johannes k.

i've seen numerous US presidents come and go. there was something wrong with all of them and there were several who were a serious problem.

when i was ten i wept when bobby kennedy was shot and when i was 14 i covered the house in pieces of paper (this was before post-its) which said 'vote mcgovern!'

nixon, reagan, the two bushes and clinton came and went — and after thinking, finally! it was painful to witness the more or less complete impotence of obama.

what's left?

you and i both know what happened in 2016 : the unthinkable — and indeed for the past four years it has continued to be unthinkable even as it was happening. how often have we pinched ourselves or each other and asked : is this REAL? are we now living in a different one of the ten to the power of five hundred universes? how do we get back to the other one, imperfect as it was?

for the past four years i've thought as little as possible about the fact that someone's crazy uncle was given the power to destroy the entire world with the press of a button by the american people, although to be fair, many more voted for another candidate.

fortunately there have been many other more interesting and/or even other unthinkable things to think about! but the idea that his number may be up and that some kind of relative sanity will come back into the politics of the so-called civilised world, that the day of reckoning is nigh for this crazy uncle, weirdly — or perhaps not — made me a little weepy this morning. the moment came as i read jennifer rubin's blistering column in the washington post where she puts it all into perspective following his latest TV appearance.

i don't know enough about the american system to say what the efficacy of a vote for say, howie hawkins, would be but there are more important and interesting things to think about :p

no doubt there will be something wrong with president biden and he may even turn out to be a serious problem in one way or another, but he is not someone's crazy uncle and that is surely the only reason any sane american needs to go out and vote, probably for biden, not hawkins and certainly not mcgovern, more's the pity.