Dear Daily Kos, I am terribly upset.
Created Thursday 07 April 2016
I have this horrible problem. I'm not going to pretend that this problem suddenly materialized, as is the habit with most people who write these articles. I’ve been concerned for some time.
I have this idea that Presidential elections should be about the issues that effect the American public. We shouldn't vote for the candidate who seems more like Elvis. It should go a little deeper than that.
When someone says they support a candidate because they are more experienced or "qualified," I can understand that because I'm not a Republican. I actually don't think that voting for people based on their ability to fire people on reality shows is a great idea. Its fair to say that somebody who is voted in as President of the United States should have suitable experience. I personally feel there are more important considerations, but I understand the argument.
Recently its come to my attention that both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have suggested that their opponent might not be qualified, and some kossacks are terribly bothered by that. Hillary Clinton said it first, but there was less hyperventilating back then. This is a better time to be offended strategically speaking.
Some kossacks feel that this is an unpardonable sin, and the future opposition might win by repeating that their opponent said they were unqualified.
It must be nice to be able to be worried about trivial things that they make you sick to your stomach. I'm more worried about the national housing crisis, or the fact that so many Americans have no pension as they retire. I'm even more concerned about the fact that in a few decades we will start losing cities to climate change. I know many of you have ignoring the climate down to a science, but in a few years its going to feel very important. Someday you'll wonder why you cared so little.
If you think the 'unqualified' comments are disqualifying, perhaps this contest was never really about the state of the country for you? Maybe some of us are watching the election for the same reason other people support their local football team.
That being said, I don't want to frighten anyone, but in the interest of having an informed public, I must state something which may alarm you.
Sometimes when the President has to deal with Vladimir Putin, Putin may use harsh language. He might even swear! No, really!
Furthermore, worse things have been said in every other national election I've ever seen. I find it unlikely that any Republican at the debates will repeat any of this stuff for two reasons.
First of all, I'm not certain that either Cruz or Trump are functionally literate. In order to dredge something like this back up, they'll need to know how to read. Trust me, even the journalists who published stories about this fake catastrophe won't be able to remember the incident very well in a few years.
Usually Republicans get around the literacy problem by having a staff that follows them around and says things in their ear at critical moments, but Trump doesn't have that sort of staff. This is in keeping with the very Republican idea that experts are not to be trusted.
I think that Cruz would be willing to have a small staff, but most Washington insiders don't want to work for the little prick.
Second of all, they will both have much worse things to say.
Whether its Trump or Cruz, he won't even want to bring qualifications up, because this would cause people to realize that he doesn't have any at all. Trump is a crappy reality show host with a series of “strategic” bankruptcies behind him, and Cruz is despised by everyone he worked with because he tried to kill their legislation while not bothering to advance bills of his own.
Instead they will suggest that Hillary Clinton is a witch, or perhaps a similar word that starts with a “B.” Perhaps our future despot-in-training might state his fear that Sanders is a manchurian candidate from Sweden, since Kenya has already been taken. I'm sure they will blame Clinton for her husband's infidelity, if they haven't already done that.
Their base will love it, and everyone else will hate them and wonder what the Republicans have become. I don’t think it will matter much which candidate we vote in at that point. Both will most likely win in a landslide.
So if your sick to your stomach, buy a couple boxes of Pepto-Bismol, because you haven't seen anything yet.
All things considered, the primary race on our side has had little drama, though we kossacks certainly do our best. This is true not only when comparing the Democratic primary with the Republican race, but pretty much every recent election.
Sanders has actually defended Clinton on several occasions, and I don't find that Clinton has been particularly offensive about Sanders. Were I writing for either of these two, I would have come up with something much stronger.
If you want to turn this into a pie fight, I suppose you can do that, but it would be nice if we could be a little more grown up than the other side. I don't feel I'm setting the bar very high.
It was always about the issues for me. It always will be.
