My son -- and I think this proves God is hilariously funny -- will sometimes obsess about certain things, and those are things he then talks about over and over and over and over and over. And over.
Now, I almost never discuss politics around Riley, but what has he chosen to fixate on these days? This election. I hear it daily, about Trump and Hillary, Hillary and Trump, and about which candidate his friends' parents are voting for, who has a sign in their yard ... the other day he said, "Can you believe they are voting for Trump?" Which means -- and this is the funny part -- I don't get any peace at all from it, like I am giving birth to a bony, over-sized calf until November 9th, I am now forced to obsess about it even more than I already do. I love talking to Riley, I never tire of his questions nor of answering them, but I wonder, God, don't you think I was already obsessed enough about this?
Riley told me the reason they are voting for Trump, according to the parents, is Hillary lies. And I told Riley, "Yeah, she does lie sometimes. And Trump lies too."
Hillary does lie. We know it. We know they both lie. But we also know all about her. We know she is annoying. We know she rubs people the wrong way -- even some Democrats. The most charming and endearing thing about her is Bill. We know she walks the grey line politicians must all walk to survive, which includes spin and even the occasional falsehood. Listen, if we say a person who does that is not fit to govern, we will have no governors, let's just go ahead and cede to the anarchists right now if our standards don't allow for that level of humanity.
Hillary has been the focus of a sophisticated and brutally focused congressional colonoscopy for years, hearings, subpoenas ... the whole works. We pretty much know all of the dirt under her fingernails -- Republicans saw to that. We also know she has done nothing criminal, because wouldn't Republicans prosecute her to the full extent of the law if they had legal license to do so? You bet.
Trump is a businessman, and other than an entertainer on TV, that is all he has ever been. Trump has never held public office, which means we know nothing about how he will govern. And being a businessman, what is the only source of detailed information and verification we have about him and his intentions? His taxes. Without the tax record, we know absolutely nothing about Donald Trump, we have no verification whatsoever. This is literally, "We saw him on TV and we believe in him." And that's it.
How can you trust Trump more than Hillary when you know nothing about him other than what he says? Republicans have no clue whatsoever what he will do if elected president. Republicans do not know whether or not Trump has ties to Russian oligarchs which will predispose him to cooperate with the most ruthless and autocratic man on the face of the Earth, Vladimir Putin, a man who is not a character in a fiction, but who kills and incarcerates all those who oppose him, a true modern tyrant and evil man.
What I am saying about Putin is fact. Trump? I have no clue, other than that he admires Putin, I have no means to verify what Trump has done over the past decade ... as if he can create a fiction, sell that, and people will buy it. Trump has even gambled that people will defend him about hiding all of the facts about himself, defend his withholding the only possible information available about a businessman, and that people will willingly choose to avoid the facts just so that they can keep believing in him. And he's right! I hear people say it all the time, "Trump shouldn't have to show his taxes. The liberal media will pounce on him!" As if there are no Republican accountants and conservative media. That is the same as saying, "I want Trump to hide all of the facts about himself, so I can continue to believe this fantasy and do my hero worship. If he is evil, I don't want to know it. I think it is best if I have no facts."
No offense, but isn't that stupid? Doesn't it make sense to get all of the facts, as opposed to just trusting a man like Donald J. Trump? Because right now you know nothing about Trump.