In later years/decades, perhaps I'll wonder why I didn't write more about that first debate of the 2024 campaign. To be truthful, I only watched a few minutes as I was getting ready for bed, within the first 15 minutes of the start of the campaign. I only saw Biden speak. It was painful. We switched to the peaceful music that we sometimes let play while we drift off to sleep.
This morning, much more well-informed people are offering much more developed opinions than I am able to do. I am aghast and depressed. Thomas L. Friedman offered this opinion in his New York Times essay to explain how important this race is, an opinion I share with no hesitation: "Because this is no ordinary hinge of history we are at. We are at the start of the biggest technological disruptions and the biggest climate disruption in human history."
The campaign season is long, and much can happen between now and the election, and many of the possibilities are horrifying. Like much of the U.S. citizenry (and probably much of the world), I cannot believe we are having these same two candidates again. Both have huge flaws. I think Biden has been a good president, but I worry about the toll that four more years will take. In many of his policies, Trump seems to think it's still 1982. I will refrain from commenting on other problems that both men have as candidates and as humans.
I vacillate. I am most often thinking that none of it matters, that climate change is accelerating, and our situation is changing in ways we can't even perceive right now. But then I think about the hinge points of history, and how various humans have made a clear difference. I don't know that either man will be capable of that.
I did not intend to write so much about politics this morning, particularly since I didn't watch the debate. I didn't watch the debate in part because I didn't want to fill my head with negativity right before sleep. I should have followed the same advice this morning. Ugh.
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