Saturday, July 23, 2016

After the Republican Convention

The horrible freak show that was the Republican National Convention has now come to an end, with a red-faced candidate shouting at the faithful that America is on the edge of violent collapse and their only hope is to trust in Him as the Second Coming of Richard Nixon, or is it Mussolini? Thankfully, a more sunny scenario was offered today by the Democrats, when Hillary Clinton introduced Tim Kaine as her choice to be her Vice President, should they win the election. Finally, after days of gloom and doom and angry mobs shouting for blood, we saw two relaxed, very intelligent and very experienced public servants offering hope rather than hate, compassion rather than anger. I think Hillary summed it all up when she said, earlier in the day on Friday, "Love trumps hate." Kaine reached out to the growing numbers of Hispanic Americans by speaking Spanish...FLUENTLY.

For me, one of the most important issues here is experience. Hillary was a U.S. Senator for eight years and Secretary of State for four, not to mention eight years as First Lady. She can also boast of earlier years spent in advocating for children's issues. Kaine has been a city councilman, the mayor of Richmond, the governor of Virginia, and a U.S. Senator for three years. He also worked with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras when he was just out of college.

Trump has zero experience in public service and government, and his much-vaunted business experience is clouded by all those bankruptcies and law suits that seem to buzz around him like flies around, uh, food. All he does is shout about how great he is and how he can fix everything, without ever giving any details! At least his VP pick, Mike Pence, has some solid experience as a U.S. congressman and a governor.Though I do not agree with his political views, I appreciate that Pence has a calm and thoughtful temperament. Problem is, the experienced and thoughtful Pence is not at the top of the ticket. The very loud but completely inexperienced and unthoughtful Trump is the boss, and poor Pence is his "apprentice."

If you believe that important jobs, like President and Vice-President of the USA, should be done by experienced and intelligent people, the obvious choice is Clinton-Kaine. That is my view, anyway!

Reflections on violence and violent gods in Paganism still forthcoming....

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