I will admit, I have been in shock since Wednesday morning at about 2 am realizing that what I thought could never happen has happened. Donald J. Trump will be the next President of the United States. He will be the most powerful man on the planet and we should all be scared to death. I have heard all week that people should not be alarmed because liberals said the same thing when Ronald Reagan was elected. Please be advised, Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan. Also to keep in mind, the Republican party did not control both houses of Congress when Reagan was elected in 1980.

Let’s get real here for a moment. Donald Trump is not really a Republican, he is a populist candidate in a change election and that is why he won. The electorate was willing to overlook his personal flaws in order to send a message to Washington. The problem with being a populist however is that the electorate will turn on you quicker than they elected you if do not carry through with the promises you made during the election. If Mr. Trump were anyone else, I might be lauding his election, hell, I might have even voted for him but Donald Trump has clearly shown us who he is over decades of being in the public eye and I can assure you it does not bode well for our country. And, honestly, I am not that scared of Donald Trump. I have no doubt that his ego, combined with the power he will inherit on inauguration day will lead to his demise. Think impeachment within the first two years. Then what are we left with? Ultra conservative Republican ideologues who believe they have some kind of mandate to turn our society back decades. Be prepared to lose many of the freedoms we have enjoyed over the past fifty years or so.

If I were a religious man, I would pray that the rhetoric we heard during the campaign was just that, rhetoric and he will indeed step up and do the right thing and try to carry through with many of the “populist” policies he advocated in the campaign. Pundits are saying that so far, Mr. Trump is striking the right chords in bringing the country together and trying to force this Kumbaya moment on the American people. His constituents may be fooled by this tact but as we have seen, Mr. Trump is capable of behaving for short periods of time when the world is watching. And that, dear friends, is our task going forward. We must demand that our elected representatives and the press keep the spotlight on Mr. Trump at all times and watch every move he makes and every breath he takes. I sincerely hope that in six months time I will write in this space that I think Donald Trump is doing a great job bringing jobs back to the US and is making great strides in protecting us from terrorism and has done a surprisingly tremendous job as President. I also hope pigs will fly and hell freezes over.

If you saw Hillary Clinton’s rally last night in Philadelphia she was joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton and President and Michelle Obama. Prior to her arrival, John Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen performed and warmed up the crowd of 40,000 plus. The Boss made an impassioned speech in favor of Ms. Clinton and had a few choice words about her opponent. After the rally in Philly, Bon Jovi accompanied the Clinton’s to Raleigh for a final midnight rally. In Raleigh, Bon Jovi was joined on stage by Lady Gaga for a brief performance before the Clintons spoke.

Donald Trump also held a final rally last night in Michigan. At  the beginning of his remarks, he said he doesn’t need Jay-Z or Beyoncé and he doesn’t need Bon Jovi or Lady Gaga either to draw a crowd. Noticeably absent from “the Donald’s” barbs was The Boss, Bruce Springsteen. Was Donald unaware that Bruce was speaking out against him? Was the star power of Donald’s opener, Ted Nugent, enough to counteract Springsteen’s warnings of a Trump Presidency? It is doubtful. Bruce Springsteen is a beloved figure in American culture and Donald must have thought it best not to diss on this American icon and a true national treasure proving once again that NOBODY f*#ks with “The Boss”.

For the past eighteen months, the American electorate has been subjected to the longest, most hateful Presidential election in its history. Tomorrow culminates the campaigns that did not have to be. Polls suggest that the opinion of the electorate has not really changed since the beginning. In reality, very few voters were swayed one way or the other during our long national nightmare.

The good news is that tomorrow night, we will elect a new President and things will hopefully get back to normal. The bad news is that no matter who we elect, the American people and the political parties are so polarized that the new President will likely not be able to get anything done without some serious capitulation and bridge building of an unprecedented scale.

The choices are stark and a little grim. On one hand, we have arguably the most qualified candidate ever to run for President. On the other, we have the least qualified candidate ever to run. Hillary Clinton has been in and around the governmental process for three decades. She is a tireless worker and prepares like no one else. She knows how government works and is prepared to make it work for everyone. You may have problems with Hillary because of some things you have heard but keep in mind, the woman has been attacked by conservatives in this country for years and what have they found? Nothing. Zip. Nada. No investigation of the many has ever turned up any malfeasance what so ever. If it had, believe me, she would have been done. Donald Trump through his statements and actions seems to have very little understanding or appreciation for how our government works. He has demonstrated time and again that he forges ahead with no preparation and has proven to be a petulant irresponsible force in our national discourse.

Once again, I will state that the choice is clear and “I am with her”. The important thing to remember, however, is that come Wednesday morning we will have a new President-elect and we all must do what we can to support them and keep our country moving forward. On November 8th please get out and vote no matter who you support and that way, we all will be invested in the future of America.

There is one week to go in the Presidential election and candidates are making their last pitch to the American people. The only thing the race of 2016 has proved to me is that racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are alive and well in our country. And I am not just talking about the Republican nominee for President. The Democrats also have been sexist without perhaps even knowing it.

in many ways has brought it into the main stream of political thought. The fact that here, one week out, and he is not being wiped out is testament to the fact that a large portion of our society holds similar views. But what about the Democrats? Surely, the Dems are more tolerant of people of different races and creeds but gender bias is still deeply rooted in our culture. What? I hear some of you saying, we have a female nominee for President for the first time in our history. How can you level a charge of gender bias on the Democrats. That’s the thing. I believe it is so ingrained in our collective psyche that we don’t even recognize it.

Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to ever have run for the Presidency, period. There is little dispute to that fact. I contend that in order to have gotten this far, she would have to be. Many on the right call her a crook and a liar but the facts just don’t support that assertion. Mrs. Clinton is and has been the political establishment’s worst nightmare for over thirty years; a woman with ambition. to that end, her political opponents have been investigating and ridiculing her for decades. What have they uncovered in their years of probing? That’s right, nothing. In many ways our society has not progressed that much from the 1950’s when women should be seen and not heard, a help-mate to their husbands. As long as women stay in the kitchen (or the bedroom) and not make waves and certainly not talk about substantive issues, they are fine. Wake up America. Women are taking over the world and I, for one, don’t think it’s a bad thing. The men have surely screwed it up enough. The one other thing I will say about Democratic misogyny; can anyone truly look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that Hillary Rodham would be the Democratic nominee if her husband had not been President himself? It’s almost like a built in acceptance that she would not have otherwise. Almost like we can trust her because if things get real, she will have Bill to fall back on who as we know was President for eight years already. I don’t necessarily blame people for this view, it is “baked in” if you will to our culture. Women as the weaker sex and all that crap. I am here to tell you that it just isn’t true. Women are just as capable and just as skilled and in many cases better able to govern than men are. Women tend to have an empathy and an innate fairness that men do not possess. That innate fairness is, what I predict, will make Hillary Clinton one of the greatest Presidents we have ever had and hopefully eight years from now we will look back and wonder what took us so long.