By james art 
During the 2016 presidential campaign, some like-minded — right-thinking — singers banded together and created an album full of songs about how terrible it would be for America if what then appeared to be a long-shot Donald Trump candidacy succeeded.
Most scoffed at the idea, at the same time they joined in protesting the possible election of the lying bully from Queens.
The great Loudon Wainwright III was also a non-believer, but in his contribution to “I Had a Dream” — “His face was bright orange and his hair was just weird / But we were made great again, embarrassed and scared” — he acknowledged the nasty possibility: ” Dreams do come true and there are prophecies / And sometimes a nightmare is a reality.”
Bad things happen to good people and a nightmare has come true. It was both less worse – we’re still here – and worse – no one could have predicted the true nightmare of January 6 and the collective insanity of the election refusal – than we feared.
That’s not the biggest thing, the “embarrassed” part. But I’m proud to be an American, and it makes me sick to my heart when I travel outside our borders and encounter the disbelief with which the rest of the world views that we elected Trump and are on the verge of doing it again.
During the summer of the Clinton-Trump campaign, I was standing in the bar of Royal Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands, a golf course ranked No. 2 in the world, not exactly a Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) stronghold. Hearing the roar of a helicopter about to land by the first tee, I jokingly asked the woman pouring my Guinness if this could be Donald Trump – whose mother was born in Scotland – coming to visit.
She replied without missing a beat: “Oh no sir – Donald Trump would not be welcome here.”
Britain, and certainly other countries too, are no better at electing eccentric egotists, namely Boris Johnson – not that Scotland has anything to do with that mistake. But the former prime minister, while stupid and unacceptable as a national leader, is not a fool. Well read, writes real books, well versed in international relations. While Trump even after his election stated: “People call it Great Britain. They call it Great Britain. They called it England.
Did they?
As Tuesday’s election approaches, with polls showing the popular vote essentially split even though no one has any real insight into the Electoral College, I wonder if American conservatives realize how much better off they’d be if they had norm against the relatively inexperienced and unknown Kamala Harris of the Democrats, entering the fray at the last minute, who in 2019 put her own initial presidential campaign on hold before the primary vote?
Of course, Donald Trump is not a true conservative, even though he pretends to be to garner votes. He is a former major donor to Planned Parenthood. He’s a former donor to Hillary Clinton, for that matter. He is a man who works for him. But even his ardent supporters must admit that he is viewed negatively by an overwhelming number of Americans.
What if the GOP ran a Mitt Romney type — or, hell, a Mitt Romney — against the vice president, who also has a lot of negatives in the polls?
Someone who would have no problem winning the support of all conservatives rather than being in a situation where the most Republican Republican ever, Dick Cheney, votes for the Democrat?
We’ll never know. Just as we will never know what the normal race of the two sides advertising their plans would be.
One way or another, we will be rid of Trump’s scourge, and perhaps therefore of Trumpism, soon enough. There will be attempts to rebuild a sane Republican Party, although JD Vance and, I shudder, Don Jr., heir to the family scam, will try to prevent that. But hopefully that process will begin on November 6th, not another four years with a racketeer in the White House.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. [email protected].