Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, November 23, 2019, 10:01 a.m..

A frustration of mine is wishing people would say what I would. Whether it’s a presidential debate, or a stock car race, or a sitcom, I can’t understand why people with a voice don’t use it the way I would.

For instance, I don’t find President Trump unpredictable at all. In fact, I think he’s as predictable as kids in a sandbox. Whatever he’s doing, he accuses others of doing. It’s simple. He’s like brats everywhere.

“Hey, Fathead!”

“I’m not a fathead! You’re a fathead!”

When the Affordable Care Act passed, President Obama wanted it to include a public option. Politics is the art of the possible. What he got was what he could get through Congress.

Republicans think the government can’t efficiently do anything. Yet the same Republicans have historically opposed a public option for health care because private insurance couldn’t compete.

Those two opinions cannot both be right.

The existence of a public option for health care would either make private care compete, or it would go out of business. Health care isn’t really a free market. The fix is in.

The ACA was a lifesaver for me. It came along when I was struggling.

Yes, I consider myself a liberal. Well, no, not completely. I’m a liberal by regional standards. I’ve never considered myself much other than a moderate. I also consider Barack Obama to be a moderate.

What I also think is what I think about sports. Build your team around running, or build it around passing. What’s important is to make a plan and stick to it.

Conservatives believe that government should take a limited role. They have ruled this state for decades. Believing in a limited role should also mean playing that limited role well.

The roads are crumbling. The bridges are growing weak and rusty. Having a problem with government means spending half the day on hold, just like a problem with a website.

What is the root of the conservatives’ failure? I suspect people who don’t believe in government are by nature ill equipped to run one.

What I believe in deeply is principle. I admire principled conservatives. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been one since Barry Goldwater died.

I don’t see how people who believe in the Constitution can believe in Trump because, before he came along, many of his supporters talked about “defending the Constitution.” We now know that most of them don’t give a damn about the Constitution because their hero violates it every day. We now know they care about balancing the budget when the Democrats are in charge.

The freedom that is unenumerated in the Constitution is the freedom of stupidity. Without it, our culture and civilization would grind to a halt. I believe in the freedom of stupidity. In one area or another, we all use it.

I have many flaws, but until Trump came along, it was highly unusual for someone to call me a moron. I try to remember the words of that noted philosopher Jimmy Buffett, who sang, “Don’t ever forget that you just may wind up being wrong.”

Thus is it possible that I am a moron. It’s not my intent.

Age has made me more practical. For instance, I am determined not to make a decision on whom I want to be president until I actually get a chance to vote on it. I’m almost never in favor of the guy (or gal) who winds up being nominated for president. If I made up my mind today, the odds are that my choice would no longer be a candidate months from now when I get to vote.

Why open myself to disappointment? I may not make up my mind until I go to the polls. I’m reasonably sure I’d vote for any Democrat against Trump. I’d vote for most any other person against Trump, including some who have publicly called me a moron in the exhilarating air of social media.

On Thursday, an acquaintance asked me for whom I would vote, but I didn’t get a chance to answer. Someone I knew walked in, and I had a conversation with him, and the person who asked was soon occupied elsewhere with his business, and I had a meeting to attend.

I didn’t get a chance to tell him, nobody right now.

I’ve just about concluded that the president’s partisans are practical, too. They don’t fret about how Vladimir Putin has somehow managed to make the world’s most powerful country a satellite of Russia. They don’t worry about constitutional principles the president is violating.

They like him. They like what he’s doing. Other than that, they just don’t care. They feel the same way about Trump that I do about the Boston Red Sox. I love the Red Sox. I hate the Yankees. There isn’t a damned thing fair or logical about it. That’s what tribalism means. We root for politicians the same way we root for ball teams.

Trump enthusiasts sit behind the dugout, secure in the belief that they can see balls and strikes better than a man standing right behind the plate.

Any time the president does anything wrong – Descartes couldn’t count the ways – the chorus begins.

What about Hillary? What about Obama? What about Bill? What about Belichick? What about Warren G. Harding? What about Pete Rose?

The problem with whataboutistry is that it implies approval.

Did you support Bill Clinton having sex with an intern? Did you tell everyone Benghazi was okay?

As I brace myself for being called a moron again, I am comforted by the knowledge that I got these thoughts off my mind. The weight has grown heavy. Let freedom ring. Like Popeye the Sailor Man, “Iyam what Iyam.”

The system never fails. We get what we want and what we vote for. If disaster ensues, it’s our fault, not Trump’s, not the Senate’s and not the Supreme Court’s.

I heard a quote from Grover Cleveland, the only president ever elected both twice and separately.

“The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard.”

 

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