Three days ago I mentioned that I have covered election seasons on this website since 2004, and I provided a blog from that year. This morning I took my mail-in ballot directly to the township hall – not because I don’t trust the USPS – because I was going by there anyway.

So I’m done with this year’s ads, requests for money, discussions with friends, opinionators, and the candidates themselves. But it doesn’t mean I’m done with the process. With that in mind, I’m repurposing a blog from the 2008 season for your consideration.

November 5, 2008

Where  is Alma Jones?

When I was in grammar school, there were two African American students in my grade: Alma Jones and Gabrielle Jacquet. I didn’t spend a lot of time playing with either girl, as I had my own circle of friends; and pre-teens were a cliquish bunch even back then.

But I thought of Alma and Gabrielle this morning as I rang up my dear friend Carol, who shares my memories from that era. She also shares my political point of view today.

Of course, we were both excited that Barack Obama had won the Presidency. We’d talked about this for months; watched TV shows; devoured reading material; and kept our fingers crossed. We listened to debates and participated in a few ourselves.

Carol and I are of the age that literally grew up in the years where African Americans were called Negroes and sat in the back of the bus. As young adults we witnessed the strikes and marches of the civil rights movement. To this day, we remember exactly where we were when President Kennedy was assassinated. And when Dr. Martin Luther King was too.

So even though both of us are white, we were filled with emotion about seeing an African American attain the highest office of our land because for most of our lives this was not possible. “I wonder where Alma Jones is,” I said to Carol. She knew what I meant.

My sharing of ancient blogs is intentional. NANOWRIMO is coming, and I want to be ready. I want you, kind reader, to be ready too.

More to come . . .

In the past few weeks, many Republicans who were involved as members of  President Trump’s Cabinet, his Situation Room, or other prominent positions in the administration have gone on record as saying he is now unfit for office.

Today, it was retired U.S. Marine Corps general John Kelly’s turn; he has the distinction of being the longest serving White House chief of staff in the Trump era that ended almost four years ago. He is quoted in The New York Times as saying Trump admired Adolph Hitler back then and wanted the type of general Hitler commanded in World War II; that is, the type who gave allegiance to the Fuhrer over anything. Kelly claims Trump fits the definition of a fascist today.

I don’t know which Republican started saying Candidate Harris was a better alternative than Candidate Trump. Perhaps it was Dick Cheney or Mike Pence or any of the 40 former cabinet members who served under Trump who have gone on record that they are not voting for him. Maybe it was General Mike Milley.

Or in my own state of Michigan, maybe it was former House Representative Fred Upton, who chose not to run in 2022 after thirty years in office. He has announced he’s already voted for Harris.

Many people have praised those public figures who once were in Trump’s ranks with coming out against him. For me it feels like rats jumping ship. I mean: If some of their reasons are true for not backing the GOP nominee – and have been true since Mr. Trump was in office – what took them so long?

On another note, rapper Eminem and country music star Jason Aldean came out in support of The Donald.

Election Day is two weeks away, although early voting has begun in many places.  For the record, the first national election I covered in this blog was in 2004, exactly twenty years ago. If you want to read those blogs from that era go to this website, scroll down to the bottom of the page where you’ll find the Categories Archive, and click on 2004 Election.

Here is one of the posts, titled “Election Eve.”

Tonight is Election Eve, where everyone in our country will go to sleep under the current administration and wake up tomorrow ready to vote. Even the undecideds must climb down from the fence. Tomorrow night’s sleep may not be as restful, regardless of which candidate one voted for. There is too much in the balance.

Over the course of tomorrow night, I see a long siege of popular votes vs. electoral votes. I see another long siege of battleground states vs. the rest of us. I see anger and challenges and votes of the recorded and nonrecorded kind. What I don’t see is a country exercising its right to vote in the spirit in which democracy is intended. Things are too bitter.

When I was in school, I was taught that democracy was about respecting each person’s point of view; in the end, the candidate who received the most electoral votes won. We elected our officials by ballot and not by battleground. But what’s happened in recent years is that elections have been fraught with claims of chicanery, and the winner has not had a clear-cut mandate. As a country, we are so evenly divided that, regardless of who wins on Tuesday, it will be difficult to come together. If we don’t try, however, our definition of democracy will eventually become synonymous with chaos.

Scary, isn’t it?

I am not particularly offended by four letter words, even those words with five letters. Or six. At the same time, I think the people who use them demonstrate a certain mentality that lacks creative thinking. Unless the situation is one of extreme unexpected pain. Then all is forgiven.

But as a matter of regular discourse, using four letter words is insulting and demeaning, not only to the person who hears them but also to the person who uses them.

A and I had coffee yesterday and she said she’d noted how a certain candidate for president of the United States had taken to such language. Honestly, I hadn’t noticed; but then this morning I read a transcript from a reputable source of said candidate’s speech at a recent rally in Latrobe, PA.  It was sprinkled liberally with potty mouth language on top of the usual catcalling of immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ. One wonders if this approach suggests an increasing decline in mental capacity.

I’m not a psychiatrist or a neurologist or any other kind of ologist. But I don’t think it takes years of education to see that behavior has meaning. And the current behavior of a certain candidate suggests that he, like Biden, needs to find a way to exit, stage left.

Or perhaps the electorate with help him.