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I don't often get political. It says right on my blog header that I identify as a feminist, and so I don't feel the need to hit people over the head with it. And I'm pretty passionate about a couple of things--free speech, sane gun laws--and have posted about those issues a few times. I don't think that political beliefs are ever simple. I was brought up by an Eisenhower Republican and a die-hard Democrat who once voted for John Anderson and I would have to be stranded on another planet before I skipped voting. My father died three days short of an election day in 1985 but it didn't matter beause he had voted by absentee ballot the week before. Yes, my father voted on his death bed. He would have been appalled at the political circus we now call presidential politics.
I am appalled.
I am old enough to remember George Wallace's hate-mongering campaign.
I saw the infamous anti-Barry Goldwater "daisy/nukes" ad in a political science class in college. (This ad was so memorable and potent it practically won LBJ's election single-handedly. And it's now available on YouTube. But it only ran ONCE. That's how powerful it was.)
So this election cycle is not my first. I was 19 the first time I voted, one of the first of a generation that was allowed to vote before we reached our "majority" of 21. That was during the Vietnam War when the rallying cry for lowering the age to vote was, "Old enough to die? Old enough to vote."
Western Illinois University, which has successfully predicted the winner of the presidential election for the last 40 years has released their prediction for 2016. They think it's going to be Bernie Sanders. Which means they think it is NOT going to be Donald Trump. And that is good news to me. Because this country does not need the fear-mongering, hate-filled, "I got mine "message Trump is preaching.
I never understood the Adolf Hitler cult of personality or how anyone could have voted him into office. But now, when I look at Trump speaking (and watch with the sound turned off) and the cynical way he manipulates crowds--I sudddenly see just how easy it was. It's all fun and games until a demagogue gets elected. And if Donald Trump wins, he will take this country down a very dark path.
I now return you to our regularly scheduled blog about food, fiction, and France.
