Perfect Storm Politics

This election year may seem chaotic. It is! We have a candidate for President who can get things done because she knows the ropes, understands the processes, and has a broad, intellectual mind up for all the challenges known and unknown. That is Hillary’s strong suit.

We have the agenda builder and speaker to those items who has credibility with the agenda items. He is a long term thinker and a serious person about all of this. He is an honest and earnest person. This would be Bernie but then he has not earned enough primary delegates to win the party nomination; so he is out of the running. But he is not out of influence either in the party or among the electorate.

Then we have the third candidate who spouts the anger, fear, weird points of view and anarchy sentiments of those in our nation who simply haven’t kept up with the details and facts. They are unhappy and tend to blame anyone nearby, and certainly the sitting elected officials although they most likely have the wrong party, wrong official, wrong era in mind, and no memory of history. They are simply misfits. This would be the Trump camp. Their motto: Say what I feel and want you to believe is true regardless of the facts or importance. Yep; that would be them!

There is a problem with all of this. Mr. Trump’s supporters reflect a very large body of American citizens. They may be ignorant of the facts and woefully unschooled in history. But they have the numbers to move mountains if they manage to get to the polls and vote on election day. A frightening prospect, I know; but possible just the same.

Bernie’s efforts are noble in the main but misappropriating power at the wrong time. His messages should be fueling discussion and policy setting well into the future but they are not well timed for the public’s acceptance at this time to be made into law, policy or program. Besides, we don’t have the money to fund these ideas at this time and won’t until we fix a lot of other things first. Then his ideas will be great for processing.

Meanwhile, Bernie’s push distracts the country from the real task we have at the moment: electing an administration to take on the constitutional passing of the torch from the Obama era to the new era, whoever that is that will lead us. This requires work and attention. Details, history, policy, process and immediate outcomes. That’s the business of government and it is important. Interrupting the process and functioning of government leads to disaster. We need to be serious about this.

That is precisely why I support Hillary Clinton for President. She is prepared. She is a thinker and intellectual power. She is broad based in understanding the world community and knows how to get along with it. She is not a blunderbuss who will bully her way through international affairs or delicate cultural obstacles. She will be good at working with and collaborating with world powers to press forward for global peace.

At home she understands Congress. She knows the division lines of ideology and personality. She knows the people. She knows the institution. She knows its history and its protocols and policies. She can handle this complex environment and retain focus on what matters for the nation as it moves forward into the future.

And she is well aware of the challenges as we the people struggle with complex issues that affect each of our lives directly. No easy task to productively encounter such issues and make the best of the situation given the current environment of heated argument, obstacle strewn politics and obstructionism these days.

That’s precisely why Hillary is the best candidate. But it is also precisely why we are facing the current mess and chaos. Americans are angry at everything and everybody. It is misplaced anger. But it also contains a heavy dose of fear. That’s what bothers me the most.

Fear. It is unreasonable at its very base. It doesn’t rely on facts, just suspicion and unrefuted details. The mind goes wild conjuring what could go wrong. Do this enough and things will go wrong merely because control is ebbing away while we deal with the fearful mobs who become incapable of doing anything much productive.

That saps our society of vitality.

The perfect storm is a coming together of ignorance, false anger and growing fear. With unreasonable demands for sweeping change while no one can fully engage such solutions, only leads to more chaos. So the rage continues and builds.

The need is for calm and clear thinking. And that is Hillary, clearly the only one on stage at this very moment who has those qualities. The others have not demonstrated this quality.

In time Bernie’s agenda must be digested and implemented in part or whole over time. It will take time and patience and talent to implement. But first we have to have a calm and ordered discussion of its details. And then we must scope out the resources to make it all happen over time. And of course we will need to deal with the existing programs that need to be pushed out of the way to make room for the new programs. This takes time we don’t currently have but will.

For now we need to focus on this election and choose the best for America moving forward for the next four years. For me the choice is clear. And the bonus is she is the first woman President to be elected in our history. And that is a very great bonus in my book.

June 24, 2016