There's That

     That darned left knee is making it difficult to go to sleep, even with OTC painkillers and ice.  By the end of the day, it's pretty swollen and running warm.  It's loud, without making a sound.


     On the good side, physical discomfort means I don't sprawl there awake worrying about politics.  Restricting that fretting to the daytime is probably a good thing.  One thing I have figured out: in a de facto two-party Presidential system,* the reality that neither candidate is ever going to be a perfect fit for many voters of their own party means everyone is in the habit of justifying their choice: it's usually a process of picking the least-bad one, heavily influenced by notions of self-image: "I'm a [political party name] voter and I have been all my life/since Carter/since Reagan/since whoever."  So we have to sell ourselves on the notion that the not-ideal guy run by the party we favor is okay, and that the not-great guy the other party ran is a bad, bad choice.  We do it when the contest is between a couple of rich white guys who graduated from top-tier schools, spent years rising through various elective offices and have barely a dime's worth of difference in their policies, so of course we do it when the pairing includes a woman, a person almost entirely without political experience and/or someone dark-skinned.  And because it's our very own personal set of excuses -- oops, reasons -- why we're okay with how we voted or plan to vote, it's deeply entrenched.  Anyone challenging it is pushing back on not just our choices but our sense of who we are.

     I don't have an answer for the problem that presents.  I can counsel making a dispassionate choice, sitting down and listing pros and cons, sticking to verifiable facts and not Internet rumor or what some pundit thinks a candidate might do.  Judge them based on what they have done, judge them on the definite promises they make in their platform and stump speeches and not on glittering or gloomy generalities about happy days to come and bad times now.  Wash off as much of the BS as you can and then decide.

     You still might not make the same choice I have, but at least you won't be voting for your pick because it makes that snoopy schoolteacher down the street furious or it will irk the jerk who drives a vehicle covered in bumper stickers.  Those reasons are foolish.  Find real ones.
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* In multiparty Parliamentary systems, voters don't even get an Electoral College-distance opportunity to elect the Chief Executive.  Instead, the elected legislators have to duke it out, especially if no party won a clear majority.  It's good and bad: nobody feels much obliged to like a leader they didn't personally vote for, the pick often represents a compromise choice and are constrained by whatever coalition put them in place, but "Westminster" systems produce real duds in the worry seat as least as often as "Washington" ones.  Both systems result in regular do-overs and maybe that's as much as we can hope for.