Speechless. . . and Clueless

I don't know how many people have noticed, but I'm getting this question a lot recently: "Why haven't you been writing about this election?" A close second in popularity is: "Who are you voting for?" Forgive my rant, but I will lay it all out.

In answer to the first, my response has been, "This election leaves me speechless." And it's true. What do you say that hasn't already been said? The two major political parties have been through a bruising primary season, eventually settling for their respective nominees on the two candidates with the highest negatives in terms of popularity in modern history. Right now, I am conflicted.

Which leads me to the answer to the second question. Ask me in November who I'm voting for, because right now I haven't got a clue. The electorate is woefully fragmented. The hashtags #nevertrump, #neverhillary are everywhere. As never before, this election looms as a vote AGAINST someone, rather than FOR someone. I talk to people every day who say they will NEVER vote for Trump and NEVER vote for Hillary. One thing is clear - they are both loathed in record numbers, and apparently loved by enough to grab their respective parties' nominations. Mind-numbing, right?

You Be The Judge, Make Your Choice - November Looms

On the one hand, we have a serial adulterer, working on wife number three, the owner of hotels, golf courses, casinos, escort services, a multi-billionaire with really bad hair who has built an empire on the foundation of his father's fortune, and a newcomer to the political scene who changes policy positions like you and I change our socks in the morning.

His demise has been predicted repeatedly for over a year because he has violated every pundit's political playbook of rules multiple times.

He's managed to offend nearly every ethnic group in America on a "platform" of building a wall on the Southern border, excluding Muslims from immigrating to America, and then touting a long list of populist conservative agenda items sufficient to win over Sean Hannity, among others. And by the way, Fox News is nearly unwatchable now. He played "bimbo" Megyn Kelly like a fiddle.

He personally attacked each Republican candidate along the way. His rhetoric against them was over the top. And everyone ate up his politics of personal destruction. Apparently, while we denounce bullies publicly, we embrace a "tough guy" with our votes. In the Utah primary, I voted for loser John Kasich, the obvious "protest" vote I could find against Trump and Cruz.

Despite the deep divisions within the party, Trump went on to secure the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot at the upcoming Republican convention.

Give him this - he has succeeded in a tough New York real estate business where few do. Were there ethics violations involved? Probably. Were bankruptcies the result in some cases? Who cares?

Despite Mitt Romney's protestations to attempt to wreck his chances, he has survived even the most blistering attacks from inside his own party. Romney called him "a fraud," "a con man," and worse. It  didn't matter in the least. Take a principled stand against Trump and he gains strength.

His reckless abandon in making his spontaneous and seemingly irresponsible comments is somehow appealing to the voters who have stoutly supported him and rejected every one of his opponents from among what appeared at the outset to be the strongest field ever assembled on the Republican side. Now as they coalesce around him, it seems beating Hillary is enough to unite the majority at any cost.

On the other side, we have a serial politician, dishonest lawyer, driven by power, greed and amassing a fortune based upon trading influence for contributions to a specious "foundation." The list of donors and their contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the favors obtained in exchange will be fully documented before November. Who cares?

She's the wife of an inveterate and skilled politician who enabled her husband's sexual exploits, then mercilessly berated and publicly humiliated all his accusers. Some voters in this election cycle are simply too young to remember. They will get a list of particulars from her opponent, no doubt. But will anyone really care?

The list of her political scandals is as long as a career criminal's rap sheet, spanning a period of well over forty years. She makes Ronald Reagan's "Teflon" moniker laughable. Reagan was around when character mattered, and his character was so well-documented nothing seemed to stick that was critical. These days nothing critical seems to stick to the Clintons, even suspected criminal activity. In that sense she and Trump have a lot in common.

Her record is clear, and her self-inflicted e-mail server debacle of handling sensitive classified documents while she was serving as Secretary of State under the Obama administration is only the latest in that long line of scandals. Is she guilty of felonies? Who knows? What she is guilty of is poor judgment on a host of issues. And setting all that aside, this qualifies her to serve? Go figure.

Somehow, her supporters have looked the other way in their enthusiasm for her candidacy. When pressed to name even one substantive accomplishment of this woman, those who are interviewed are routinely stumped by the question.

She has been opposed by only one seemingly weak candidate - an over-the-hill and underwhelming self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist whose honesty creds are at least legit, who prolonged the primary contests to the very last voter, even longer than it took Trump to vanquish the large Republican field. And what has been his platform? That Hillary Clinton wasn't liberal enough, not socialist enough, not progressive enough.

And finally, after setting aside his bruising and prolonged opposition, Clinton has enough votes for delegates, "super" or otherwise, to become the first woman from a major party to win her party's nomination. Being the first woman in politics may be her only achievement, but it is sufficient, it seems, in the minds of many.

And, Trump-like, that accomplishment in a tough game of politics may in fact be an achievement. If an upstart Senator from Illinois can win two terms in the White House, why not her? Why not Trump? There are many who love the narrative of the first black POTUS followed by the first woman POTUS, qualifications for the job notwithstanding. Elections have turned on less. Whose resume was thinner than Obama's?

Morality, it would seem, has taken a permanent holiday in American politics. If making America great again were to include a return to morality, I would be on board with it. However, the American psyche, it would seem, now favors looking for a departure from the politics of the past at almost any price. Bernie Sanders has made outrageous proposals for socialism on steroids. Give him points for sincerity and honesty. You can judge for yourself if he's credible. However, the fuzzy math associated with how to pay for it all is mind-boggling, and yet his appeal even here in redder-than-red Utah is stunning. He turned out BY FAR the largest crowds for his rallies of any and all competitors in Utah.

One has to suspend all reason and all rational thought to suppose that his foolishness in American politics is sustainable to any degree. We are living on borrowed money, and yet there is no serious debate any more about a balanced budget. Both political parties are spending us into oblivion. Does anyone believe either Trump or Clinton will curb the spending? They aren't even talking about it. The military leaders are warning that our national debt is our biggest security threat. Oh really? You don't hear politicians echoing that warning at all. They can't even agree on whether the attack last week in Orlando on defenseless gays and lesbians that killed 49 innocents in a bar was carried out by a "radical Islam" adherent or a "deranged madman." Are we at war with the Islamic State that has sworn to destroy America, or is what happened in Orlando merely a police matter?

The sad reality for me is that we have brought our current state upon ourselves, and we have no one else to blame.

Both Sanders and Trump have struck a raw nerve of discontent that has overthrown all the conventional wisdom traditionally ascribed to politics. All the enthusiasm in this cycle has been for Trump and Sanders. Trump logged more votes in the Republican primary season than anyone in history! No small feat. He claims that's because he's added Independents and Reagan Democrats to the mix. How or if that will translate into a win in November remains to be seen.

If I take my cues from the prophetic Book of Mormon, I would not be remiss in sizing up this election as unfathomable. Likening the years preceding the coming of our resurrected Lord among the Nephites on this continent to our day, there are ample precedents to suggest things are going to get a lot worse than better. Begin your reading in Helaman 1 through 3 Nephi 9. Consider these chilling insights:

. . . they did destroy the government of the land. . .  and all this iniquity had come upon the people because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan. And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combinations of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets. (3 Nephi 7:2; 5-6).

There are many ways to murder the prophets without killing them outright. One of the most effective is to simply ignore their warnings. Few people I know outside the Church care much about the contents of the Book of Mormon, nor the prophets, ancient and modern, who have given specific counsel about the days in which we live.

I've abandoned all hope of coming up with a palatable scenario to my liking at this point, and remain simply speechless and clueless about how all this turns out in November.

Hillary Clinton: “liar,” “dishonest” and “untrustworthy.”

I don't know when the summer leading up to a presidential election has ever been more interesting (read "strange") than this one. I think someday America will probably have a female president. There, I've said it. But this woman, who has been running for president most of her adult life, now faces the end of the trail.

Hillary Clinton

The smart money on the Democrat side got behind Hillary Clinton early. Then a radical socialist named Bernie Sanders started making headway and he began to nibble away at the Clinton lead. Strange that someone even more polarizing and radical than either Obama or Clinton could make that kind of headway.

Now comes news that her fund raisers are reporting less than enthusiastic support from traditionally reliable sources. Some are aching for Vice-President Joe Biden to get into the race, and even President Obama has reportedly "given his blessing" for another Biden run at the presidency. So much for forgotten pledges to Bill Clinton, who campaigned for Obama in exchange for a Hillary endorsement someday. The political calculus these days for me has become increasingly mystifying, and well, just strange. But some have suggested the Biden pick as VP was a cool political strategy on Obama's part because it insulated him from impeachment - no one would want Joe Biden as the replacement POTUS. Yes, strange.

Yesterday Hillary boasted that she already had 25% of the "super delegates" on the Democrat side already locked up, and she was certain the nomination would be hers. Well, time will tell on that one. Strange she could be so self-assured when her favorability ratings and her polling numbers keep dropping like a rock. She thinks the "fix" is in, but she may just sink her own ship that is beyond fixing.

On the Republican side all the air in the room is being sucked up by Donald Trump. He has been dissed, dismissed, and disassembled a thousand times piece by piece this summer by all the pundits who claim he has "no chance" of winning the nomination, much less the presidency in November 2016, and yet his ascendancy cannot be denied. Strange that someone so bombastic, arrogant and off-putting could somehow tantalize the electorate the way this man has.

Jeb Bush was the presumptive nominee a few weeks ago until Trump got into the race, and since that first debate Bush has been dropping. Three of his fund raisers have already abandoned the ship. That's very strange, given the inevitability of another Bush/Clinton match-up predicted by the political punditry earlier in the summer.

Someone I read yesterday on Twitter suggested to the DC establishment that if they want to stop Trump they should just endorse him. Strange that you've never heard that strategy enunciated in politics before this year. But these are not normal times. The disfavor into which the Republican establishment has dropped keeps finding new bottoms.

The Republican field is deep this year and filled with what one would presume is a talented field. One would think the GOP hierarchy would be licking its chops in glee. Experienced governors and ex-governors with tremendous accomplishments in the field this year would be a campaign organizer's dream come true. Talk about an embarrassment of riches! But this year things are different. Things are very strange this year.

Donald Trump

Topping the early primary polling, of course, is Mr. Trump, followed now by retired brain surgeon Ben Carson, and retired HP CEO Carly Fiorina. It depends of course on who's doing the polling, but the strange thing about the ascendancy of Trump, Carson and Fiorina is that they are political outsiders. It seems Republicans have forsaken their party champions and taken leave of their collective conservative and time-tested reasoning ability and their rational and measured sense of propriety. That's strange indeed to think Trump could be the standard bearer for conservatives.

But maybe, just maybe, what's happening is a collective disenchantment with leadership in the GOP. They made bold promises about standing up against Obama. Republicans swept control of both houses of Congress in 2014, with high hopes the promises made would be promises kept. But their perception seems to be that they got nothing of what they bargained for from either Boehner in the House or McConnell in the Senate. One senses the makings of an uprising in the base.

Maybe in part that's what might explain Trump's ascendancy. His scorched earth policies and rhetoric - maybe the best word is "hyperbole" - have swept across the land like a raging wildfire of pent up anger, especially over illegal immigration. Many are warning of what happened in pre-World War II Europe as millions promoted and embraced Adolph Hitler in the name of German nationalism. That idea, however, seems a little strange to me, since Obama would resemble more of a dictator than Trump. But I said this was a strange summer.

Nevertheless, there are those who see all the familiar earmarks of what's now happening in America in our desperate search for a savior who can deliver America. "Making America Great Again" has struck a responsive chord and Trump has found legs with his slogan this summer. Granted he's a little light on the specifics of HOW he's going to do that, but it seems a refreshing alternative to what Obama has given us in his "transformational change" of nearly everything in America.

People are saying they've had enough of politicians and their promises, period. Somehow, almost mystically it seems, Trump has managed to differentiate himself from lifelong politicians and their promises. He says outrageous things that would doom any other politician and he gets away with it as his poll numbers continue to soar! And that's very strange.

Here's the essence of all this: There was a poll last week that caught my attention. It was done by Quinnipiac, and summarized by Breitbart. The participants in the poll were asked to give the first word that came to their minds when Clinton, Trump and Bush were mentioned.

The top three words used to describe Hillary Clinton were "liar," "dishonest" and "untrustworthy."

And that might be the first thing I've read this summer that was not strange.