had fallen asleep
year ago and woke up today,
would have missed little

Adapted from the opening paragraphs in the New York Times Opinion Piece, The Election Is Happening Too Soon by David Brooks.

Mr. Brooks wrote:

I had hoped this election would be a moment of national renewal. I had hoped that the Democrats could decisively defeat MAGA populism and send us down a new national path.

That’s clearly not going to happen. No matter who wins this election, it will be close, and this is still going to be an evenly and bitterly divided nation.

In retrospect, I think I was expecting too much of politics. When certain sociological and cultural realities are locked in, there is not much politicians can do to redirect events. The two parties and their associated political committees have spent billions this year, and nothing has altered the race. The polls are just where they were at the start. If you had fallen asleep a year ago and woke up today, you would have missed little of consequence, except that it’s Kamala Harris leading the blue 50 percent of the country now and not Joe Biden.

It’s clearer to me now that most of the time politicians are not master navigators leading us toward a new future. They are more like surfers who ride the waves created by people further down in the core society.

When I was in college and studying the history of the United States, a theme pounded into my head by one of my favorite Professors was that the number one job of the President was to ‘educate the people’.

This Professor felt that with the correct information, the people would understand and support the President’s goals and the current administration’s efforts to reach those goals.

Another way to put, was that the President’s role was to provide leadership.

What a concept.

Leadership.

Mr. Brooks writes, “Politicians, especially when running for office, are professional opportunists, trying to please voting blocs. They are rarely visionaries.”

I like that.

Professional Opportunists.

Even when its seems both parties are just a bunch of lemmings running in opposite directions and the reason there are running in that opposite direction is mostly because it IS the opposite direction, with both sides heading for the cliff, the candidates see which way the crowds are moving, get in front of their group and yell, ‘Follow Me (to the cliff’s edge).’

When certain sociological and cultural realities are locked in, there is not much politicians can do to redirect events.

The two parties and their associated political committees have spent billions this year, and nothing has altered the race.

The polls are just where they were at the start.

And this is how we choose our leaders.

It sure doesn’t seem to be because of any leadership qualities on where we might, as a country, be going.

As Mr. Thurber reminds in his Fable, The Wolf who Went Places, “Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.”