For the first time in decades I (who normally sleep the sleep of the innocent) was awakened from my slumber by a nightmare. I’d dreamt that the country was exploding, fracturing into millions of tiny pieces. When I attempted to arise I felt almost as depressed as I did over a dozen years ago when I had to put down Maxx, my faithful teddy-bear of a Rottweiler whose grave is in a corner of my backyard. I still feel hung over, similar to how I used to feel the next morning after tying one on — something I haven’t done since getting married in the late ’90s.
One would think that I would be pleased that my candidate won last night, but there really were no winners. Even Biden lost his cool and called tRump a clown — not that he didn’t deserve it. But the biggest loser is my beloved hometown of Cleveland, where we were so proud to be selected to host the first presidential debate. Now we will forever be known, not just as the poorest city in the country, but also as the site of the biggest shit-show in the political history of the Republic. There’s no pride in that.
When tRump said at the beginning of his first campaign that he could stand on 5thAvenue and shoot someone and get away with it, the majority of Americans simply brushed it off as typical hyperbole from a narcissistic megalomaniac. But he demonstrated exactly what he meant by the allegory when he came to my hometown and shot Uncle Sam right between the eyes in front of millions of viewers around the globe. The notion of “American Exceptionalism” is now deader that a doornail, may it R.I.P.
While driving west on Carnegie a few hours before the debate (indeed, if it can be called that) began, I saw a tRump supporter with a sign saying “Gays for Trump.” I almost wrecked my pickup doing a double take. Was this pathetic soul supporting the same bigot who came out against gay marriage and denied transgender Americans the right to serve in the military?
Then it hit me: Black tRump supporters are just as self-hating — but how can they continue to support a man who, when asked by poor Chris Wallace (whom I formerly respected) to renounce his support for white nationalism, responded by telling the racist, neo-Nazi Proud Boys to “Stand back, but stand by,” sending them a dog whistle that he will need them to fire the first shots of rebellion when he loses the election.
There is a way to control the nonsense that occurred on the campus of Case/Cleveland Clinic. All that has to be done is to shut off each candidate’s microphone when their allotted two minutes of speaking is finished, allowing the other candidate to respond uninterrupted. But if I were Biden I would simply refuse to be a part of another debased spectacle that will only further trash America’s reputation around the world. Let the Fox News sycophants blather whatever shrill nonsense they elect to give voice to about the refusal.
But as a more practical political matter, why should Biden give this cadaverous monster a chance to come back from the dead? Let this debate be the nadir of this clown’s political career, the last widespread image of a flat-out fool that will forever be embedded in the public’s mind.
While these political players will eventually fade from the stage and the forefront of most memories, Cleveland will be around as long as we have a country in which to call home. We can only hope and pray that this shameful episode will fade just as fast so that our reputation can be restored.
But as for right now, the country is in the same position as our fair city: deep doo-doo.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: A Night of Losers”
Peter Lawson Jones
Mansfield, you’re too diplomatic. It wasn’t a “dog whistle;” it was a clarion bugle call!