Yesterday was full of news about the substantial “bounce” Hillary Clinton got in the polls following last week’s Democratic National Convention.
Of course, her “bounce” benefited from the Donald’s shooting himself in the foot, repeatedly, and without remorse.
This graph from Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com tells the story of the Clinton bounce.
I searched Google News for stories on the latest presidential poll results. I imagine these results will be updated by the time readers check out this link.
No doubt this is still a close election. But I’m breathing slightly easier.
And there’s a funny thing. One old friend who I keep in touch with via Facebook appears to be a Trump supporter. And others may be flirting with Trump as well. But I’m not severing contacts with them over this difference, despite the seriousness with which I view the dangers of a potential Trump presidency.
We can argue over our differences, but we still have so much in common. I’m not willing to terminate friendships over such differences, especially when we’re only able to argue indirectly and at a distance.
Perhaps I’m just too much of a softie.
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I think you are correct in not severing relationships with friends who seem to support Trump. It’s not worth it to give up life-long friends over this man. I made that decision early on. We just don’t discuss him! It is way beyond my thinking over how anyone can support him, but it’s not up to me to change their minds.
I wish people on Facebook would keep their political opinions to themselves (I do). I can’t help but lose respect for the Trump supporters, because what kind of person could possibly believe that moron could be a good president? I’m always left shaking my head and thinking, wow, they seem so normal and I never would have known otherwise if not for Donald Trump.
If more Republican leaders truly disavow Trump, more die-hard Republican partisans will feel released from a sense of obligation to support the candidate of the party.
Matters of actual governance – as in http://www.goodgovernance.org.au – are the focus of appallingly little attention during elections. Many of the male candidates have the attention span of undiagnosed gerbils. Fully all of the Republican stand-ups throughout the primaries were surfing amidst waves of attention deficit disorder. The members of the electorate themselves have been proven statistically incapable of eating sensibly or even driving cars or trucks properly and are about to be replaced nationwide by robotics. Only 30% of males are expected the receive a bachelor’s degree anymore versus 40% of the females.
There was an office of Prime Minister suddenly made vacant on June 24 in the UK. The matter of deciding who should fill it began bright and early on the morning of July 5. This was resolved within the governing party on July 11 by the unstintingly hard working former Home Office Secretary Theresa May, described by the Financial Times as a “non-ideological politician who gets on with the job.” By July 13 she had already appointed a working cabinet, including the inspired choice of Eton- and Oxford-educated former successful two-term Mayor of London, and blisteringly informed author of “The Churchill Factor” (2014), Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary; and the imaginative Amber Rudd, former wife of the famous writer A.A. Gill, as the new Home Secretary. All were appropriate appointments (and sackings) to the nth degree, all done with no discernable drama.
This is in line with Angela Merkel, formerly a research scientist of physical chemistry, who has endured as Chancellor of Germany despite withstanding her official decision to import one million Syrian refugees into Germany with all of it’s implications.
Or in line with Hillary Clinton, a Yale Law School graduate and former United States Secretary of State.
Or in line with even the current fiscally conservative City & County of Honolulu mayoral candidate, magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton College of Business & Economics, Charles Djou.
These people are most of all focused on managing public institutions and public resources in such ways that we may all ultimately be freed to spend far less of our time repeatedly arguing.
Donald Trump will make Sarah Palin look like a normal human being. nuff said.
Is it too much to ask of our political parties that would-be presidential candidates be required to submit documentation of their mental healthiness at the time of filling for the office?