By Bob Gaydos

New York Times front page

I wrote these words on Oct. 27, 2016 with an election looming:  “At some point in a person’s life, if he or she is lucky, the opportunity presents itself to take responsibility for one’s actions. To take stock of how things are going. Not materially, but really. It can be frightening. It can also be rewarding. Among other things, this look in the mirror allows one to say — if one can be honest — ‘I’ve made some mistakes. I sincerely regret them. I hope to do better from now on.’ A lot of people never do this.

“With that runaway train called Trump menacing the trust and tolerance that are the pillars of our, yes, already great nation, I’m thinking that a lot of people — a lot of white, Republican people — have a date with a mirror. It’s far too late to undo the damage Trump has done or to deny any part in it, but it’s not too late to admit the mistake of supporting him in spite of all the hateful, false things he said. It’s not too late to admit to acting as if he didn’t say them because, well, maybe because you were angry or confused or frightened or thought it would be disloyal. Maybe you feel you were lied to. Or maybe you just wanted to believe the lies.

“Republican politicians who have stuck with Trump have no such out. The McCains and Ryans and Cruzes and Rubios knew Trump was bad news from day one. But he was their bad news and his lies became their lies even when they disagreed with him, because they never had the courage — the humility, the simple decency — to look in the mirror and say: ‘Enough. This man is obscene. He is an insult to our party and our nation. We made a grave mistake in pandering to the worst instincts of some of our party members in order to get their votes. Our pride kept us from admitting this. Fear drove our decisions. We allowed him to make fools of us.’”  Those words were never said. Trump won.

Well, that day of reckoning finally came, a long, painful, overdue 10 years later, at the hands of millions of Americans of all colors and nationalities with the sweeping Democratic victories at all levels last Tuesday. A resounding rejection of Trump and what he stands for. What Republicans have stood for. Instead of looking in the mirror, the likes of J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio and others, who still think they have a career in politics after their shameless bowing at the feet of Trump, are already scurrying about looking for a way to avoid the blame. Lawyers are bailing out of the Trump “Justice Department.”

It’s not happening, J.D., no matter what you change your name to this time. Forget it. And Rubio? You will forever be known as “Little Marco,” Trump’s silent shadow in crime.  The party’s future is unknown.

This past August, with another election looming, I wrote ”The Republican Party is Still Dead” as the headline on a column.  A simple statement of fact. Although I had hopes, little did I know that the American voter was finally ready to write the obituary.

Memorial services are scheduled for next January in Washington, D.C.  They will be streamed and televised live.

By Bob Gaydos

Screenshot

    You could almost feel it. One, huge sigh of relief. The whole country saying to itself at the same time, “We’re not as crazy as we thought we were.”

    Thank god.

    The historic national Democratic sweep of offices, from Congress to governorships, was like a cathartic moment in a nation that for several years has seemed hell bent on suicide. We didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, we pulled the lever for Democrat after Democrat, including voters in states that hadn’t elected a Democrat for governor or senator in decades.

    Texas. Maine. Ohio. Kansas!

    Not only that. Woman after woman. A Latina Democrat won the governorship in Texas. Georgia elected the first Black female governor in the nation. A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe became the first female Native American governor in the nation thanks to voters in New Mexico.

   Take that, white nationalists! Take that, misogynists! Take that, Trump!

     Make no mistake, this was about Donald Trump. In a midterm election that Trump went to great pains to make about himself, holding poorly attended rallies around the nation at which he delivered incomprehensible speeches, the light apparently came on all at once for many Americans, including some formerly ardent MAGA Trumpers.

      Five-dollar-a-gallon gas, inflationary tariffs, masked agents kidnapping people off the streets and starting a lingering war nobody asked for in the Middle East apparently can do that. Acting like those things are no big deal when you have a reflecting pool, a ballroom, a golf course and an arch to design in Washington, D.C. doesn’t help.

     Trump, of course, is blaming the losing candidates, including the ones he handpicked. Asked about the massacre at the polls, he said that if he had been on the ballot the results would have been different.

     Formerly silent Republicans, including some of those who lost, said that he had, in fact, made the election a referendum on him and his policies by campaigning around the country instead of working on ending the war with Iran and the cost of going to the grocery store.

     As if he knew how.

     So, the Trump era as we’ve known it appears to be over. What comes next will be interesting, maybe exciting and, hopefully, healing. Two boys from Brooklyn at the moment stand to become the new leaders in Congress. Chuck Schumer could go from Senate minority leader to majority leader, a powerful post that controls what gets voted on and who gets approved for government posts. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, could become speaker of the House, controlling spending and two heartbeats from the presidency. The two men are celebrating the Democratic sweep. But a lot of Democrats see them as too moderate (cautious?) for what will need to be done come January.

      That is, briefly: 1) A full report on the Epstein files and the efforts by Attorney General Todd Blanche to keep them from becoming public in order to protect Trump. 2) An accounting of the billions Trump and his family have made because of his office since he was elected. 3) The relationship between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and how it has impacted the war in Ukraine. 4) The purging of the nation’s top military leaders by Pete Hegseth. 5) The uncontrolled violence of ICE agents on America’s streets. 6) Cuts in programs to help, well, virtually any group of people who legitimately need help. 7) The influence of Elon Musk and other tech billionaires on policy. 

      There’s plenty more, but that should keep Democrats in Congress busy investigating for two years. Republicans, of course, have their own reckoning to deal with. Is their fealty to Donald Trump over? If so, what are they now?

     In the meantime, many of us can lean back, take a sigh of relief and be thankful that millions of other Americans finally realized that Donald Trump really is as stupid and self-absorbed and dangerous as he sounds and decided to do something about it.

      Good job, America.

By Bob Gaydos

  A few weeks back, I wrote a column about Americans who don’t bother to vote. The ones who think “all politicians are the same.“ The ones who think their vote doesn’t mean anything.

   They’re wrong. In the 2024 election, not only did the now griping, feeling-betrayed MAGA cultists get exactly what they voted for, the unhappy “they’re all the same“ camp got exactly what they didn’t bother to vote against. Elections have consequences.

   Who knew?

    According to the Census Bureau, which has been keeping track of voter participation since 1964, 174 million Americans were registered to vote in 2024. Close to 20 million of those registered voters did not bother to exercise their constitutional right and civic duty to vote in that year’s presidential election.

    With Vice President Kamala Harris replacing incumbent President Joe Biden at the last minute as the Democratic Party presidential candidate, Trump carried the popular vote by 2.3 million voters. There are still lingering questions about Elon Musk possibly manipulating votes electronically in some selected states, but that’s a lot. However, America, as we know, doesn’t elect its president by popular vote. Each state gets a certain number of votes based on its population. In 2024, in a half dozen swing states that Trump carried by slim margins, deciding not to vote was crucial.

    Those non-voters are living with the consequences of that decision. We all are. Deciding not to do something is still doing something.

    With Trump having gone back on all his campaign promises, started a war with no obvious strategy to end it, and having made it more expensive and difficult for every American except millionaires to live day-to-day, Republicans, not having the voter registration numbers or issues to campaign on, have tried every way they could think of to keep certain groups of people from voting. They’ve even tried to redraw congressional districts to help Republican candidates in this year‘s midterm election.

    That’s why I say the simplest strategy for anyone who wants to end the madness of the Trump presidency is to vote for every Democrat on the ballot this year. Period.

    That’s what I did at a well-organized, efficient early voting opportunity at the county government building in Monticello, N.Y., a couple of days ago. Get in line. Name? Address? I’ve got you here. Here’s your ballot. That’s all that is supposed to be required.

    Why row A all the way? Think about it. Where do all these congressional candidates come from? Gubernatorial candidates? State legislature candidates? From the ranks. They start on the town or village board, city council, county legislature, maybe even the school board. In the Trump era of control of the Republican Party, I cannot think of one person in any of those local elected positions in my area, who is a Republican, having had anything to say publicly critical of anything Trump or the out-to-lunch Republican Congress has done. Silence of the lambs.

      To get ahead in today’s Republican Party, one has to keep his her mouth shut unless it is to agree with whatever is handed down from the top, however distasteful or even illegal. To speak out is to be ostracized. Goodbye political career, at least in the Republican Party. It is simply a cult. To advance, one must go along.

       So if your name is on the ballot running for a political office as a Republican, I cannot trust your independence. I must assume you approve of sticking a dagger in the back of Ukraine and raising the price of gasoline to $5 a gallon and having masked agents hauling people off the street and locking them away in warehouses because of the way they look. If that’s not true, I certainly haven’t heard otherwise. Of course, I did get mailers trying to blame Democrats for these problems that arose with your party in control of the White House, the Congress and the Supreme Court. Trump has turned you into a party of cowards and liars.

       I’m also thinking, from hundreds if not thousands of reports I’ve read and heard the past two years, that my experience is pretty common around the country. That’s why I say keep it simple. “They” are not all the same. If you don’t like the way things are being run, get out and vote for every Democrat on the ballot.

      Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Xi and Trump on the tarmac.

By Bob Gaydos

   The truest, most insightful thing Donald Trump has ever said is, “I love the poorly educated.”

    The man who has no clue as to how dumb he himself actually is, is actually smart enough to know that his ace in the hole is that there are a lot of other dumb people in America. Dumb enough to think that having a lot of money means you’re smart, rather than lucky at birth. Dumb enough to vote for him three times, even though he did know in the past how to bankrupt three casinos, an airline, a college and steal from his own charity.

     I’m on the “dumb” shtick today because the dotard has spent the last few days demonstrating the depth of his ignorance to the world, first at the United Nations and then back in Washington, D.C., where he has declared open season on members of the press who report accurately on what he says and does. It’s beyond embarrassing and insulting.

     At the U.N., an organization literally created to promote and protect world peace, instead of offering a ceasefire plan, he threatened to “annihilate” Iran (85 million people) if it doesn’t come around and give him what he wants to end the war he started illegally and is losing badly, which is costing him support in the heartland because it has driven the price of diesel oil, which moves everything, through the roof. Truck drivers are not happy. Fertilizer is also at a premium. Farmers are not happy. The Iranians, who control both major international waterways for the shipment of oil and fertilizer, said no deal.

     Back in the cozy, gold-plated confines of the White House, Trump, who uses the word “Communist” as an insult for everyone who disagrees with him, especially Democrats, rolled out the literal red carpet for the most powerful Communist on the planet, Chinese president Xi Jinping, who is actually helping supply Iran in the war against the U.S. No matter. Ever the genial host and chronically deferential to those he perceives as truly powerful, Trump went so far as to mock former President Joe Biden while giving Xi a tour of Trump’s gold-plated hallway of former presidents. A real sign of American unity and dignity.

    He also missed Xi’s cleverly presented timeless message of the ascending power replacing the declining power (guess which is which) and came away with nothing to show on establishing controls on artificial intelligence (which is apparently out to destroy humanity) despite having a bunch of communist-loving tech billionaires (and three duplicitous Supreme Court justices) attend a lavish state dinner with his communist “friend.” Someone probably talked Trump out of having fortune cookies.

    Yes, in a sense it was just another couple of days in Trumpland. But, as usual, it was all a show to no positive results, the kind of events that many of his most loyal supporters applaud at face value.

   While the “mainstream media” may be finally arousing itself to report more thoroughly on Trump’s rapidly declining mental capacity, it remains to independent journalists to get the word out on a daily basis.

    Which is to say, the continuing real story here is that the Republican Party, which controls all three branches of government, has abdicated any responsibility for the pain and suffering and humiliation of the United States being led by an obviously mentally and physically debilitated, seemingly delusional, narcissist who’s getting richer in the process.

    The elected officials who have allowed this are not dumb. They are either of the same mind set with Trump on racism, etc., or too cowardly to oppose him because they fear losing their jobs when the “poorly educated” dutifully vote for the candidates Trump endorses.

   But clearly, even many of those voters pay attention at some point (diesel oil) because Trump doesn’t know how dumb he really is. What he does know is how to threaten and inflict pain on his perceived enemies. This is seen by some of his strongest supporters as a sign of strength and cunning. Actually, it’s a reflex action and he enjoys doing it. He simply doesn’t know any other way.

    Enough. The smart money says that what’s needed is a massive voter turnout for all Democratic candidates in November. A blue wave that will change the power structure in Washington and start to put America back in the hands of realists, not the delusional. While we’re at it, maybe we can even reboot an education system that apparently produces too many of the kind of voters Trump “truly loves.”

   Not doing that would be worse than dumb.

***

—  Trump made the “poorly educated” comment on Feb. 23, 2016, at the Treasure Island Las Vegas Casino after winning the Nevada Republican caucuses.

By Bob Gaydos

Gov. Kathy Hochul (left) and running mate Adrienne Adams. A historic moment.

  Not all the news is coming out of D.C. today. New Yorkers have a chance to make history this year and I’m willing to bet most of them don’t even know it. 

    Kathy Hochul does. In fact, she’s going for the trifecta.

    The first female governor of New York (she moved up from lieutenant governor in August of 2021 when Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor), Hochul also became the first female to be elected governor on Nov. 9, 2022. Now, she is running for re-election with a female lieutenant governor partner — the first all-female top of ticket in state history.

    Hochul’s pick for lieutenant governor is Adrienne Adams, former speaker of the New York City Council. In addition to balancing the ticket geographically with Buffalo native Hochul, Adams would make history herself, being the first black woman to hold the number two spot in state government if elected. Adams was an unsuccessful candidate for city mayor in the Democratic primary.

      The Republican candidate for governor is Bruce Blakeman, a Trump-loving, card-carrying MAGA who is Nassau County executive. His running mate for lieutenant governor is Todd Hood, sheriff of Madison County. Right. Who?

      To refresh your memory, Blakeman only became the Republican choice for governor because Rep. Elise Stefanik, a born-again Trumper, dropped out, thus depriving New Yorkers of making a historic choice between two female candidates for governor.

    Stefanik is a classic example of how Trump treats female allies. A true converted loyalist, she was head of the GOP conference in the House of Representatives. Then Trump said she’d be his United Nations ambassador. A reward. Then he changed his mind because he needed her vote in the House. But she had already resigned her leadership position, so she used her Harvard education and decided to resign from the House and run for governor of New York instead. And then Trump endorsed Blakeman. Thanks for everything, Elise.

     At this point, all the polls say the Democratic women are likely to win. A lot of New Yorkers, not just women, think it’s about time.

    While the lieutenant governor position has always been kind of like a scaled down version of U.S. Vice President, the all-female leadership symbolism is inescapable. Start with the fact that Hochul became governor because Cuomo was under investigation by State Attorney General Letitia James, another strong woman, for several claims of inappropriate sexual advances to women at the State Capitol. Cuomo also tried to run for mayor of New York City, but fared poorly in the Democratic Primary.

     James, of course, took the Trump family to court and won a massive fraud conviction against them. They are banned from doing business in New York. James is running for re-election on a ticket with Hochul and Adams.

    So, in a country with a misogynistic president who hates and fears strong women, is an adjudicated sex offender and is tied to a religion-based group of supporters dedicated to minimizing the role of women in society, it appears that the president’s home state is giving him the proverbial finger.

    Well, it is New York.

By Bob Gaydos 

I got a letter from Chuck Schumer. Private no less.

  I got a letter from Chuck Schumer the other day. It was marked “Private” no less. “To Addressee Only.” And in bold red letters on the envelope, to make sure I knew it was important: “PLEASE sit down, OPEN this envelope, and READ IMMEDIATELY!

  Well, now, what a coincidence. I had been thinking of Chuck lately, not having heard from my longtime senator for quite a while.

   (Note: Schumer grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in a middle class family. Went to public school. I grew up in Bayonne, N.J. in a middle class family. Went to public school. Senator or not, with those backgrounds, he’ll always be Chuck.)

     So, as I was saying, I was glad to hear from Chuck because I had a couple of things I wanted to talk about. Like where the hell has he been lately while Trump has been starting a war and driving up the price on everything while his family and friends make a killing on the stock market?

     I was anxious to see what Chuck had to say in this important “private” letter he sent to me marked  “addressee only.”

      Well, for starters, I was a little hurt and kind of let down. “Dear fellow American,” is not my idea of introducing a private message of immediate importance. In fact, it kind of sounds like all those other letters of importance I receive asking for donations because, as this letter begins, “our country is at a critical crossroads.“

     And yes, Chuck was asking for money. Not specifically for himself, mind, but for the group that collects and spends money solely for the election of Democrats to the United States Senate — the Senate Majority Pac.

    Chuck isn’t running for reelection this year, but he has a profound interest in electing Democrats to the Senate so he can transition from being the minority leader to the  majority leader and run the show. 

   I get it. I’ve been praying for a Democratic super majority of 60 filibuster-proof votes in the Senate for 15 years, since the party managed to pass Obamacare. But apparently the message this group has been putting out hasn’t been enough to convince enough Americans to vote likewise. It’s kind of why I wanted to talk to Chuck or at least hear from him. 

    I think times have changed and it’s time for a change in what he’s saying and how he’s saying it. Nobody’s listening. Forget trying to work with a couple of Republicans here and there to stymie Trump or win a small political victory here and there. It’s time for something that I’m sure Schumer grew up experiencing in Brooklyn: some moxie.

  What’s moxie? For non-New Yorkers or non-Jerseyites, AI says: “Moxie is an American slang noun referring to a person’s courageous spirit, determination, nerve, and skill. It describes someone with guts, spunk, and the ability to face challenges with energy and pep. It implies a combination of boldness and know-how.”

   Absolutely. In other words, the time for playing nice with Republicans has long passed. They don’t do it. They don’t care. A fellow Brooklynite, also in the Senate, gets it. Bernie Sanders has been telling it like it is as long as he’s been in the Senate. Unfortunately, he’s not a member of the Democratic Party, but rather, is a Democratic Socialist. That means he can’t get any money from SMP. Actually, he’s a Democrat by any other name these days because he can’t possibly coexist with the Republicans in the Senate.

   But Bernie, who grew up in a lower middle class family in Flatbush, has moxie. He doesn’t hesitate to lay the blame for Trump‘s ongoing disaster of a presidency on Senate Republicans who have had the power to stop him at any point and indeed to reject every one of this trash heap of nominees that make up the cabinet.

    Heck, even Hakeem Jeffries, who grew up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in a working class family, apparently now gets it. The House Minority Leader recently lit into Republicans in the Senate, calling them “spineless enablers” and “helpless sheep” for confirming Trump’s cabinet nominees, from Hegseth to Noem to Kennedy to Bondi to the labor secretary, whatever her name, who just resigned after her staff complained she drank on the job, had no idea what she was doing and had an affair with her assistant. Jeffries specifically targeted the confirmation of the latest uncovered drunk, Kash Patel, as FBI director, calling him “deeply unqualified, deeply unserious, and deeply un-American.”

      Deeply appreciated, Mr. Jeffries.

      Anyway, Chuck, thanks for writing, but I won’t be sending money to the SMP. However, I will continue to support groups like the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center to handle all the legal niceties of dealing with the Trump regime. And I will continue to write in support of Democratic candidates for the Senate. But I think it’s time for you boys from Brooklyn to get together, roll up your sleeves and run those Republican phoneys and their demented leader out of the schoolyard. Show a little Brooklyn moxie.

      Nice talking to you again.

  For the longest time now, actually about 10 years, I’ve been waking up in the morning with an intense case of déjà vu, sensing that, once I check the news, I’m going to have to write some version of the same story all over again.  This morning, to test my mental faculties, I decided to go back 10 years to see what I was writing. Turns out I’m not imagining things.  The column reposted below was written on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 2016. I unapologetically repost it here as proof that my memory is not failing, at least in this regard, and that we knew in 2016 what we were getting with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And what the options were. This is why I’m always astounded when I hear people, mostly MAGAs, saying, “I didn’t know,” “I feel betrayed.” Or others saying, “What’s the use in voting, they’re all the same?” No, we knew. We knew in 2016 what Donald Trump was. And every year and election since then.  

 Most of the people in the column below are still around and many of them are still in politics. We still have choices. Complain about the war, tariffs, inflation, detention camps, if you want, even protest. Please protest. But please, spare me your surprise.  And please read the column below to see if you remember it the way I do. 

Bob

By Bob Gaydos

Bernie Sanders

Thank god for Bernie Sanders.

You can make that an uppercase God if you prefer. Or keep it lowercase. You can take that sentiment ecumenically, evangelically, spiritually, atheistically, or any manner of religiously. But know this, wherever you place your faith, you must take that sentiment seriously.

Bernie Sanders is the saving grace in what has to be the most embarrassing, humiliating, disheartening and frightening presidential campaign, possibly in our nation’s history.

Quite simply, Sanders is the only candidate in either party who is genuine. When he speaks, I believe him. Millions believe him, because he has no hidden agenda, he is beholden to no one, he has a long history of caring and working for people to whom life has not been kind and for challenging those who have always wanted more than their fair share. A mensch.

In comparison, the Republican campaign has featured a collection of liars, misfits, religious zealots, bigots, charlatans, incompetents and people who cannot spell, much less demonstrate, compassion. It has culminated in Donald Trump, one of the most dangerous, embarrassing figures to emerge in American politics. He is a fascist, racist, misogynist, bully, liar, buffoon, and con man. A reality TV show star with no idea how government works, but plenty of experience in driving businesses into bankruptcy. He is probably a certifiable narcissist. And apparently, there is no one in his life who has the guts to say any of this to his face.

His candidacy has allowed all the ugly elements in American society, many of whom reside in the Republican Party, to feel free to voice their hate publicly, to assault and threaten those they fear or those who disagree with them, and, incredibly, to believe that their candidate has any respect for them and their needs. Trump, who makes it up as he goes along, has admitted his supporters come from the least-informed element of society. His campaign, in fact, represents the culmination of decades of cynical posturing by and catering to this element, and now appears to be the demise of, the Republican Party as a responsible political party. It is long overdue.

Not one of the Republican candidates — still standing or fallen by the wayside — can hold a candle to Sanders and not one of them deserves a vote to be president of the United States of America. They are, in toto, a disgrace.

However, the real challenge to Sanders comes not from the Republicans, but from within his own party. The Democratic establishment long ago decided that Hillary Clinton should be its candidate for president this time and has done everything within its power to try to make that happen. This includes setting up a ridiculously limited and unattainable schedule of debates and lining up hundreds of superdelegates to announce their support for her even before a primary was held. This was undoubtedly done to try to overcome Clinton’s well-known handicaps: 1) The fact that she is a lousy campaigner; 2) The reality that a lot of people don’t trust her; and 3) The Clinton history of being very cozy with the people responsible for nearly ruining the nation’s economy.

Forget that, her supporters say. She gets things done. What it is she’s gotten done is never mentioned.

Still, the fact is she leads Sanders in delegates won in the primaries so far and, even with her faults, she is still head and shoulders above any of the Republicans in the race.  This means, however much I respect and prefer Sanders as a presidential candidate, if Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee, I personally have to vote for her against any Republican. It also means I cannot write in a vote for Sanders or anyone else as a protest, because I honestly fear that taking votes away from a Democratic candidate could lead to something as disastrous as a Trump presidency or a Ted Cruz presidency or anyone-else-the-Republican-Party-settles-on presidency. I fear what will happen to this country if a Republican wins the presidency this year and I think the only way to get that message across to a party that has been in denial for decades is to thoroughly defeat it in November. Then let it figure out where to go from there.

It’s not a total sellout. Mitigating my vote for Clinton would be the fact that she actually knows how government works and, as president, she would have a working, viable, responsible political party behind her, a party still on working terms with compassion and science and equality and still dedicated to governing, not merely winning. And that party would have a Bernie Sanders and an Elizabeth Warren and plenty of others in Congress reminding a President Clinton of the promises she made during her campaign to convince all those young, disaffected voters that she could deliver what Bernie Sanders was promising.

Thankfully, though, this campaign is far from over. There are many primaries in northern and western and big states where Sanders has considerable support and could easily win enough delegates to capture the nomination. Bill Clinton did it. Barack Obama did it. Bernie Sanders can do it.

But he’s got another major challenge to overcome in addition to that from within his own party. That is the disrespect shown him by much of the major news media. Despite the tens of thousands who have attended his rallies and donated to his no-Pacs campaign, many news organizations have treated him as an afterthought and a Clinton campaign for president as a foregone conclusion.

That same media also gave Trump free rein to spew his vile hatred and nonsense for months before finally wising up to him. (And it’s not just Fox News that was guilty of this.) The media will have some soul-searching to do after this campaign as well.

So, I look forward to Sanders winning some big states (Hello, California!). And I expect Trump to continue to behave as Frank Bruni put it in the New York Times recently — like an addict who only wants more and more and more attention and will do or say anything to get it. That was my impression of Trump a while back, but Bruni beat me to it in putting it in writing. I agree wholeheartedly with him.

Indeed, I think of Trump as the guy sitting next to you in a bar who turns to you and says, “Hold my beer. Watch this.” He then proceeds to wreck the joint and bloody every person in the place. He exits with a triumphant grin, claiming it was the other guy’s fault.

Clinton, of course, wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar, much less drinking beer. She would be found sipping wine or martinis in an Upper East Side penthouse with some Wall Street types who are funding her campaign. They’re talking about how to get the vote of the common folk.

Sanders? He walks into a bar and says, “Hey, let me buy you a beer. Let’s sit down. What can I do for you?”

If I were a drinking man, that’s the guy I would want in the White House.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Democrats’ shopping list for coming elections. Unsolicited.

    Back two or three lifetimes ago, being between newspaper jobs and hobbling around downtown Annapolis on crutches as the result of a touch football accident, I spent some time answering phones and making phone calls for the Democratic Party. It was primary season and someone whose name I can’t recall thought it would be a good way to spend some time and use my journalist’s familiarity with politics. Drinking may have been involved.

     It was 1976. Joe Tydings, scion of a prominent Maryland family, was trying to get back to the Senate and Governor Moonbeam — Jerry Brown of California — was running for president. Or dating Linda Ronstadt. Or both.

   Tydings lost the primary to Rep. Paul Sarbanes, who went on to serve five terms. Brown carried Maryland, but lost nationally to a peanut farmer from Georgia. That farmer, Jimmy Carter, then beat the accidental president, Gerald Ford, in the general election, but later ran into Ronald Reagan and the Iran hostages crisis, serving only one term.

    I reminisce about this history and these less than happy days in reaction to a mailing from the Democratic National Committee (one of many I have received) asking me, as a Democrat, to fill out a survey to help them prepare an agenda to fight Donald Trump and the Republicans. 

   While it’s good to know that someone is thinking about these things, let me be clear: I am not now and have never been a member of the Democratic, or for that matter, Republican, Socialist, Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian or Communist Party. Being registered in a political party doesn’t mesh with writing about politics for newspapers. My time answering phones in Annapolis may have filled a void, but I never joined the party.

    So DNC, I won’t be returning the survey or making any donation. I get it that it takes a lot of money to run political campaigns, but I will limit my contribution to giving (since you asked) my two cents on what Democrats should do to rid this country of Trump and the brain dead Republican Party.

    In essence, all of the above on your survey. That is, virtually everything suggested makes sense to some extent. Except for one.

    Under ranking of priorities, one item states: “Persuading voters who did not vote for Democrats in 2022 and 2024.”

     Save your breath, folks. These people knew Trump-the-terrible from the first time, enjoyed the rewards of Joe Biden’s economic agenda and still didn’t vote for Democrats. Ten years and counting of Trump Republicanism.

   If they were alive and breathing in 2022 and 2024 and voted for the party of anything Trump says is Ok, they are either too dumb to figure it out or they agree with the feed-the-rich, starve the non-white, non-Christian agenda of the Republican Party.

    Look, there are MAGA Trumpers who don’t even care that their leader raped young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, stole money from a phony kids cancer charity, sexually asssulted a woman in a clothing store dressing room on Fifth Avenue, promised a wall to stop the flow of immigrants from Mexico but delivered roaming bands of violent, masked kidnappers instead, and pardoned all those who followed his direction and laid waste to the U.S. Capitol when he told them the 2020 election was stolen from him.

    I could go on, but you get the idea. If they didn’t see or care about the difference between Democrats and Republicans two years ago, they likely still feel the same today or they are too embarrassed to admit they were wrong. Too iffy.

    Better to “engage,” as you say, those who didn’t bother to vote in 2022 and 2024. The ones who say all politicians are the same, so they don’t pay attention to politics. Or vote. They may be sorry they ignored their privilege and their duty.

    If the cost of groceries today, disappearance of jobs, violent ICE raids locally, illegal destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the total humiliation of the U.S. on the international stage with a president who “ends” dozens of wars except for the real one in Ukraine (“Day One”, remember?), rambles incoherently, insults longtime allies and falls asleep at meetings don’t persuade them that not all politicians are the same, nothing probably will. But it’s definitely worth a shot.

    So, yes, by all means work to win back the Congress this year and the presidency in 2028. Talk about the Epstein files every day. Go to court. And talk about Republicans’ shameful duplicity and cowardice with regard to Trump at every level of government. Every day.

    An unknown peanut farmer from Georgia beat the guy who inherited the Watergate mess from Richard Nixon in 1976. That mess pales by comparison with the grift Trump has been performing on Americans for a decade. Clean it up, please.

   As a lifetime independent voter, that’s what I think you Democrats should do.

By Bob Gaydos

     This is traditionally the time for resolutions, predictions or wishes for the new year. In the interest of time and uncluttering my mind, I’m going to attempt to do all three in one sitting.

      Number one resolution for me: Take care of myself. Do better at taking my vitamin supplements. Walk more regularly. Stay in touch with friends. Read more. Try not to sweat the small stuff.

      I wish and hope I can manage to do that basic minimum of self care because I know it will make life easier for me and those around me and — big and — it will make it much easier for me to enjoy it when my number one wish comes true.

      Namely, goodbye Trump. No, not a surprise. I’m not even going to express a preference for how the Donald exits the scene, whether because of failing health or constitutional disqualification. The sooner the better is the only qualifier. The nation, heck, the world needs a mental health break from the anger, deceit, bitterness and cruelty the man has left at every turn.

      I wish the millions of Americans who voted for him and still support him have their individual moments of clarity and surrender to the fact they have been duped. Admitting it is the first step to recovery.

     I wish the Republican Party would just go away. Disappear. Cowards all. At least those in Congress. Be done with disgracing the legacy of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower. Heck, I’ll even give them Reagan.

    I wish only the worst for the handpicked team of sycophants and worse who have done Trump’s bidding — Bondi, Hegseth, Kennedy, Patel, Rubio, Noem, et al. They deserve to pay the price for the pain they have aggressively inflicted.

    I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish that leaders of all religions in this country could join together in a moment of healing, that gambling can be removed from sports at the professional and college levels, that owners of newspapers and electronic media honor their First Amendment privilege and duty to report the news honestly and courageously, regardless of their bottom lines and that Americans insist on it, that Elon Musk be deported, that Democrats sweep the midterm elections, that younger Americans save themselves and the rest of us from the greedy insanity of MAGA. That last I wish most all.

   I predict … gingerly, that Trump will be removed from office, not just because of his obviously failing health and deteriorating mental condition, but because the people behind him, J.D. Vance et al, want it. Republicans see the failing poll numbers and the anger in the streets. They think they can save their Project 25 with a new face. But Vance is not the right face. The cult has one leader. The underlings are there to do his bidding. Also, they don’t have the protection Trump has to keep on riding roughshod over anyone and anything in his way — he doesn’t care about anyone else and he doesn’t care, much less know, how stupid he can sound.

    So, I predict the Democrats will indeed sweep the midterms and, with the help of disaffected Republicans (especially women), begin moving America back to being the land of the free. Make America sane again. I predict this will be very good for my well-being and allow me to go back to sweating (and writing about) the small stuff.

     I wish the same for you. Thanks for sticking with me. Happy New Year. 

By Bob Gaydos

     With all the celebrating and hope that welcomed Tuesday’s blue wave election results of Democratic victories, I was rewarded with the best kind of all — a race that was a microcosm of today’s Republican Party approach to governing: Unqualified candidate, lying, deceit. Best of all, it was local. And the Democrat won.

      The Town of Wallkill in Orange County, about an hour’s drive from New York City, has been pretty much a Republican stronghold forever. It’s a bustling town that profits from a highway system and a string of malls that grew up around it. It has one of the state’s busier court systems, providing enough work for three town justices.

       When one of the senior justices retired, Republicans offered as candidate a former councilman who is not a lawyer and has no court experience. For some reason with which I am not familiar, New York State allows this. Democrats offered as a candidate a lawyer with 34 years of experience handling hundreds of cases in Family Court and other courts and who also is a key staff member of the Legal Aid Society. A woman, by the way.

      Hands-down, no contest on qualifications and experience. So Republicans, who control the town board, decided the town didn’t need a third judge after all. Couldn’t afford it, they said. They voted to eliminate the position. This, even though the retiring judge said the town really did need three judges and not filling the position would put an unfair burden on the court staff, never mind the two judges left.

      Republicans didn’t budge. However, the Democratic candidate circulated petitions asking for a special referendum reestablishing the third judge position. It passed. But not before more Republican chicanery. 

      They told the Democratic candidate that the wording of the question on the special election would ask voters whether the town should eliminate the third town justice position. So she paid for lawn signs and printed cards to pass around town urging residents to vote no. Then Republicans decided to change the wording to instead ask whether the town should retain its third judge position, making the Democrat’s election handouts extremely counterproductive.

      She went to State Supreme Court to get it changed back. A sympathetic judge said there was nothing she could do, but hoped that the Republicans would do the “decent” thing. 

     They didn’t. 

      Came Tuesday and, following a few months of intensive campaigning, of all things, the Democrat won. Big.

      That’s not all. Wallkill voters kicked out the Republican town supervisor and a councilman, giving Democrats control of the town board. A veritable local earthquake.

       This story is especially rewarding for me because I lived in the town of Wallkill for about two decades and for nearly three decades worked at the local newspaper that would have reported on this incredible local story, if there was a viable local newspaper left in town.

     But that’s another story for another day. This day belongs to Maria Patrizio, Democrat, newly elected Town Justice, Town of Wallkill, Orange County, New York.