ANXIOUS & SCARED ABOUT 2020? DON'T BE. IT'S OUR BIG CHANCE TO CHANGE HISTORY
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
- John F. Kennedy, from his inaugural speech, Jan. 20, 1961
This means that you are either one or the other: A Democrat or a dog.
I’m both, so maybe I can help my fellow Democrats get through their dark hours of despair.
You ask: How can a dog possibly comfort a Democrat? Can a mere hound assure them that in the morning, they'll realize that terrible nightmare – the recurring one about Donald J. Trump winning a second term – was just a silly, laughable dream?
Ha. Hah ha. Ha hah. Ha HAH!
Sorry, Democrats, it's no dream. And no joke. The Trumpster is holding steady in the polls, maybe gaining. His Hive-Cult voters may have an outsized impact thanks to the blunder the Founders committed when they concocted the Electoral College.
In contrast, consider the Democrats: How many charismatic, sure-bet, can't-fail marquee superstars can they put up against Trump? You know the answer: Zero. As in 0.
Go ahead and say it: Phoebe, you’re just a dog; dogs don't talk; dogs don't type; dogs don't know anything. Ergo: be a good girl and get lost.
And I say: You sniveling, scared, cowering bunch of self-pitying Democrats, stop whining and quit your obsessive worrying and hand-wringing, and please, please stop believing everything that the polls and the pundits are telling you about your failures and mistakes.
Instead, look at the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we've landed: a chance to save both Democracy and the World.
THINK OF IT.
Our country is right on the edge – teetering between oblivion and resurrection.
Meaning it's the best time in memory – maybe in all history – to be a liberal, a progressive, a reformer with a chance to actually do something big, something more important than learning the third and fourth verses to a folk song.
Donald Trump is the embodiment of absolute evil.
Everything he does violates what most people believe in and strive to be. He’s mean. He’s racist. He’s anti-immigration and pro-Russian. He’s a polluter and a serial liar, who hates science, education, the arts and history. Trump is scared of dogs, like when he ordered Conan, the warrior dog that helped bring down an ISIS leader, to come to the White House for a photo-op. Trump kept his distance, assigning Veep Mike Pence, his personal poodle, the dangerous job of patting Conan on the head.
Could there be a better candidate to run against?
Does it get any better than this?
In the Great Election of 2020, we have a chance not only to vanquish The Bad Man, but to rescue an entire Planet.
Boo-hoo. Trump’s got his base: zombie goons in the South, obedient Robo-Senators in the "Upper Chamber," and over at the High Court, a couple of fellow sex offenders. Meanwhile, all sorts of opportunists are playing the art of the deal, angling to feast on more tax breaks and to wangle exemptions from safety regulations, even as criminals -- military and civilian alike - come crawling, hoping to pick up a pardon or two.
What can Democrats offer?
A cast of candidates, whom, we're told, are either too liberal or too bland; too rich or too young; too unknown or too past their shelf lives. Candidates with last names that are too hard to pronounce or spell, or who have racked up too many candles on their birthday cakes. Candidates who are too white, too rich, too black, too gay, too girly or too manly. And overall, there are just too many candidates.
So Phoebe, the Democrats ask, what did we do to deserve this?
I have no answer. Like you said, I’m just a dog.
Maybe it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Maybe America was never as perfect as we imagined. Maybe we got too fat, lazy and spoiled, taking democracy for granted when it’s actually a work in progress, always in need of protection from forces that are constantly on the prowl, looking for ways to destroy it.
To be fair, Democrats truly have suffered an ungodly series of disappointments.
Every time it looked like Trump was a goner, he kept going with his no-consequences shooting spree on Fifth Avenue.
Dogs know what it’s like to be disappointed.
You hope a piece of meat will fall off the kitchen table, that you’ll be invited for a ride in the car, that the Humans will leave the bedroom door open so you can sack out on the big bed. Lots of things don’t work out.
But if a dog wallows in despair, she’ll miss her big chance.
Let's say a dog is hauled to the pound as a stray. Because she has this poor-me, hang-dog attitude, she forgets to wag her tail and to make goo-goo eyes at the nice lady with a nice home to offer, but who who keeps on walking right past her cage.
I BEGAN THIS POST with something from a nearly 60-year-old inaugural speech, which probably was written by someone other than the guy who delivered it. The man who made the speech was a genuine war hero, with great hair, a quick wit and a long list of flaws.
John Kennedy cheated on his wife, nearly started a nuclear war, advanced the Vietnam "conflict," seemed halfhearted about civil rights, couldn’t get Congress to do much and suggested we go to the moon to expand our horizons, when all he wanted was to scare the bejeezus out of the Commies.
Still, Jack Kennedy genuinely inspired lots of Americans to do lots of great things, and after he was gone, we really did dance on the moon.
Those lines Kennedy delivered in the last century apply just as much to us in our century. “… only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.”
Democrats, stop sulking and start fighting. There’s no perfect candidate waiting to be discovered: she doesn’t exist, neither does he. But any Democrat on our big stage will be a terrific president, not just compared to Donald Trump, but because they're part of a talented, decent and capable group.
Let’s consider ourselves the luckiest generation, the one that's been presented with a onetime chance to rescue democracy and save a planet.
Does it get any better than that?