Don't Let Us Be Sick

 The late songwriter, Warren Zevon was on my mind yesterday, as I dreaded what I expected to be the darkest underbelly of politics on display in the CNN 'presidential' debate. Zevon wrote "Don't let us get sick, don't let us get old. Don't let us get stupid, all right? Just make us be brave and make us play nice and let us be together tonight." Anyone watching the debacle would be amazed that the usually curmudgeonly Zevon would be seen as the optimist in this unsettling setting. What I saw were two old men baring their teeth when this country likely needed them both to jointly agree to step aside due to apparent incapacitation and legal complications. Their joint belligerence and distaste toward each other would have been better served in a wrestling cage than as two trying to convince a skeptical nation that we would be served well by either of them. Add to it the nonsensical lies and self-serving rambling talking points; no one can say that it was time well spent.

I am done trying to defend to others that either party has the best interest of We the People in mind when they decide to cast their lot with these two old hickory nuts. Democracy is failing us at this moment if we can't stop this train from rolling into the station. I hope that clear-headed people on all sides are able to recognize the craziness of the moment and act on that information. Rage against the machine! Insist that the party conventions open themselves up to floor votes and put forward candidates that are reasonable or at least coherent. We have no other choice, if we hope to have a functioning and actually democratic country.

We can argue the relative merits of voting for the party over the candidate, but in the end, one of these men would be the leader and face of this country for the next four years and we would either be sweeping up after one of them or swept up in a net by one of them. Maybe we have a national COVID brain fog or something, but there is no healthy scenario that I can see if either Biden or especially Trump are sworn in again. As Zevon wrote, "I thought of my friends and the troubles they've had to keep me from thinking of mine." It is time to think about our friends. Please, don't let us be sick.