Uncle Sam Wants You— If you can afford to get elected to public office! The more I think about how I make my decisions about who I want to be President or Governor or Senator or in the U.S. House of Representatives, it strikes me that it is not really about politics. It’s about humanity. I want men and women in office who seem to be in it for the noblest reason of all, public service. We’ve [...] READ MORE
Despite jokes about dead people voting, election security is strong. It’s been quiet on the American front for many years now. Or so it seems. Even as I absorb the reality of observing three quarters of a century of a blessed life, I don’t think of myself as having lived through any great historical movements that dramatically changed the course of American life. Looking back, I guess when something is part of your past you don’t think [...] READ MORE
Are we looking the gift horse of American Democracy in the mouth? As much as I try to pretend that our Democracy (capital D intended) is not in jeopardy, the harder it is to ignore clear signs that the majority of the people in one of our two dominant political parties claim allegiance to a powerful cult of personality that won’t go away. Truth and facts no longer mean anything in what I feel is a dangerous [...] READ MORE
Does it? In a true Democracy, three Presidents since 1988 would have lost. In a simple system of majority rule, Mr. Biden’s thumping margin of more than seven million votes would have been the last word. For that matter, so would Hillary Clinton’s national margin of nearly three million votes in 2016: Mr. Trump would not have had a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address in which to barricade himself in 2020. — Jedediah Britton-Purdy in the January 2, [...] READ MORE
Crying over unwelcome voters in Georgia. Our government is a union of all United States citizens. Everyone is a member. It is the way we organize to efficiently address problems that affect us all. It is the way we respond to disaster when isolated groups are impacted. And it is the only way ordinary citizens can stand up to powerful entities such as major corporations and bizarrely wealthy individuals that would otherwise treat us unfairly. — Ken [...] READ MORE
It’s time to zip up my lip and wait for what the voters have already decided. My plan for this week was to write about anything but politics, particularly presidential politics. I figured by mid-Wednesday morning when I posted this, there would still be no victory proclamation. It is time to move on, whatever happens, even if it means enduring a numbing four more years of fibs, fiction and factionalism. I suppose I can endure whatever happens. [...] READ MORE
Actually, every vote counts toward another vote— from the electors, who are members of the Senate, House of Representatives, and three from the District of Columbia. It was a compromise and it complicates the majority-rules premise. This is my last blog before election day, and more people have already voted than will vote, as my wife and I will, at their local polling places next Tuesday. Changing the minds of voters at this point is very unlikely [...] READ MORE
Advice for President Trump with apologies to Dr. Seuss. It is clear our president needs another television gig. Just keep him away from debates. He hasn’t figured out that the other person —and the moderator—get to talk, too. The first debate is what it is — I mean was what it was —and I suppose Trump backers wish it wasn’t. Sometimes debates bare the ugly truth of who you really are— as if we needed any more [...] READ MORE
Mail-in ballots: Failure of both parties to step up and make everyone's vote count would be election dereliction. From what I remember from my high school social studies and history classes, voting is more of a privilege than a right. That’s how it came across to me anyway. The truth is that it was both: a right under our Constitution and a privilege because, as the world’s most respected Democracy at the time, every adult citizen allegedly [...] READ MORE
