Homer's Choice

One of the memorable segments from The Simpsons is from "Haunted Treehouse VII". The segment Citizen Kang dealt with a presidential election purportedly between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. Homer discovered that these were really space aliens in disguise. When he exposed them to the electorate, they shed their disguise.

These two were Korg and Kang from Rigel VII. And, they do make occasional guest appearances on the Simpsons.

Since they were space aliens, they must by definition be malevolent. They lived up to our expectations of harmful to humans. They drooled and had long sharp living teeth. They were greenish and icky looking. They spoke very good English.

They both pointed out that ours is a two party system, and therefore they were the only choices available. When some mentioned that they would vote third party, Kang mocked with "Sure, throw your vote away." That settled that. Conventional wisdom always trumps thought.

Consider the choice of voting for a candidate who promised to eat all humans if elected or a candidate who would make humans work until they dropped.

Whatever the promises, voters decided that being worked to death was a better option than being eaten forthwith. President Kang made everyone work on making a giant ray gun to destroy a planet far away. When Marge complained about the treatment by the Rigaliens, Homer remarked that at least he voted for Kodos. The result wasn't his fault.

Twenty years later, the presidential election mirrors the choices of Kang vs. Kodos. We have candidates who do not appear to be from planet Earth.

On the Democrat ticket, we have Hillary Clinton. She has a problem with dishonesty and flippancy. Even as she was aware of problems with the Clinton Foundation, she considered appearing with foreign leaders in exchange for large donations to the foundation. Her early response to the email scandal was like "Hey, I'm just ignorant of things like private servers and security."

Then there was the undermining of the strong candidacy of Bernie Sanders by top leaders in the party. I suspect that Clinton supported that behavior. There was inappropriate contact with the US Attorney General by her husband, President Mr. Bill during the FBI email investigation.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump behaves as if he has early stage dementia. I wonder if he plans on using his position as Commander and Chief to capture and imprison congressmen and judges who attempt to oppose him as well as those who don't agree with his "No one is more…" that is what ever he thinks he the best at. I can only hope he doesn't go after bloggers.

He may emulate his hero, Vladimir Putin. He has no coherent or consistent platform. He claimed the primarys were rigged when he thought he might lose. He claims the election is rigged and that no matter the vote is; he is the winner.

As I look at third parties, the Constitution Party is anti‑constitution, The Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, has problems with places like Aleppo. Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, has a North Dakota arrest warrant for vandalism. Stein has waffled on need for vaccinations for children.

So do pick one of the "two" parties and hope for the best. Do I pick one of the third party candidates and hope for the best if they win. Or do I just vote for the local candidates I prefer and leave the president spot blank.

Homer had it easy; He believed in conventional wisdom. I do not.