Viewpoint: I’ll Be Glad When the 2024 Election is Over

?? I have to admit, I’m a little tired of the 2024 Presidential campaign already. And it hasn’t really gotten a good start yet. The Republican National Convention will lead off between July 15-18 and the Democrats will follow August 19-22.

?? Tuesday, November 5, will be election day and the majority of the states will get their votes counted that night. A few, and they do seem to tend to be Blue States, will get their ballots counted sometime before 2025.

??? Unless I miss my guess, we all pretty much know who the winners are going to be; and have since the end of the last election.

??? Donald Trump, who didn’t bother to join the Republican debates this election cycle, is pretty much considered the winner and should really be the winner after Super Tuesday. About the only thing that could keep him out of the race would be if he is serving time in prison. Picture the Republican nominee with a prison uniform on.

??? President Biden may be in a uniform of his own. There are almost daily questions about his mental ability to even feed himself, let alone run the country. And while Trump and Biden’s son, Hunter, might share a cell, Joe could more accurately be pictured with a bib to prevent drooling on himself.

??? It will be an election like no other I can remember.

?? Unfortunately, in a two-party system such as ours, there is no reasonable vote to be cast other than for the Republican nominee or the Democratic nominee. Any other vote cannot even be seen as a statement, more like a burp, which probably leaves us with Trump or Biden.

?? A case could be made for a painstaking reading of the two national platforms to come up with a vote. In fact, considering the personalities involved, that might not be a bad idea. There are clear differences in the two national platforms.

?? There are approximately 49 million voters who identify as Democrats, which is about 36% of voters. Republicans have about 39 million registrations or about 33%. Independents account for approximately 31% of the electorate, and they will decide the election.

?? The last poll I saw, indicated 31% of the independents favored Trump and 27% Biden and the rest are undecided between those two choices.

?? Just to make it seem even less like the America I’m familiar with, you see frequent articles on threats, maybe threats, and could be threats, about armed conflict depending on who wins. Every election has complaints of voter fraud but the last presidential election may have set a new record for charges and counter charges.

?? There are questions of violence before the election, and did we ever get those darn voting machines fixed or does our vote not matter at all?

?? Colorado stooped to a new low when they banned Trump from the ballot, a move that will pretty certainly be thrown out by the Supreme Court. But it is the kind of move of a mentally ill electorate (on both sides).

?? If the Supreme Court would be bribed or threatened into not ruling according to law, watch for 49 other states and the District of Columbia to remove one or the other name from the ballot. That would make a farce a bigger farce.

??? If you share my chagrin or not, I do want you to know that I will be casting a vote. The privilege to vote is too sacred to let the mere mortals running for office make me fail to cast a vote.

?? Hopefully, my ballot is counted; hopefully, the principal players live to see election day; and hopefully, the courts go back to doing what they’re supposed to be doing instead of taking political sides and creating fodder for talk shows of both the left and right persuasions. And, hopefully, some sort of sanity and decorum returns before the Presidential Election of 2028 comes along.

?