I Am Not A Happy Citizen
I promised myself that I wouldn’t write political posts. After all, this blog is supposed to be about our sex life. Right now, sex isn’t working well for us. It’s my fault. I have atrial fibrillation. It’s making me fall asleep at odd, usually inconvenient times. On the other hand, I’m getting more and more frustrated by the sad state of the American government.
We face some extremely serious challenges. Instead of focusing on them, our leaders are battling in a war of personalities. For example, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are disturbed by the flood of aliens trying to cross our southern border. To their credit, both parties forged a bipartisan bill that gives the president the tools he needs to keep them out. Good news, right?
Former president, Donald Trump is urging his party members to vote against the bipartisan bill. Why? He says that it makes it harder for him to win the upcoming election. He obviously thinks that his political success is more important than solving critical problems. I’m disgusted with this sort of crap.
That doesn’t mean I’m happy about Joe Biden’s management. He hasn’t found the strength to take decisive action on most anything. The good news is that he’s finally ready to close the southern border if Congress lets him.
I’m unhappy about the lack of choice I have. I’m a political moderate. That doesn’t mean I support open borders. I do believe the government has an important role in coping with climate change. It also needs to help support the modernization of our infrastructure. For example, over a decade ago the Chinese government poured billions into support for research, development, and manufacture of solar panels. As a result, thousands of cheap, good-quality, Chinese solar-powered products are for sale here in the US. We have no serious ability to compete.
Taiwan has a virtual monopoly on making advanced chips. No one else has the ability to make these strategically valuable inegrated circuits. The Biden administration convinced Congress to add a few billion dollars to the budget to help close this gap. Too little, too late. The extreme right Republicans oppose any government programs to help such things.
Another huge issue is climate change. Global warming is powering unprecedented storms that have been making people miserable. The Trump Republicans deny global warming and want to subsidize oil and gas exploration and exploitation. We need to find ways to quickly advance electric cars. To do this, we need rapid charging stations everywhere. Private industry can’t afford to do this on its own.
Trump paid lip service to controlling the cost of prescription drugs and made little progress while he was president. Biden made a little more. Still, big pharma is allowed to gouge Americans while they sell the same drugs in other countries for less than half of what we have to pay. I want that to change now. Neither party is willing to promise that.
Another huge problem for me is Biden’s age. He is an old man, and if he is reelected, there’s a good chance he will die in office. That would leave Kamila Harris in office as president. She’s way too progressive for me. I absolutely don’t want her to lead our country. I don’t want Trump to get another term. He’s announced that he expects to suspend the constitution so that he can consolidate power under himself and suspend future presidential elections. Nope, Kamilla is better than that.
I suspect that most undecided voters are like me. They face unpleasant alternatives in the upcoming election. Like most of them, I’ll probably vote for Joe Biden. If I don’t, I worry that the 2024 election will be the last we’ll ever have.