Getting Out

Anybody who has been to a race track more than a few times has relied on the “get out”. That’s the final race on the card following a losing day. The get out is when conservative betting strategies, and any sort of discipline you may have sworn to in the morning go bye bye. Whatever you have left in your pocket is either going on a long shot or gimmick bet or both. The goal is to “get better”, which $25 to win on a 2-1 favorite is not going to make happen.More appropriate to take that favorite, key him over a few 10-1s, and hit the superfecta for a real score, one that wipes out the bitter memories of a day full of lost photos and choices trapped on the rail. A winner that warrants a celebration.

As someone who has been to the oval exponentially more than a few times, and has hit my share of get outs, I know it to offer opportunity if approached right. Since the day has already gone to crap, the get out affords the liberation from caution required for bold decisions. Yet and still, there is enough desperation imposed by the possibility of walking out the doors a penniless loser – the very portrait of a bum – to motivate focused analysis imbibed with creativity. And lord there is nothing like hitting the get out to make the world right again. A late trifecta will do that.

America needs a get out score this November. Since last January it’s been one loser after the other. Any hopes Trump would rise to his office were dashed minutes after he took the oath. Then there was a confirmation process that ran like a broken record: nominee demonstrates complete lack of qualifications for appointed position but McConnell goes to the whip and the moron gets confirmed anyway. Next came the frontal assault on responsible government and a nihilist agenda more concerned with trampling progress than setting policy. And all the while the overt corruption and vile indignity of Trump, himself. Yes, it hasn’t been merely a bad day at the races…we’re losing the mortgage here.

But we can all get better in November if Democrats make the right wagers. Trouble is, their leadership seems intent on $2 show bets, which wont get this done! Given our current state of affairs, a focus on “rebuilding the middle class” messaging that has wildly underperformed the last few cycles is like arriving at your neighbor’s house as it’s engulfed in flames and asking “how can I help?” Trumpism isn’t the elephant in the room, it’s the rabid hyena in the elevator.

Nancy Pelosi is not a horrible person, and to put her on a par with Trump defines false equivalence; but as a party leader, placed by history at a crossroads for American democracy’s survival, she is fully wanting. Listening to her the other night on CNN one could be forgiven if they thought it a clip from 2004. Her response to questions about what role Presidential ineptitude and corruption should play in the upcoming campaign sounded like the subject was W instead of Trump. Lecturing about party and national unity as her (and the founders!) top priority, and impeachment’s unfortunate deleterious effects on national kubaya potential was disheartening, particularly as a GOP cabal on the other side of the aisle makes clear the abyss is not deep enough when it comes to abetting Trump’s overt recklessness. Pelosi wants to focus on ideas. How about this for an idea: take back the House and give Steve King the office in the Longworth basement next to the auto-signing machines!

Barbara Comstock of Northern VA now passes for a moderate Republican in the House. To qualify for that designation these days requires one only to refrain from unabashed rhetorical, if not legislative, support of this White House. A gander at Comstock’s office home page and social media participation finds not a mention of Trump by name or otherwise. Six Democrats are going to bloody each other up trying to win the nomination to unseat her. So the advice is to emerge from a primary rumble and talk “kitchen table issues”?

GOP incumbents should be forced to either support Trump or denounce him, nothing in the middle satisfies. What have you done to help check Trump’s outrageous attacks on our institutions? Why haven’t you publicly taken a stand against divisive rhetoric? You seem ok with his tweet stream, are you? Yes or no? Those are the questions to be asked in debates. The idea that focusing too much on Trump may be perceived as lacking ideas is ludicrous; if you present just one proposal, that’s one more than the GOP has put forward since 2007. As for impeachment, one doesn’t have to foam at the mouth to assert it should be on the table. To declare it out of bounds is to imply Trump has stayed in bounds. That’s nuts. Worse, it normalizes nihilism in the White House.

It’s not really a stretch to call Decision 18’ pivotal to whether Trump will ruin us. If the GOP keeps both chambers by even the slimmest of margins we get another 2 years of Trump unleashed; he will herald such a result as a decisive referendum on his prowess. Getting a piece of our grub stake back for some bets tomorrow will not suffice, by then racing may be canceled. We need a win that forces the teller to go to another drawer for more cash; then, as they say on the rail, as a horse prances past with his ears pricked, we can again like our chances. BC