Forays into politics

A few nights ago, my wife and I attended a local Democratic Party meeting aimed at listening to their constituency.

Even though we are registered Independents, we were welcome to it and were stunned by the “business as usual” atmosphere that prevailed; instead, we were expecting a most alarmed and defensive atmosphere.

At any rate, I had a chance to vent all of my frustration about Hillary's loss to Trump and underscored a few points that are dear to me:

1. Trump (more like Sanders) was an iconoclast that got the people's attention, took all of his opponents by surprise and won because of his trademark rudeness, bullying and lies. No one had the backbone to go against it.

2. Hillary was a terrible candidate coming into the battle with some terrible baggage, not to mention sabotaging Bernie Sanders' campaign and a bruising loss against Obama in 2008. From the get-go, she wasn't presidential material.

3. Unlike what Michelle Obama admonished “'When they go low, we go high”, the only way to fight Trump is to hit him 10 times as hard with the same mean rhetoric every time he crosses the line.

They were a few interesting comments from the light attendance, comprised of too few young people and too many old guys like us. Ideas like going after the latino electorate, getting money from the Recreation Industry, etc. but, by and large, a lot of quiet resolutions that would never suffice to make in-roads in Utah under the present circumstances.

In the process we learned that the Democratic Party was dubbed as the “Abortion Party” here in Utah (because of the Mormon Church) and that Democratic is a dirty word that Utah Dems don't have the guts to use. Yet, Mr. Trump has shown that an unshakable self-confidence combined with an iconoclastic approach were a winning combination.

I'll pass these comments on to the State Party big wigs...