George Smith: Time to figure out who to vote for | Opinion

Between now and November, political adverts — for and towards a Hoss Cartwright hatful of candidates that can decide the way forward for our states and nation — will likely be slamming into voters and potential voters like Katrina hit New Orleans.

The downside in 2022, now greater than ever earlier than, will likely be for George and Bobbie Voter to figure out what to consider, what to hear and analysis to confirm truisms vs. rumors vs. half-truths vs. malicious lies.

The data funnel, due to social media and 24/7 information channels, creates a psychological tsunami hitting the general public with a plethora of data working from “extremely fascinating information’ to “pasteurized” meadow muffins.

Your particular person political inclination makes no distinction: Office-seekers of each events will inform you what you need to hear so as to get your vote. It is a part of the satan’s covenant signed by people who need “in” and people already “in” who need to stay “in.”

So, what distinction does it make which candidate will get our vote? Listen to the messages rigorously, decide out the inevitable buzzwords every candidate has adopted to get 50.1 % of the vote on election day… and vote for the particular person who makes the fewest guarantees.

In Texas, for instance, Gov. Greg “I Wanna Be Trump” Abbott is working on three points, “God, Guns and Keeping the Brown Horde on Their Side of the River.” His opponent, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, has key points that change relying on the place he’s talking. His No. 1 slogan is “Fix the d— grid,” and that alone goes to garner lots of votes. But his secondary points are various and embody ladies’s rights and bettering training and well being care.

It will likely be an in depth race. Beto is the higher speaker; Gov. Greg has monied pursuits (learn “oil and fuel”) behind him; Beto tries to win hearts and minds by way of speeches filled with widespread sense, age-old homilies and logic; the governor makes use of worry as a motivator in his speeches, with simply understood phrases like “border safety” and “household values” and “proper to life.”

It is an undisputed truth (flubber-lips, political protestation apart) that Abbott has performed treasured little to enhance the grid since that Hell-froze-over winter in 2021. Remember when 240-plus folks died due to energy grid failure? Remember in November 2020 when Abbott emphatically acknowledged, “I can assure the lights will keep on,” solely to hedge-hop his alternative of phrases to emphatically state, “No one can assure the state is not going to have rolling blackouts throughout this summer season’s oven-like heatwave”?

Beto has three clear benefits within the race: 1. He’s not Greg Abbott; 2. He’s not hoary-headed and set in his means; and three. He is aware of how to use social media successfully.

Here’s certainly one of his hard-hitting, give-Greg-an-ouchie tweets:

“We can’t depend on the grid when it’s scorching. We can’t depend on the grid when it’s chilly. We can’t depend on Greg Abbott. It’s time to vote him out and repair the grid.”

The 2022 election is lower than 50 days away. What would you like for the way forward for Texas… extra of the identical? Or change?

In November, the selection is startlingly clear between these two decisions.

BUT DONALD TRUMP SAID…

For observers of life usually and of politics particularly, it brings a chuckle (it’s extra of a guffaw really) to watch politicians disavow phrases they used to make a one-time-they-thought poignant level.

Going again six years, it was Donald Trump, then candidate for president, who needed essentially the most extreme penalties for residents who mishandled categorized paperwork.

July 2016: “In my administration, I’m going to implement all legal guidelines in regards to the safety of categorized data.”

August 2016: Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for having a non-public e-mail server, and stated, “Nothing threatens the integrity of our democracy greater than when authorities officers put their public workplace up for sale.”

2018: President Trump signed into legislation a invoice altering the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, making eradicating categorized paperwork from safe places from a misdemeanor to a felony, and elevated the potential penalty for violation of the act from one yr to 5.

Bottom line: Trump, meet Karma.

CHOICES. WE NEED NEW CHOICES.

With the slimmest of legislative margins, President Joe Biden has pushed by way of important laws that has aided a overwhelming majority of Americans; an infrastructure invoice was handed that has languished in Congress for years; prescription drug costs minimize; fuel costs are down, and so is inflation. His approval ranking is climbing.

Time to grasp it up, Joe. No, critically, get previous the midterm election and announce you’ll not search a second time period.

The president is 79, will likely be 81 if he runs for re-election and, if he finishes that time period, can be 85. His frailty and reminiscence lapses are evident, and he ought to retire as a profitable one-term president.

This nation wants change… not in six years… NOW! It wants new blood, new concepts, a recent begin to bridge the abyss that has developed since Barack Obama was elected in 2008; that was the catalyst for the GOP to declare open warfare on the opposing social gathering, and the sniping by each side, and their refusal to compromise, has been countless.

Today, Biden is our oldest president; he has the report, no want to stretch it out.

Here’s an fascinating proposal: Let the voters determine who the subsequent presidential candidates will likely be… in each events.

Deep-down, I consider the voters would love a change, a transfer away from the mean-spirited assaults, the non-compromising attitudes of the extremists of each events.

Don’t all of us need a return to authorities “of the folks, by the folks and for the folks” as a substitute of a take-it-or-leave-it political menu?