Chris Rock used to do a bit about the time Ed Bradley interviewed Michael Jackson on “60 Minutes.” Rumors and lawsuits had begun to swirl around Jackson, and Bradley had to bring up the subject.
Bradley: There are allegations that you sometimes sleep in the same bed with a 10-year-old boy who appears on stage with you in your concerts.
Jackson: (Smiles) Yesss.
Bradley: Then you are saying that sleep in a bed with a 10-year-old boy who is not related to you?
Jackson: (Pause) Yesss.
Bradley: (Exasperated) So you’re saying that you think that it’s OK for you to sleep in a bed with a 10-year-old boy?
Jackson: Yesss.
Bradley: N----, is you crazy?!
That’s basically my reaction these days as we near the most disappointing election of my long lifetime. How did my beloved country get to a point where tens of millions of people are going to vote for one of the most truly reprehensible people ever to sully the American political arena?
How are so many of my fellow citizens willing to ignore the vulgar and ugly truths — often delivered in the vile being’s own words — just to deliver a “screw you!” to Americans whose skin is darker?
I can’t say that I don’t care who wins the election. I very much care. I hope Kamala Harris wins, and I hope she wins big. But I’m devastated that the election is even close.
Bret Baier, in his embarrassing “interview” with Harris on Fox, kept using the phrase “half of the country” when referring to the people who will vote for Donald Trump. It’s not half. It’s never been half, and it never will be half. Kamala Harris will undoubtedly beat Trump by millions of votes.
It will forever be a stain on our nation that the most powerful position in the world, that of president of the United States, is the only one in our entire country that is not determined by who gets the most votes.
And if Donald Trump prevails in the Electoral College again, it will be the third time in seven elections that the loser of the popular vote will become president (something the Founding Fathers thought to be all but impossible). While no rational American could ever justify the existence of the Electoral College, neither will it go away, as there will never be 38 states willing to ratify the Constitutional Amendment required to banish it to the trash heap of history.
Trump will undoubtedly make some meaningless point about how he got more votes than any other losing candidate in history. He lied when he claimed he got more votes than Hillary Clinton (she beat him by 3 million). He lied about how badly Joe Biden beat him in 2020 (nearly 8 million). And he’ll lie about how many more votes Harris gets than he does.
After the election of 2016, people who had voted for Trump were offended by the suggestion that they had knowingly voted for a racist. The joke back then was that not all Trump voters were racists, but all racists were Trump voters. Eight years later, there is no gray area. Donald Trump is almost gleefully racist and doesn’t even bother trying to deny it. And those of you voting for him shouldn’t try to deny it, either. You can shamelessly claim not to be a racist, but you’re damn sure voting for one.
I keep visualizing Ed Bradley interviewing a MAGA person:
Question: Abortion access is an important issue on the ballot in several states. Which presidential candidate would be the best issues sensitive to this segment of our society?
Answer: I side with the convicted assaulter of women.
Question: Who would do a better job of fighting crime?
Answer: I go with the convicted felon.
Question: Who would have the better chance of resolving the U.S. budget deficit problem?
Answer: Oh, you definitely have to go with the person who owes a $450 million fine for fraudulent business practices.
I simply don’t understand why some white people are so afraid of people with brown or Black skin that they are willing to vote for a racist.
I’m stunned that so many people lack an understanding of even the most basic economic realities (i.e., inflation was guaranteed to happen after the pandemic shutdown) that they are unwilling to admit that Donald Trump is a fraudulent, failed, bankrupt “businessman.”
I don’t understand why people are so afraid of a woman being president that they are willing to vote for a rapist.
Mostly, I don’t get why people are so afraid of the truth that they are willing to throw away everything they used to believe in (common decency, morality, equality) in order to find temporary comfort in a cacophony of slurs and lies.
There are only a few days to go and I’m uneasy. I keep hoping that Kamala Harris, the next time the moron Trump calls her “dumb” or “stupid” or “low intelligence,” would go on national TV and challenge him. “Hey, let’s have an IQ test. The winner stays in the race; the loser returns to being a convicted felon.”
I’ll probably be up all night Tuesday. I’m just hoping that America will still be here when Wednesday morning arrives.
