Fire away

For saying this, I'll get blistered, I know, but here goes: I thought the Democratic Convention was a triumph. But then, I think Obama was a wonderful president. (Okay, flip the safety off those flamethrowers). 

It's just sad that we're so horribly split.  Robert Costa and Karen Tumulty, in this morning's Washington Post put it this way: "The country’s two major political parties, emerging from their conventions to square off in the general election, are speaking to Americas unrecognizable to each other. . ."

People came over a couple nights ago and sat outside on our patio. We've got no trees, so the ball-of-flame sun in the southern sky made it hard to sit outside if you didn't have sunglasses or a visor. I told people I had a host of caps, walked in the house to get a couple, and picked up one that said "Obama '08." I knew very well that two of our guests were died-in-the-wool Republicans, felt their torrid heat before, so I left the Obama cap inside.

Then, the next night, at the city park, a man my age, huge chest, walked up in a gray t-shirt big as a bed sheet that announced in big block lettering, "Hillary for Prison." There it was, across his chest. He walked around proud as a bully. 

I told myself I was a wimp, scared to unveil that already historic Obama cap in front of a couple of men who likely would have loudly admired the condemnation boldly proclaimed across the wide chest of that Trumpian in the middle of the park. He wore that thing proudly. 

Maybe you've seen the Dick Morris video, commended to me yesterday via Facebook and posted there by an old friend. Ten minutes of undiluted hate from a man Fox News once fired for lying, a man whose mission has been devoted to hate since then-President Clinton cut him off the payroll. Later, I read a FB note from someone who believes that the Clintons are cold-blooded killers, having murdered (among other enemies) young women Bill got with child. Not just murderers, mass murderers--Bonnie and Clyde or whatever. Believes it. The media is simply in on the whole plot, even Fox.

My distaste for Donald Trump is worse than distaste. I don't think he's murdered anyone, but his lies swell beyond all imagination. No one, not even his disciples, believe he's going to create a ten thousand homeland cops to grab 11 million people and put them on buses or whatever and send them south, do they? No one in his or her right mind anyway. 

But then, people don't love Donald Trump for what he believes. That's not why. Nobody knows what he believes, and he's got no track record. People love Donald Trump the full-throttle way they love Chevys or I-phones or John Deere. They just do. They just love him. He isn't a politician, he's a kind of god. Discrediting him means trying to break faith itself, and that's no easier job than it is breaking the faith of some ISIS suicide bomber. Right here in my neighborhood Trump told a crowd he could kill a man on Broadway and his admirers would only fawn. He was right. He isn't a human being, he's a empowering, dear feeling. 

Lots of Bernie supporters walked away unhappily last night because they somewhere along the line they felt the burn. They believed him and in him and bawled when he backed up into the open arms of the enemy. He and Trump weren't so much men as movements.

We believe. You're not going to convince me that Obama wasn't one of the best Presidents we've had in my lifetime. You can try, but it won't happen because my faith was in him--and still is. 

Some of us--most of us really--are true believers. 

No matter who bests the other come November, half of the country are already sworn to hate whoever occupies the Oval Office, so here's the real sadness: we'll go through another four angry years, our ire aroused only by each other, four more years of slashing and bashing and huff-and-puff stalemate. Gridlock.

Keep those flamethrowers gassed up, folks. The infernal battling goes on.