Insane Asylum

Insane Asylum

John was born into a level of poverty that few Americans have ever witnessed. Bereft of opportunities to improve the conditions of his life and his family, he decides to take the extraordinary step of leaving the confines of his own existence and seize upon an opportunity to secure a better life for himself, in a place where food and warmth and drink are plenty, where sanitation exists and where access to medicines are readily available…so he forces his way into a neighbor’s home, fixes himself a sandwich, helps himself to a bottle of beer, takes a long-needed hot shower, changes his clothes into what he can find in the master bedroom’s closet, and rifles through the medicine cabinet to find some medications that will ease his pain. When the homeowner returns from their workaday job to find this trespasser making himself at home, does the homeowner:

1. Call the police to report the trespasser who has broken into his home?

or

2. Invite the trespasser to remain in his home indefinitely and continue to avail himself of all that the homeowner has worked so hard to attain?

While any sane person faced with the prospects of encountering such a trespasser would obviously select the first option, there are loads of sanctimonious people not having to deal with the ramifications of such an invasion, who would lecture the homeowner about the need to share his fortune, to share his living space along with the fruits of his labor and continue to provide comfort and lodging to someone who has broken into his home.

Such is the dilemma facing the United States today when many thousands of young men and, perhaps, hundreds of women and children are massing outside our southern border and attempting to enter this country by whatever means necessary- knowing that if past policy is any indication, they will be able to remain as long as they want. They are coached by American lawyers who advocate open borders, to say just the right things so as to be able to claim asylum and parlay that claim into permanent residence. Bolstered by the rulings of a Ninth Circuit Court which stymies each and every effort by the current President of the United States to defend our nation from such an onslaught, the interloper knows that he can wait out the President’s threat to close the border because, eventually, that border will reopen once the tempest of the moment dies down. Once inside this country, he will be afforded the Constitutional protections, its rights of due process and be given the benefits of free legal counsel to fend off any and all efforts by the federal government to have him deported back to the country of his origin. The fact that his specious claims of asylum and his request for refugee status are fraudulent are beside the point, especially if he fails to show up for a court hearing scheduled many months or even years down the road. He’s here and that’s it…end of story.

Such is the insane asylum that Americans face today and the media, along with their allies in the Democrat party, are oh-so-willing to play the part of the sanctimonious, socialist sycophants who wag their collective fingers at the President and his supporters and accuse them of racism, intolerance and at day’s end, inhumanity…

…and this insane asylum isn’t exclusively an American problem, as very similar conundrums have been played out in Europe, where so-called refugees from Syria and other middle eastern countries have entered European nations in huge numbers, particularly in Germany. Again, the vast majority of these immigrants are young men between the ages of 18 and 45 who seek not the protection of a host democracy, but who rather seek to appropriate the largesse provided by governments who have embraced varying levels of socialism and wealth redistribution. Like all too many of their counterparts in the Western Hemisphere, they have no desire to assimilate, no intent to learn English (or the language of their host country), and certainly no inclination to adopt the culture and values that are the mainstays of western civilization. Further, once they have amassed enough of their fellow “refugees” into specific areas within urban communities, they establish “no-go” territorial boundaries where native-born populations dare not enter.

Think that it cannot happen here? Think again.

 

-Drew Nickell, 27 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

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Thanksgiving 2018

Thanksgiving 2018

Before we knew it, we found ourselves on the verge of Thanksgiving 2018, and its sudden and seemingly all-too-early arrival has caught all of us by surprise and, perhaps, dismay.

It seemed like it was only yesterday when the sultry, humid August-like days of early October dictated the running of our summertime air conditioners. A month later, an atypical cooling of November caused us to flip the switch on our thermostats to forced and heated air, as if the summer skipped autumn altogether and brought us into the chill of winter.

Amid Mother Nature’s manic meanderings, our summertime sweat turned into wintertime’s congestion with all of the associated sneezing, hacking and coughing- symptoms that usually hold off until just before the yearly bacchanalia known as Hanukkah to some, Christmas to most and then, New Year’s to all.

Perhaps, as the fifties of our last decade have now become the sixties of the next in the progression of our own age, it merely seems that time is passing with evermore acceleration. It is as though it was only yesterday when President Trump won his all but unlikely victory over Hillary Clinton, and we have already passed the mid-term elections two years later. In two months, the president will begin the second half of his first term- wherever did the time go?

Despite all of the angst, and ups and downs of the past year(s), we have much for which to be thankful on this Thanksgiving of 2018. We still live in the greatest country on earth. We still enjoy the blessings of freedom. We still take pride in our independence and the attendant rights of free speech, writing, religion and whether or not we choose to bear arms- rights largely unattainable in the world at large. For most of us, our cupboards and tables are bountiful and the hunger and deprivation affecting much of the world are things that, in a relative sense, have eluded our very fortunate selves who happen to call ourselves Americans.

Sure, there are as always, the ever-looming threats of international and domestic upheaval, the uncertainty of economic stability, the murkiness and unpredictability that goes hand-in-hand with changing cultures and behavioral norms which at once are concurrently menacing, and yet liberating, all in the same moment. It is, after all, the distinctly human dichotomy that while we enjoy what we perceive to be the comfort and caring of family and friends, we also know in the back of our minds how fleeting and momentary such blessings might prove to be. Life has a cruel way of reminding all of us that what is here, today, might well be gone, tomorrow, and that we better be thankful for what we have because, in the end, all is temporary, even for the most secure among us.

Perhaps this is why we have a Thanksgiving in the United States- to take one day, regardless of our differences, to say thanks for the blessings that are bestowed upon us. Such is the unique nature of this very American holiday. We may be black or white, we may be Protestant, Catholic, Muslim or Jew, we may be devout in our beliefs or even agnostic, but we can all be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy- freedoms that much of the world can only dream of but that we in the United States regard as ordinary, expected and guaranteed by our Constitution.

So, it is with all of this in mind that we extend our very best wishes to you and yours for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, with thoughts and prayers that the bounty we all enjoy today, may be ours tomorrow and always.

Good tidings, all.

 

-Drew Nickell, 21 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

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“Fumble!” How Republicans Lost the House

“Fumble!” How Republicans Lost the House

Turnovers.

On any given Sunday it is said that any NFL team can win or lose, and a team’s fortunes can hinge on a turnover, be it a loss of downs, an interception or a fumble. Timed right, such a turnover can and has cost an otherwise winning team loss, humiliation and perhaps a chance at post-season play. That’s football.

As with football, politics is on a game clock and time is quickly running out on Republicans in the House of Representatives. With roughly six weeks until Democrats take over the House, albeit for (at least) the next two years, Republican congressmen have a very small window to get things done…but will they?

Having failed to push through promised healthcare legislation (thanks to a last-minute thumbs down by the late (and ultimate) RINO in the U.S. Senate), having failed to deliver on President Trump’s request to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and having failed to complete an investigation into how members of the Obama administration colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign to use a fake dossier to spy on members of the Trump campaign and launch a costly and pointless investigation into alleged Russian collusion, Republicans have effectively “fumbled” the House back to the Democrats. Essentially, they have handed the gavel back to whence it comes…back to the once and future Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

With six weeks to gain some small sliver of dignity before surrendering their power, odds are that Republicans won’t even try to do so, and that timidity is precisely how they lost the House.

So afraid of what might happen in the Senate, where it is said that all good legislation meets its own demise, so afraid of being labeled the “party of intolerance,” the “party with no compassion,” or, Heaven forbid, “the party of Trump” by a media who will always and forever be against them, their lack of intestinal fortitude, as personified by outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and three dozen other House Republicans who decided not to risk another run for their own seats, proved to be their own undoing.

Not that their failure to act on President Trump’s mandate didn’t have help from their fellow partisans in the Senate, where Republicans still maintain a small majority going into the new year. After all, House Republicans have not been able to make up their minds as to just who they are, and what they represent, since taking the reins from Nancy Pelosi eight years ago.  The only real accomplishment that House Republicans can lay claim to in those eight years, is legislation passed in December of 2017 which lowered taxes across the board, simplified tax filings for a large majority of individual taxpayers, and brought an end to ObamaCare’s unpopular individual mandate. Ironically, ObamaCare was the only significant legislation passed under Democrat leadership in the four years preceding the Republican takeover in 2011, so it seems that legislative incompetence is a bi-partisan malady whose cure seems to be fleeting at best.

Major problems lingering for decades- immigration reform, the national debt, failure to achieve a balanced budget (or even any budget devoid of continuing resolution after continuing resolution), and the ticking time bombs of Social Security and Medicare insolvency- have remained unaddressed by both parties and both houses of Congress. Given the pending “subpoena canon” promised by Democrats to seek revenge on Trump’s election victory, the odds that any of the aforementioned issues will be addressed in the new Congress are somewhere between “slim” and “nil,” and “slim” just left town.

It is very tempting, for pundits and politicians alike, to blame the House loss on President Trump, but doing so doesn’t mean that it’s right. While Democrat apparatchiks can do what they will (and always seem to will), to overturn election results in Florida and other states, the real culprit in Republicans losing the House, is none other than Speaker Paul Ryan, whose spinelessness, fence-sitting and trying to be all things to all people are in the finest tradition of his Republican predecessors John Boehner (D-OH) and Denny Hastert (R-IL). Essentially, Republicans haven’t had true leadership in the House since the days of Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and his term as Speaker ended as the last century came to a close.

Twenty years, and (count ‘em) three Speakers later, they still just don’t seem to “get it.” All of which confirms the adage that, while Democrats don’t know how to act ethically when they lose an election, Republicans just as surely don’t know how to act competently when they win an election…and they have no one to blame but themselves.

 

-Drew Nickell, 14 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:

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Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on Thursday, November 8th on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110

Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on Thursday, November 8th on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110

On Thursday, the 8th of November, I was sitting in for Nora on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, where I discussed the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, how the mainstream media is failing us, the fallout from the mid-term election and what it will mean going forward, and how Democrats are planning to use their control of the House to bring down the President, at all costs.

This show appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, so here is a link to the replay of this broadcast

https://www.facebook.com/drew.nickell.7/videos/10210401438792313/

If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to WKQA’s live broadcast:

http://lightningstream.surfernetwork.com/Media/player/view/WKQA-AM_gsl.asp?StreamingServerName=nick11&OnDemandServerName=nick10&targetWidth=1000&targetHeight=800&call=WKQA-AM&od=0

 

-Drew Nickell, 8 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:

http://www.drewnickell.com

Follow my postings on the RSS feed: http://www.drewnickell.com/?feed=rss2

 

 

Making Sense of the Mid-Terms and Where We Go from Here

Making Sense of the Mid-Terms and Where We Go from Here

When all the chatter stops regarding the 2018 mid-term election, and all of the self-described “experts” have finished blathering about who won, who lost and who should take the blame or credit for its results, some very real and tangible consequences will begin to emerge that will shape the next two years and then the four years that will follow.

As was almost expected, Democrats were able to “flip” the House of Representatives by only the slimmest of margins. As of this writing, Democrats now lay claim to 220 House seats, barely surpassing the 218-seat threshold needed to attain majority status. With 22 House races yet to be decided (again, as of this writing) the Democrats’ hold on the House will be just as tenuous as the Republicans’ hold on the House last year. With the departure of over thirty House Republicans who chose not to seek re-election, the Democrat takeover of the House was certainly eased, if not abetted by these Republicans- most of whom were RINOs whose support of the President was flimsy, at best. As a group, the Republicans who remain in the Congress are more solidly behind the President, even though their overall power has been obviously diminished.

House investigations into Democrat misbehavior regarding the launch of the Russia probe, and other such investigations of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take a U-turn, with any investigation of Clinton and the Democrats being brought to an immediate halt, while investigations into Trump will be intensified and broadened- Democrats poised to chair the requisite House committees have already said so. Whatever progress made by Bob Goodlatte’s (R-VA) and Devon Nunes’ (R-CA) investigative committees will now evaporate into thin air, while at least two key Democrats poised to take over committee chairmanships, Maxine Waters (D-CA) of finance, and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) of judiciary, have promised to begin impeachment proceedings against the President and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, respectively. But therein lies the ironic secret to Donald Trump’s eventual victory in 2020.

With little or no legislation coming from the newly-aligned House, President Trump will be able to effectively run against a “do-nothing” Congress in 2020, while at the same time- and this is ironic- being able to portray victim-status in the wake of more and more hearings, investigations and other subsequent “witch hunts,” sure to follow. In other words, flipping the House to Democrat control may be the one thing that assures Donald Trump of re-election in 2020. After all, he now has someone(s) and something(s) to run against, whereas without this change, who really is Trump’s adversary?

In spite of historical precedence that has indicated a flip of one or two houses of Congress during a given president’s first mid-term election, President Donald Trump managed to flip at least three, perhaps four, Senate seats adding a net gain of at least three seats to his threadbare majority in the Senate.

For Democrats in the Senate who voted to oppose Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, representing states where Trump defeated Hillary Clinton two years ago, things didn’t go so well. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) all paid the price for this vote, and it appears that John Tester (D-MT) barely escaped joining them.  Only Joe Manchin (D-WV), who voted to confirm Kavanaugh, was able to retain his seat, while the only incumbent Republican to lose his seat was Dean Heller (R-NV). In Arizona, Martha McSally (R-AZ) seems poised to win Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) abandoned seat over Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and if that should hold, (pending the eventual outcome in Mississippi’s special election to replace Thad Cochran (R-MS),  then President Trump will have expanded his majority in the Senate from 51 to 54 seats.

More importantly, erstwhile anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans Bob Corker (R-TN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) will have been replaced with Trump loyalists, expanding the President’s political influence over his caucus in the Senate. With fifty-one Republicans including three anti-Trump/NeverTrump in the old Senate, the President was unable to pass his healthcare bill in 2017, thanks to John McCain’s (R-AZ) infamous thumbs down vote in July of that year.

With 53 or 54 Republicans in the new Senate, including the newly-elected erstwhile anti-Trump/NeverTrump Mitt Romney (R-UT), the President will be able to more easily confirm replacement cabinet officials, more easily get Senate approval on trade agreements and other such treaties, and continue his success in appointments to the federal judgeships. Essentially, Trump was smart to concentrate on campaigning for Senate candidates and the fact that he was able to not only retain, but then expand, the Republican majority in the Senate will bode well for him in the next two years, running up to his re-election campaign in 2020. If either Associate Justices Ruth Bader-Ginsberg or Stephen Breyer (both in their 80s) decides to step down, President Trump will have an opportunity to alter the direction of the Supreme Court for decades to come. Having already confirmed two Associate Justices, and some 1100 other federal judges, it may well be that Trump’s biggest legacy and most lasting impact will be in the judiciary.

Needless to say, a lot of new faces from both parties will appear on Capitol Hill come January. A record number of seats in both Houses will be held by women in both parties, and the effect that will have on the comings and goings of our elected officials and in the legislative process remains to be seen.

In Virginia alone two incumbent Congressmen, Dave Brat (R-VA) in District 7 and Scott Taylor (R-VA) in District 2, were replaced by Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Elaine Luria (D-VA), respectively. As expected, Barbara Comstock (R-VA) in District 10 lost in her re-election bid to Jennifer Wexton (D-VA)., hence the three House seats that flipped in the Old Dominion. Once reliably conservative going back decades, Virginia is now an irreversibly “blue” state, thanks both to the fact that Virginia claims more federal spending than any other state and is now politically dominated by the DC suburbs of Northern Virginia. Save for four congressional districts in rural Virginia, the Democrat takeover of the Old Dominion is almost complete and the Commonwealth has become irreversibly changed as a result.

If history is any indication, America seems to be fixated on the idea of divided government like no other country in the entire world, and nothing from yesterday’s election would tend to counter this claim. The next two years promise to be a topsy-turvy world of high drama and low dealing, with treachery and trouble-making brought to the forefront as never before.

While members of both parties, as well as President Trump, can legitimately lay claim to winning the mid-term election of 2018, it will nonetheless vouchsafe the old adage that “victory has a thousand fathers, while defeat is but an orphan.” While politicians of all stripes will claim such victory, let us hope that we the people do not become orphans in the process.

 

-Drew Nickell, 7 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:

http://www.drewnickell.com

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The Mid-Term Election of 2018

The Mid-Term Election of 2018

To say that the Mid-Term Election of 2018 is the most important and consequential mid-term election in our lifetime would be a gross under-statement. When it comes to the very direction the United States is going to take in the years ahead- be that two years ahead or six, the choice American voters will make could not be clearer, and the stakes could not be greater.

On the one hand you have the Democrats. Aside from the fact- the very important fact- that they are still “smartin’” from President Trump’s upset over their anointed queen, Hillary Clinton, who was certain to be the successor to Barack Obama, vengeance on her behest is the saliva that drools from their very essence. This is why they have taken their eyes off of their evolutionary course, and have steered themselves into the mindless stratagems of socialism and open borders.

No real American wishes our border to be an open pathway for anyone to merely saunter across, with an expectation of governmental largesse and eventual citizenship. To openly advocate for such an approach is political suicide, but acting in such a way to promote this policy of open borders is what has been going on, and will continue to occur, as long as Democrats block any attempts by Republicans or President Trump to arrive upon a more safe and secure immigration policy- one that works. In short, it’s all about swelling the ranks of immigrant voters, and how they got here is of no concern to Democrats who only seek the power of elected office.

In the same way, no one who has even an elementary understanding of economics, or knows the history of the twentieth century in which hundreds of millions died as the direct result of the varying forms of socialism and the wars it brought about, would rationally seek socialism as the correct solution to the means of production and the distribution of wealth. Because “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money,” so famously said by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, socialism can only and eventually result in universal poverty and dependence on the state. Because the wealth that creates both enterprise and employment will have been taxed into oblivion, there will be no one for whom to work, and the middle class will cease to exist as a result. Essentially, the only bloc of voters who would pursue socialism are either ignorant of history and the realities of economies based upon supply and demand or are, in fact, anarchists who seek to bring down our national economy as a means to foment revolution and subsequent change to a global government in control over every aspect of our lives.

Democrats don’t like to talk about these things because they know, deep down, both positions are losers in the eyes of the American voters. So, instead they talk of the need to counter President Trump and provide some semblance of a balance of power. They know that the second they gain control of either house, the next two years will be filled with committee hearings, investigations and little else in spite of the fact that the American people want things done to improve their lives, and no amount of partisan acrimony and talk of impeachment can ever bring this about.

On the other hand, you have the Republicans. Formerly fractured in half by those who support President Trump, and those who hate him as much as their Democrat foes do, somewhere along the way they realized that the guy tends to get things done- things his more polite Republican predecessors could never get done, largely because they sought approval from the opposing party and the biased media that would never materialize, regardless. Add that to the way he can draw a crowd at a stump speech, control the conversation though the use of twitter, and the economic surge that has occurred since his election, there is a sense that whatever before divided the Republican party is going the way of departed (John McCain R-AZ) and departing senators (Bob Corker R-TN, Jeff Flake R-AZ). For a Republican to distance himself or herself from the President, is to court disaster on election night.

Aside from the Trump factor, it is the Republicans who seek to preserve the strength of the American economy, it is the Republicans who seek to stymie the progression towards socialism, and it is the Republicans who want to stem the tide of illegal immigration, the growth of sanctuary cities and the slow and steady assault on our Constitutional freedoms.

Early voting returns indicate the possibility of a record turnout by the time the votes are tallied. With such a vast chasm between two competing agendas, the American people will decide the fate of this nation, in a mid-term election like no other…

…may they choose wisely.

 

-Drew Nickell, 5 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:

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A Half-Century Later and Still Addicted to National Politics

A Half-Century Later and Still Addicted to National Politics

Perhaps I was a strange kid.

Fifty years ago, at age 10, I became acutely interested in national politics for the first time…and I haven’t been able to sever this addiction ever since. That year’s election featured a back-from-the-political-dead Republican Richard Nixon running against a grudging consensus, albeit old-time labor Democrat named Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Added to the volatile mix, given the year that was 1968, was an independent candidate who ended up securing five electoral victories in the south, something no independent candidate has ever been able to accomplish since. His name was George C. Wallace.

Nixon, who was Ike’s Vice President during the 1950s, famously lost to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. Two years later, Nixon lost in his quest for the California governorship to Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (father of Jerry Brown), and announced his decision to leave political candidacy going forward. In his televised concession he bitterly told an oft-adversarial press that “…think what you will miss…you won’t have Nixon to kick around, anymore, because this is my last press conference….” That was 1962.

Six years later, he was about to become the thirty-seventh President of the United States, only to resign the presidency six years later. No one could have foreseen any of that in 1968. The year already gave us the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy. The younger Kennedy’s assassination following Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election left Democrats with no alternative but Sen. Eugene McCarthy, whose outspoken opposition to the Viet Nam War put him at odds with LBJ who was in the midst of pursuing that war for the previous five years. In an effort to mend the breach, Democrats grudgingly accepted Johnson’s Vice President Humphrey, whose bona fides on civil rights and other liberal pursuits were well established. Not having outspokenly taken issue with the Johnson administration’s pursuit of war in southeast Asia, Humphrey was hoped to bring Democrats together. In the tussle over civil rights, though, it wasn’t the Republicans who stood in the way as much as it was the Democrats from the old South, particularly the deep South, who left the party in droves, supporting instead Alabama Governor George Wallace, known for his opposition to desegregation as personified in his blocking the door at the University of Alabama in the face of Bobby Kennedy’s assistant, Nicholas Katzenbach.

With that kind of intrigue, who could not possibly take interest in the election of 1968?

Well, yours’ truly took in so much of that election, it began an addiction to national political elections that has lasted one half of a century later, unto this very day.

Months ago, I predicted that Republicans would retain both houses of Congress and there has been nothing since to indicate that this prediction isn’t still certain on my part. It will be close, but the G.O.P. will narrowly retain majority status in the House, and modestly increase their majority in the Senate.

In the half century that has passed, with thirteen presidential elections closely followed, and just as many transformative mid-term elections also followed, there are many similarities in the ones I have observed with today’s mid-term election, with one exception, who just happens to be President of the United States. As never so intently before, this year’s mid-term election comes down to a national referendum on the presidency of Donald Trump. For his own part, Trump is rallying his base to support Republican candidates with amazing energy and stamina, to a degree and number of appearances never attempted by a sitting president. Republican success or failure will largely depend on whether or not Trump can push his voters to the polls, even though he isn’t technically on the ballot. With nothing of substance to offer, other than continued oversight and possible impeachment, Democrats are also hanging their fortunes on just how the country feels about President Trump, so they too see that the election of 2018 is all about Trump.

Stay tuned, and please don’t forget to vote.

 

-Drew Nickell, 1 November 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:

http://www.drewnickell.com

Follow my postings on the RSS feed: http://www.drewnickell.com/?feed=rss2