It's been a bit since I posted. There are a couple of reasons. First, in July I transitioned from full time to retired. I am currently transitioning from retired to part time. I hope to get a regular schedule going again soon. Second, I have been musing a lot about the 2018 election season and have come to a couple of conclusions.
The Republicans are acting like a parliamentary party. So you have to vote as though they are a parliamentary party, by voting against the party to get rid of the leadership.
I have long blamed Newt Gingrich for moving the United States Congress in the direction of a parliament when he introduced his Contract With/On/For America campaign in the 1990s. Treating congress and the president like a parliament and prime minister distorts the American system that was designed to avoid factions and divide powers among the branches. Nichols makes the point in a September 4
Washington Post column:
. . . one of the great virtues of the American system of separated powers is that voters, usually, can ignore party affiliation if they feel a candidate is worth their support. Our model forces the legislative and executive branches to seek separate mandates from the electorate. In our system, voters can separate the party from its leader. They can split their tickets regionally, nationally and by party. They can even vote for divided government, and choose to place the executive and legislative power in opposing hands.
In the
Post column, Nichols doubles down on his premise that the only way to cure the distortion that the Republican Cult of Trump has caused is to vote for the opposition as one does in a parliamentary system. As a ticket splitter of long standing, I am generally skeptical of the "break it worse in order to fix it" method, but I see few other avenues to reining in megalomaniac who has more in common with a Mafioso than he does with being a President of the United States. I will likely be voting straight Democrat in November.
The qualification "likely" comes from another series of musings about the changes that digital technology has caused. These widespread changes alter not only the ways in which people work and communicate; they also change how people view their neighborhoods and the wider world. More importantly, if my former students are any indication, the technologies change how people think.
Quite frankly, I am not certain that anyone older than I am can understand how to successfully navigate the world digital has created. Posting pictures on one's grandkids on Facebook or ranting on Twitter does not necessarily indicate the ability to navigate that world. It merely indicates that users have learned how to use an app and fooled themselves into believing they are able to keep up with the younger folk.
The belief that older folk may not be able to deal with results digital technology has produced has led me to conclude that I cannot vote for folks older than I am. In fact, I may not vote for anyone older than 55.
Finally, the United States's political season traditionally begins with the Labor Day weekend. Although Republicans have an edge among South Dakota's humans who vote, bovines seem rather displeased with Republican attorney general candidate Jason Ravnsborg. While travelling home from a visit to my mother, my wife and I witnessed a black bovine of unknown gender destroying one of his campaign signs in a pasture bordering I-90. That beast expressed more political certainty than I feel about the choices I will be forced to make in November
