I Think I Get It.....

So now the Republican party's ticket is complete and next week's convention will make it official. As I've said before, when this whole process started I (along with about a zillion others) never thought I'd see the day where I might be contemplating four years of a President Trump. Yet.....here we are.

Dave and I were talking about it a few days ago and I told him that I thought I was beginning to understand how people were drawn to his candidacy and willingly/proudly/fanatically believed The Donald could "Make America Great Again".

I'm serious when I say that not a day goes by the thought doesn't enter my head that I, and my family, are just so very fortunate. Lucky to be born where and when we were, lucky to have the parents we had, live in communities focused on the good life, got an education, found good jobs, and now have the chance to enjoy retirement. Every time we start out on a travel adventure I know that I am among the lucky citizens who can plan and then actually take time to wander. And everytime I walk back into our condo overlooking Lake Michigan I again think "Wow.....look where I am. Who would have thought?"

But how would I feel if none of the above applied. If for the past twenty years I'd been part of the shrinking middle class, struggling to find and keep a good-paying job, trying to figure out how to keep that car running one more year and where I was ever going to find enough money to put my kids through college? What if the "system" hadn't worked for me....at all. What if every politician I ever voted for promised me a better life and new opportunities......but it was all just empty rhetoric? My town was full of empty store fronts, jobs disappeared and my kids moved away looking for some kind of opportunity.

What if I just was so damn discouraged and down right mad at the powers that be I decided that someone, anyone who was not a career politician would have some ideas that just might work and the system could change and things would be better for my kids and my grandkids. I might not look to closely at the candidates actual proposals......I might be carried away by the speeches and the hope.

I might be wearing a red baseball cap too.