comment was stimulated by a Hillary Clinton rant about the safety of “toddlers” in response to the subject of firearms rights and gun control. (It’s not reported whether she said anything about the menace of rolling wheels of cheese.) Clearly, the woman’s cognitive deterioration is nearing its terminus. It’s a wonder she didn’t start “speaking in tongues” in the middle of the affair.

     I am more firmly persuaded than ever that this election must be about character.

---

     I’ve said it before, and I’ll stand by it: The idea of a President Donald Trump displeases me. He’s excessively vulgar – and that’s coming from one who can swear the barnacles off an aircraft carrier. (It’s genetics, albeit in the Lamarckian mode. I’m the son of a Navy veteran whose every third word was some variation of fuck.) He’s too quick to “shoot from the lip,” which the United States can’t afford in its presence among the nations. He’s also prone to making promises he fails to keep. But there are certain realities to be respected, for which reason I’ll be voting for him anyway.

     First, at least a quarter of the votes that will be cast on November 8 will be for Hillary Clinton “because she’s a woman.” Pudenda politics! Possibly the most disgraceful abdication of the faculty of reason I’ve ever seen. But it will happen – and because it will happen, there is absolutely no possibility of anyone other than Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump being elected our 45th president.

     Second, Trump, despite his brashness and vulgarity, is a fundamentally honest man. He’s not a career politician but a businessman: a participant in the marketplace. The marketplace demands honesty. It seldom rewards deceit, and never rewards it long-term. It is now a matter of irrefutable, impeccably-documented fact that Hillary Clinton is a felon by the laws of this nation, regardless of whether she’s ever brought to trial for her crimes.

     Third, if there’s a national imperative before Americans today, it’s the need to repudiate the political Establishment. The kingmakers in the two major parties think they own this country. They feel the most profound contempt for the private citizenry. They collude more often than they compete. And nothing matters to them more than maintaining their positions, power, and perquisites. The only practical way to deal them the blow across the chops they deserve is to elect Donald Trump.

     And that settles it.

---

     I’m not looking forward to Election Day. There are too many possibilities for an unpleasant surprise. Besides, I’ll be following the returns alone that evening, as the CSO will be out of town. Perhaps I’ll cushion the inevitable blows with a program of Cheez Doodles (pyramid level 4) and Harvey’s. I can’t imagine a better way to attain the invaluable “fuck it all” mental state required to endure the American political process in this year of Our Lord 2016.

     Of one thing I am utterly certain: Private Americans’ ongoing disaffiliation from politics, the legal system, and the orations of the political elite will continue. It might accelerate sharply, depending on the election and its sequels. But for that, we must wait and see.

     Don’t lose heart.
     Keep faith with liberty and justice.
     Keep faith with your fellow Americans.
     And above all else, keep faith with yourself.