The present politics

My son and I watched the New Hampshire primary returns together last night. He's the one who got comfy on the couch, grabbed the remote and said, "Okay! Let's see how things are playing out in the world of politics."

As anyone who's been here for a while knows, I tend to get fairly passionate about presidential politics. This time around, I'm just flummoxed. I watch with disbelief as, on the GOP side, the vulgarian Donald Trump appeals to the lowest common denominator with his sexist, xenophobic and downright fascist speeches, while Marco Rubio repeats his line about Obamacare destroying the country ad nauseum, and Ben Carson stands around looking clueless, and Chris Christie bloviates, and Ted Cruz, the worst of them all, smiles his sinister demon smile and utters all manner of nefarious lies that his constituents swallow like manna. Yeah, I don't care that my Ted Cruz language is particularly inflammatory. The man makes my skin crawl.

On the other hand, I think John Kasich could probably run the country competently. And while I'd hate another Bush administration lining the pockets of the rich and governing for the greater glory of oil, at least Jeb would have the intelligence and experience to make reasoned decisions when the shit hit the White House. I can't even believe I'm saying that.

As for the Democrats, I want to vote for Hillary Clinton. I want to be behind her with all my heart, but for some reason, I just can't muster it. She's definitely the brightest student in class who didn't get all the kudos the boys did, but she just keeps plugging along, determined and full of steel. I admire her, I actually really do, but she has so much political baggage and every word she speaks is so calculating it's hard to get really jazzed about her candidacy.

Meanwhile, my children are really into Bernie Sanders, and his idealism about the role of government, and of course his promise to lift the burden of student loans. Young people are lining up behind Bernie, and they're talking with enthusiasm to their parents about him. I don't know if he'd be able to withstand the right-wing onslaught of meanness and propaganda if he became the Democratic nominee, but you know, he might. He's authentic and unapologetic in his message, so that helps. And this election cycle sure isn't like any we've seen before. We have the fascist Trump at one end of the spectrum, and the socialist Sanders at the other. My son said, "I just worry about whether Bernie can actually deliver on the things he promises, but maybe I'd be willing to see him try."

Meanwhile, even right-wing pundits who made Barack Obama's life so miserable in office, are already missing his grace, intellect, integrity and class. I confess I smirked all the way through this piece by David Brooks, even though I agreed with all his points. "...[O]ver the course of this campaign it feels as if there’s been a decline in behavioral standards across the board," Brooks wrote. "Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe we have taken too much for granted, have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply."

And isn't this an amazing photo by Doug Mills of the New York Times.