This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

I was watching a documentary about the Great Depression. The one in 1929, not 2008. Herbert Hoover was worried about Franklin Roosevelt. Hoover asked a White House steward if he thought America would really elect a man in a wheelchair? The steward replied, “he has a nice smile.” It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.

Trump is storming through the campaign angry and pissed off. Snarling and snapping off angry rebuttals and doubling down. Mr. Trump didn’t know Kamala was black. What color did he think she was four years ago? He thought the same thing as he is saying now that he didn’t know she was black. A strategy which works well for your lower grade morons and racists. I didn’t know she was black, har, har, har. The only reason in creation to ever say such a thing is as a racist dog whistle.

Donald Trump appears to be off his game and missing a step. He was all set to run against Joe Biden and confident, now everything has changed. Trump appears off his game like he can’t make the adjustment to Kamala from Joe. Everything seems ad hoc and Donald appears to be afraid of Kamala. Hillary Clinton was easy to run against. She had been depicted as a monster for twenty years in every nightmare every Republican ever had.

But Kamala doesn’t have the legacy of Republican propaganda behind her. So, they fall back on the old standby classics. The attack ads say Kamala was the MOST LIBERAL Senator in Congress. That one always makes me smile. Do you know how you can claim the title of Most Liberal Senator in Congress? Simply by running for higher office. Ted Kennedy was the most Liberal and so was John Kerry but only when they ran for higher office. It’s the Republican N word. It’s the worst word they can get away with in print. Bernie Sanders was a Socialist. Oh, heaven forfend.

Not only that, Ms. Harris is a San Francisco Liberal! Sure, let’s throw in some regional bigotry while we’re at it. You know, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry were East Coast New England liberals. Nobody ever calls Donald Trump a Florida Conservative. That’s cause we here in Springfield are way cooler than those idjets from over in Shelbyville. Regional bigotry, I wouldn’t have a watermelon or a turnip from Macon County. Everyone knows ours are way better.

With Barack Obama, the Republicans had to go a different route. He wasn’t born here, they said. Nobody ever questioned where John McCain was born. He was born in Panama to American parents and under law, if one of your parents are a United States Citizen. You are a United States citizen, even if you are born on the moon.

John Kerry was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. George W. Bush was a bar stool jockey and Cocaine vacuum serving in the champagne squadron of the Air National Guard. Keeping the airspace over Houston safe from the Viet Cong. Guess who the war hero was? George was asked to take a drug test and began not to show up after his flight status was terminated due to a failure to test. Gee? Why not just go take the whiz quiz?

Joe Biden was too old, and John Kennedy was too young. Thomas Dewey said, Harry Truman was a disaster and when he was President things would be different. Ronald Reagan was a Captain in the United States Army who never left Hollywood. His job during the war was to make war movies and instructional films to keep the boy’s spirits up. “The Condom is your best friend; VD is nothing to clap about, You and your M-1.”

But it goes both ways as the Harris campaign calls J.D. Vance the worst VP pick in history. That’s a big unexplored country there. There must be lots of VP picks I’m unfamiliar with. Who was Millard Filmore’s VP? I’m sure there must be some other clinkers in American history. Sarah Palin and Spiro Agnew and who could ever forget William E. Miller? Talk about your household name! As Barry Goldwater’s VP Miller’s job was to stand there and be quiet. Goldwater was a lightning rod of controversy, so Miller was barely noticed.

You see that a lot in Republican VP choices. They want someone good, barely passable but not too good. Talk about a DEI hire Dan Quayle was White, Wealthy and Protestant and from old money, you know. He was from Indiana and Republicans like VP picks from Indiana. They think it helps them in Ohio, so if they can’t find anyone from Ohio, Indiana is the next best thing. Enter J.D. Vance, Republicans always win Indiana, but not so Ohio.

Granted Mr. Vance has made the worst VP start in history. But the jury is still out if J.D. is the worst EVER! It’s the difference between Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges. Laurel and Hardy thought they were smart. The Three Stooges knew they were dumb. Sarah Palin didn’t try convincing America she was smart. J.D. tries too hard convincing us how smart he is, and you get the Laurel and Hardy comparison. J.D. tells his seven-year-old to “Shut the hell up!” during a podcast. But I’m sure that was just a one-off remark.

J.D. says the hostages were released because the Russians knew Donald Trump was going to be reelected. Phooey! Who cares? Why not “Welcome Home?” It doesn’t cost nothing to be nice once and a while, to be big about it. It will only be in the headlines for a day and then forgotten. But this is the Trump campaign and the message is mean and angry. The message is for the disgruntled masses.

Oooh, that smell! Can’t you smell that smell? Donald Trump has had the rug pulled out from under him. And is now very angry. Moving on from smiling candidate to sullen angry loser. In his head, Donald Trump has already lost the election…again. They had this great plan all set up to defeat Joe Biden. Now all they have left is name calling.

“These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or
on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well,
of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala
does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned
that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that
I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find
him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars-
his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed
to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself – such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut
that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent,
to object to libelous statements about my dog.” – FDR