I’m reminded of the lyrics to the Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Although the recent cover of that classic by The Disturbed is by far the better version

‘Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly, creeping

Left its seeds while I was, sleeping

And the vision, that was planted in my brain… still remains

Within the sound of silence’

The obvious reference of course is that I haven’t written anything on this blog since February. The dual reference is the darkness unfolding in the good old US of A, the darkness of the horror of the potential Presidential election outcome.

Much has been written on the rise and rise of Donald Trump by far more worthy outlets than this humble, hardly visited blog site in my corner of the internet. However…

There must always be a however for Sandysview. Many times in the past, that was the whole point of Sandysview, the ‘however’ on a popular topic, or my take on current events. This is a current event, literally happening right now and this is my take on it.

The global media vessels, outside the state sponsored press of dictatorships and tyrannies, are united in their condemnation of the hateful diatribes of Presidential hopeful Mr Trump. They remind their readers, listeners and viewers that none of us should support his ridiculous, extreme views on pretty much everything.

But there is apparently the best part of half the US electorate who share his horrible worldview and hideous, hateful plans for the future. It’s unfathomable or course, but the sort of people who believe an insular, hatemongering, racist, xenophobic US President is the way forward are most likely people you and I are unlikely to have round for drinks and dinner.

Herein lies my point. Outside the USA we can agonise about the insanity of the sort of individual who is likely to put a red cross or a green tick, whichever it is, beside Trumps name on the ballot paper in a few weeks time. We wonder, aghast at the madness of the people who will gleefully put control of nuclear weapons in the hands of a lunatic.

That’s not the point though.

How is it that those people are able to bring that about? How is it that the breathtakingly ignorant, the woefully ill-informed, the catastrophically un-informed, the vast swathe of the general public who choose sensationalism over sense, who prefer a headline in bold letters and a catchy slogan on a baseball cap to the truth, are able to bring disaster upon those who paid attention at school?

That’s democracy in action you see? It’s people making history affecting or effecting decisions one tick at a time based on their personal biases and insecurities. The people who care about one thing that’s important to them even though they haven’t the first clue as to the actuality or otherwise of what they fear most, personally. Even though the majority of the population knows it to be nonsense. Those who vote as a result of successful fear mongering over facts are the real darkness, not our old friends.

They shouldn’t be allowed to.

Gasp if you must, but they shouldn’t be allowed to.

If you are going to vote on life changing stuff, which affects the whole world, or at least your own country and everyone in it, you should have the first clue what you are voting for. I vote for the pre vote, voter test. A simple general knowledge and social awareness test which you have to pass in order to get a say in anything, anything at all.

Brexit was another example, hundreds of thousands of the people who voted for Brexit admitted they had no idea what Brexit meant in reality. They had no idea of the impact on their lives of what they had just voted for. How does that vote count? How does someone get to cast an important and deciding vote upon an important issue yet have no knowledge of its importance?

At the far end of the ignorance spectrum, civilisation sits in harsh judgment of those who live on the fringes, contributing nothing but hate and fear. Hate groups, we call them, extremist organisations, terrorists at the extreme of the extreme. They all have a vote though and they only care about bringing universal hatred of the people they despise. They want to normalise their vile ideals. They will all vote for Trump. That’s democracy in action

The frightening reality is that once the endorsement of the wrong thing by the wrong people who had no clue as to the fallout from their ill-informed decisions has been made. It’s very hard, verging on impossible to unmake it.

People must have faith in their leaders making the right decisions, whoever they are. People in positions of power make big decisions based on thorough examination of all the facts and consequences apparently.

Really? The USA invaded Afghanistan starting a war that lasted longer than the 1^st and 2^nd world wars combined and probably cost more, to look for an old man in a cave. Turns out he was in bed in Pakistan.

They invaded Iraq destroying an entire country to look for stuff that wasn’t there in the first place.

Trump makes that President look like Nelson Mandela.

Trump talks of making America great again by building a giant wall, and bringing manufacturing jobs back to America from offshore, among other things. Apparently Americans do want to work in factories making consumer electronics. The reality is that this will make their iPhone cost $5,000 instead of $500. I’m morbidly curious to see how a heavily unionized American factory worker will embrace the sort of wages and conditions gratefully accepted by workers in Asia and the Sub Continent, whose living costs are a hundredth of those in the USA.

That aside, there’s ‘gonna be a reckoning’, not a pretty one and the democratic choices made by people who shouldn’t really be allowed to vote are going to affect us all and probably make the news bulletins a bit more interesting for years to come. The common consensus is that the world is over populated anyway so perhaps a couple of global conflagrations will be a good thing in the long run. Careful what you wish for. Of course, Hillary could win…That will go down well with the millions of Hillary haters.

I’m going to make a bold prediction though. As this Presidential campaign nears it’s zenith and one of these two undesirables gets to be President, there are going to be riots and people will die in the street. Sorry, I know it’s cheerful stuff, something to look forward to as summer looms in New Zealand.

‘Ten thousand people maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs, that voices never shared

No one dared

Disturb the sound, of silence

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know…….’