In just three weeks the election of 2024 is here, and the race is tight and tense. I was going to use this Perspective to fully endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, but that seems like a foregone conclusion to anyone who has listened to a handful of my Perspectives. I also thought about listing a bevy of former President Donald Trump’s vices and actions that would make any other nominee a clear unfit choice for president. But at this point you either know or don’t care.
Truth is folks, I am less concerned about who the president is and more about who we are. In contemporary history, we have not seemed more disillusioned, divided, and desperate. The world is truly upside down.
We used to demand truth from our elected leaders, or, at the least, a modicum of civility and homespun sensibility. But those days of happy, if not frustrated, stasis are long gone, as avarice, corruption, inhumanity, and pathological misrepresentation is our norm. Are we e pluribus unum, or are we just a collection of islands, floating in our own oceans of need?
It's a weird world we are living in, a permanent Rorschach test for the lefties, righties, and centrists, playing a weird game of musical chairs in hopes of a temporary seat of disquiet comfort. Most of us are hoping for a few percentages taken off our taxes, while our collective humanity be damned.
It is our expectation of perfection, and surrender to desperation, that fostered a willingness to dive to the bottom of the lowest common denominators that brought us to this place of absolute topsy-turvy. Weirdness. So, vote your conscience, but remember, as the great Hunter S. Thompson said, “buy the ticket, take the ride.”
I’m Joseph Flynn and that is my perspective.
