And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that old age provides us with frames of reference unavailable to young people, and we realize that today’s events are not new to right now, and instead may unconsciously remind us of similar things from our past.
I happened to have TV news on when Donald Trump announced the endorsement of former candidate Christie. I listened for a bit, went away, came back, and he was still talking. I went away again, and when I came back he was still talking. So I listened for some time as he kept on with his stream of consciousness rambling from topic to topic.
His orange/blond comb-over hairdo was eye catching, and my mind wandered back to the Movietone newsreels I saw in theaters during World War II, in which Adolph Hitler worked up the masses in Germany with his Aryan superiority rhetoric. Hitler’s forelock was as easily recognized, and was a godsend to political cartoonists.
A day or so later, and Trump was ranting on television again, this time wearing the familiar red baseball-type cap he favors to cover the hairdo. And the flashback this time was to the early days of the Castro regime in Cuba, when Fidel Castro, with his trademark camouflage guerrilla cap, would address the Cuban people for hours at a time, as shown in part on American television.
It was an eerie feeling.
All three displayed the traits of the egomaniac who is convinced he, and only he, is right all the time.
One difference, perhaps. Trump will have to be elected to exercise his will. While Hitler’s socialist party was elected, Hitler was appointed chancellor of the Third Reich. Castro simply took the office of premiere by filling a leadership vacuum after a coup.
Also over the weekend, I participated in a telephone poll, partly aimed at testing sentiment about a possible Democrat opponent for Sen. Charles Grassley, and partly to test opinions about possible races for president. I could easily press the phone buttons for Cruz and Rubio as favorites over both Clinton and Sanders.
But after giving Trump a “very unfavorable” mark earlier in the questioning, when it came to Trump vs. Clinton or Sanders, I am almost ashamed to admit I pushed the “undecided” button,
I have not liked Mrs. Clinton since her shady dealings in Arkansas, well before she was first lady, and her role then and later as secretary of state further convinced me my dislike was justified.
And Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, which is what the Nazi party in Germany called itself.
An old adage came to mind.
Maybe it is preferable to put up with the evils that we know than to flee to evils that we know not of.
Last resort? Cape Breton in Nova Scotia says Americans are welcome as expatriates.