Election Notes 2016

Trump has made himself the butt of the joke. It didn't have to be this way…they could have been somebody, they could have been a contender…but the extreme right Tea Party wing of the GOP has let the  side down. They took over the party and have ended up with this mushy mishmash of policy and fantasy combined

They did seem to bring it on themselves. The back story of the birther movement, the mystique of building a giant wall across the border and enticing Mexico to pay for it, the idea that we would get so "tired" of winning that it would simply be a routine thing….all of these tell a sad tale of disarray and delusion within the voting bloc of the right. All that's missing is Harold Hill with a pinstripe jacket and the chorus of 76 Trombones.

At this point, in true con artiste fashion, it looks like Trump will board the last train out of town at the end of the night and chug off to form his own TV network, taking his marbles and those of his disgruntled voters with him. This may be a much-needed Exodus and Learning Experience for what is left of the Conservative Movement in this country. They can say, "We told you So" in a loud chorus led by the Bush's and Romney's and some of the retired members of the right wing Washington corps.

The notion of Elites and the "other-ness" will still be with us. We have, after all, lots of disaffected Bernie supporters, some libertarians, some young idealists mixed with the corps of Trump's group that simply wanted change. These people will always want change, and some don't know what that entails.

One of the best and perhaps the most hopeful idea of change may be to incorporate the Bernie brigade with those who want to learn what government does, and how it really works. First, you have to have a movement and an idea. Bernie supplied that. You have to be willing to start with Grassroots support. You must organize throughout the country. You have to make it statewide and then form a national movement. You can't just show up at a rally, buy a cap, go online and tweet, and think you are going to win big!

If you do your homework, pay attention, have small goals that build to a larger movement, you will eventually win. Gandhi said it best: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Some of the things you have to do are not glamorous or particularly "sexy" things. They include canvassing, talking to people, going to rallies, LISTENING, and then organizing. Having a plan, finding a way to fight city hall, to go town by town, city by city, state by state, and map out a winning strategy.

Politics ain't beanbag, and it isn't for the faint of heart. But especially the younger voters who were initiated in their beliefs by Bernie, and perhaps disillusioned by Trump, the idea is not to walk away and to give up. Democracy is messy and imperfect. It's still better than most forms of government we can come up with. We are the second largest voting democracy in the world. Turnout in the United States is still extremely low-just above 50% of our eligible people vote. It's even less in the mid-terms, which we need to emphasize as equally important as Congress is the co-equal branch of the government.

These things need to be emphasized, cherished, re-enforced and stated by the media. We also need to be better watchdogs in the media, as in this election cycle, we have badly let the people down by following Trump like lemmings and not holding his feet to the fire when questions should have been asked. Instead, free media time was given to his outlandish stage performances and bombastic style. All of these things mean we have to do a better job, collectively, of holding together what is in the end, a fragile thing. It's our democracy. We need to do a better job of keeping it alive.