Pawns at the polls

Days like these, on the eve of an important election with its coupling of high principle and low putridness, make us wonder what the hell is going on.
When we vote on Nov. 8, will we feel like we just “went high” and put our nation and community on a better path, or will we feel dirtied for “going low” and resigning ourselves to the “lesser of two evils?”
We are exhausted and want the campaigning to be over. Even voting for city council, school board and county supervisor is feeling too much like a chore instead of an honor.
And, we’re not done yet. We have to vote for GMOs, community seperators, marijuana, the death penalty, lots of new sales taxes, condoms for porn stars, a cigarette tax and gun controls, plus even more.
We wake up these days in a country that has nominated a reality TV con artist for U.S. President because we want to “blow up” our poltical establishment. The “establishment candidate” in this election is a former First Lady of a president that almost got impeached. And that’s the best we can do?
Election 2016 is so hell-like we can’t explain it to our kids. How do we repeat Mr. Trump’s “locker room” boasts of grabbing women’s genitalia? Still trying to aim high but wanting some real politcal changes, how do we defend cries to “lock her up?” Even in some local elections it has become painful to listen to the personal attacks and hypocritical self-righteousness.
Maybe it is time to remind ourselves that life is much more than just politics and that “this too shall pass.” Yes, but even on a more apolitical, secular, playful, technological, academic, intimate or even mystical plain, we have to admit we are living in very interesting times.
Donald Trump, a self-bloated, crass celebrity-type is running for President, a befuddlement to the “system.” At the same time we have Bob Dylan, a folk singer turned wordy rocker who just won a Nobel Prize for literature. What kind of world is it where there’s room for both a Donald Trump and a Bob Dylan to grab our attention spans and author the anthems of our days? 
“Something is going on,” wrote Dylan in one of his songs, “and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?”
It is all “rigged” Mr. Trump is telling us, agreeing with Dylan about our ignorance and alienation.
Both Dylan and Trump are from the Baby Boomer generation and that explains a lot, but the comparisons must end there. All to say, we may be participating in the last Boomer-dominated election ever. Move over Mr. Jones, let the Millennials have their day.
We see these beginnings in many of our local elections, where new and younger faces are emerging. Maybe it is time to let these fresh voices tell us “what the hell is going on.”
Baby Boomers keep fighting the same old battles like growth versus no-growth. They cling to their pensions while the next generation is asking why they are getting left with the bill.
If this is the last election we have to hear about Hillary Clinton’s description of Trump’s “basket of deplorables” we can only rejoice. Let’s hope the racists, sexists, homophobics and anti-Muslims in Trump’s basket are part of a receding generation, too.
Connecting Trump and Dylan one more time, it was Dylan who once identified all the angry, demoralized deplorables as “only pawns in their game.”
Are we feeling like pawns? Taught to hate, not think straight, fear people that don’t look like us, neding someone else to blame?
Maybe we’re not too tired and spent to vote afterall. Maybe we’re just tired of all the pawnmanship we’ve been playing and witnessing for the past generation.
— Rollie Atkinson