To be honest, I wish politicians and pundits alike would stop using the phrase “to be honest.”    Honest to God, I wish they would.  Honestly.   When I hear that phrase my first thought is that the person using it is not going to be honest at all.   That it’s probably coming from someone who might be a pathological liar and is trying to cloak his or her falsehood with a statement of their commitiment to sincerity.

And that’s my honest opinion.   Honestly, It really is.

At this point I should probably say something about the Trump rally and punches thrown, comparing it to Chicago in 68 and whatnot.   It’s a comparison I have a hard time making, as the motivational factors then and now require a high degree of pretzel logic to tie together.    Lennon and McCartney may have summed it up best, providing a rare moment of clarity with the words, “I am the egg man, they are the egg men. I am the walrus, coo coo cachoo.”

Makes perfect sense to me.  To  be honest though, and I try to be as honest as possible,  the whole Trump “phenomenon” is getting to be more than a bit of a bore.  He has only a slice of the elecorate, including but not liited to, swamp dwelling duck hunters in the deep south, survivalists, various white supremacists, truck drivin’, hard drinkin’ urban cowboys and such.

Before long we’ll be at that critical nexis where the many will tell the few who are screaming at one  another and throwing punches to go home and start behaving themselves.   That would be the  general election.   Until then we’ll all have to soldier on together, embarrassed at revealing our  underdeveloped nature to a world community that frequently looks to us to set an example – which Donald Trump has done by turning our political process into his own brand of zany ratings-getter, combining all the best  features of professional wrestling with phony reality show antics.

What the hell?   It’s only entertainment, right?

We should be  so much better than this.  Most of us, I think, are.  Honestly.   Anyway, it’s nothing new.   As Alexander Hamilton said to Thomas Jefferson, “Your people, sir, is nothing but a great beast!”  

I have seen the beast, and he is us.   At least some of us.  A gang of screamers, who delight in an authoritarian mindset leading them down a path  where history teaches no one should go.  The wild-eyed mob, throwing punches and spewing foam before going back to their corners and waiting for the next Donald Trump to come along, whipping them into another frightening thoughtless frenzy before grace arrives, once again pulling us back from the brink.

Honestly.