Hillary Vs. Foolery

graphic via pixabay

 

The night before the first presidential debate, I had a dream that the candidates and I were playing a favorite childhood game of mine, I Declare War. The object of the game is to win the most cards, and the player with the highest card wins the round and collects the set of cards from losing players. If two players show cards with the same value, then a tie-breaking round ensues.

They were both cheating, but Trump was more obvious. He’d attempt to distract us by saying something huge was happening outside or in another part of the house and then replace low-value cards with high-value ones up his sleeve. The shirt was thin, so I noticed. Clinton was cheating too, only more slick about it. She’d marked the whole deck, patiently counting and waiting for her winning cards to come around naturally.

I said nothing, because I was the scorekeeper and refused to record any cheat-points. Trump screamed at me after each losing round that he’d played a fair game, turning more or less burnt orange, and much in sync with my waking-life principal of not throwing ration at foolery, I ignored him. Clinton calmly apologized, swearing she didn’t know the rules.

In the dream, we were all about thirteen. When I woke up as my adult self, as far as I could tell, Clinton was behaving like a grown woman. Trump was still adolescent.

So, I wasn’t going to watch the debate, because I don’t watch reality shows and there were already so many reasons Trump would never have my vote—inexperience, bigotry, racism, sexism, lack of focus—but mostly because I believe he is a narcissistic thirteen year old bully who may have undiagnosed mental health issues. Still, I had to see for myself.

As expected, he was unprepared, off-message, and wah-wah-wahed his way through questions. With a clenched jaw, I watched him proudly defend asking for president Obama’s birth certificate for almost his entire presidency as though he had provided a public service.

Watched him talk about lowering tax rates for the rich in an effort to help the poor.

Watched him skid over the epidemic of police shooting unarmed black men, painting African American communities as “living hells” anyway.

Watched him say Clinton didn’t look presidential and then flip it to her not having the “stamina” to be president. Like we were all in a sound-proof booth and hadn’t heard his first cut.

Watched him point to this and that in the same crazy, distracting way he had in my dream while he tried to trick the American public into seeing him as a viable Potus.

Hah.

I like him much better in SNL skits when I know I’m supposed to be laughing.

I would vote for a squirrel before I would vote for Trump and most days I firmly believe he is auditioning for his next reality show or Moe in a remake of the Three Stooges. Moe was the angry stooge, right?

He looked tired. Too many late nights popping off about something stupid to someone who could have cared less than former Miss Universe Alicia Machado about what he had to say. As he is the opposite of self-aware, it plays out in tantrums or Twitter wars with anyone who doesn’t think he’s God. Women. Immigrants. Media. Non-billionaires.

How did someone so small get this close to something so big and why can’t he make it through a day without starting something?

I was tired too, so I didn’t watch the whole debate because I try not to watch scary stuff before bedtime so I don’t have nightmares or throw up. Unfortunately, I know he will not lose his fan base since he is representing other thirteen year old bullies and the disenchanted—a harder nut to crack—although he is quickly undoing himself in these final weeks and I couldn’t be happier.

Clinton is relatively uninspiring and shady too, but at least she can count, seems willing to try to do the right thing, and is a well-mannered adult who knows when to respectfully apologize or fold her hands and shut up.