WASHINGTON — It all comes down to this day's votes.
Autumn rain falls on Election Day here, ground zero of American democracy. President Donald Trump campaigned like a maniac, saying the midterm election is all about him.
Actually, it's all about us, we the people. Our democracy, once known as the light of the world, is on the ballot. Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War president, thought it was worth fighting for — worth laying down 700,000 lives. Lincoln laid down his own life, the final casualty of the Civil War. He saved the Union, ended slavery and made freedom the new paramount law of the land.
For the 45th president, it's another story. The White House is his personal platform. He uses it to defeat enemies, which would be tolerable but for his team of aggressively right-wing men. From environmental protection to diplomacy (if it can be called that) and even the 2020 census, they are actively aiding him destroy the federal government from within.
The only sane, seasoned one is James Mattis, secretary of defense. When we're depending on former generals to keep democracy safe at the Pentagon, that's trouble.
Some say Trump doesn't really how to be president, with all the reading homework. But here's the thing: He doesn't care that he doesn't know.
As a nation, we are so antagonized — yet energized — over Trump that there's talk the country is in an uncivil war. Looking at the divided map of blue states and red states, all you can do is pray this election speaks clearly. Things can't go on like this. The red House painted blue would do that.
The president didn't blink at the cold-blooded murder of a Saudi journalist abroad. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew over to do a kingdom photo-op with the dark Saudi prince, the likely mastermind. That's outlandish, but then the mail bombing campaign happened and then the tragic mass slaying at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh shook us in different directions.
It's hard to keep track of assaults on what was President Obama's healthy democracy. This president thrives on conflict, confusion and chaos. As citizens, our immune system is hurting.
The worst anti-Semitic hate crime in U.S. history happened on his watch. I wonder why. He has ratcheted up tensions between "us and them" pretending to be an everyman — every resentful white man, regardless of age and class.
Now the best people have to win over the worst people. Sorry, but it's that simple this November day. More than any other president, Trump deliberately brings out the worst in us, managing to insult everyone on the other side of the divide with his trash talk. Public dis-coarse. He even mocked the idea of being "nice." We know he incites with hostile anti-immigrant rhetoric, racism and misogyny. There is no shame, and he'll be even more emboldened if Congress remains Republican.
Good people have to do something. Trump's a lot like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. Except he doesn't have the talent to play the fiddle.
As president, Trump has trumpeted nasty lies and slurs since his first day, when many countrymen and women were still in that first stage of grief — shock and denial. Remember the collective despair when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 despite decisively winning the popular vote. The Electoral College is a cruel cheat. Thanks, Hamilton.
Trump is a crafty, formidable opponent; I'll give him that. But he never leaves campaign mode as president, speaking only for the whites and the states that voted for him. So much for devastated Puerto Rico; it could hang. Same goes for women who opposed Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination. Shell-shocked people in the public square, including the press, have preposterous "falsehoods" pass, as he waged "war" on the First Amendment. The "dishonest" press now stands up in self-defense.
This time, America, tell us what you really think. 2016 was a hung jury, a divided verdict. As the song goes, "Whose side are you on?"
We can't go on like this. Today brings blue hope or a true winter of democracy.
To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the creators.com website.
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