Tuesday, November 1, 2016

You Can Take Your Polls And ...

I don't do predictions, I have no idea who is going to win any election.  I doubt anyone really has a good idea of what's going to happen in an election based on polls, not Nate Silver not this Sam Wang who is everyone's favorite entrails reader this month.   I am always prepared to be horrified by the results of American elections, I lived through two Nixon wins, two Reagan wins, three Bush wins so it would not surprise me if the TV addled American population voted for the totally phony, totally and disastrously wrong TV reality star over the most harshly vetted and so most objectively honest and qualified candidate who has ever run for the office.  That she is a woman adds to the possibility of America making this biggest mistake ever.   And TV and the rest of the media are, largely, the reason that we could very plausibly make that biggest mistake in our history, they are the source of the rot that may kill democracy.  

A lot of people see the decline into decadence we are in is a failure of intelligence, of education.  I don't think that's the primary reason for it, the primary reason for it is the corruption of the morals of the American People through the media.  I know some people of average to more modest intelligence who are voting against Trump due to his moral depravity, I know people with degrees and high intelligence who are voting for him because they figure he'll be good for their tax rate.  Our media is certainly dominated by people a lot more like the later category than the former.  

I hope for the best but I expect the worst and this year that worst is the worst of my lifetime.  And I remember when Nixon ran in 1960.  I couldn't vote yet but every one in my family was terrified that that horrible man would win that year.  We lived through him, though I think there is a lot more reason to think we might not live through a Donald Trump regime. 

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