Ok, ok. I know! If the other guy is a woman, then that’s an even bigger reason to vote for me…

Oh wait, does anyone really believe this crap any more?

Obviously some people do, or politicians wouldn’t keep making the sort of sexist and racist arguments that would have been mocked in the later part of the 20th Century.

What sort of confuses me though, is the recent attack on Tim Walz’s military record.

Now let me just say that I’m not the sort of person to react to someone’s military record with the same sort of excitement that JD Vance might get from a furniture catalogue, but it does seem rather strange that the Republicans would try to suggest that Walz is some sort of deserter because he left after a mere 24 years to enter politics rather than wait another six months and go to Iraq. Yes, it might look bad when you compare it to the brave attempt that Trump made to overcome his bone spurs and serve his country with the same sort of dedication that he gave to all of his wives: Total commitment, in between golf games, TV appearances, pussy-grabbing and bankruptcies. However, I couldn’t help but remember that John Kerry suffered a similar disparagement of his war record when he took on George W. Bush. A man who bravely chose to do pilot training because: “I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada …”

Whatever one thinks about the absurdity of the American election race, one has to take a big deep breath and ask oneself, why can’t politicians just accept the fact that there are lots of big problems in the world and the sooner we start working on solutions the better… And yes, I may actually believe that the people opposing me are blithering idiots who have no idea about anything, but when I start pointing out the hypocrisy of certain politicians who opposed marriage equality because of family values, I should expect that they’ll start pointing out some of my faults and suddenly none of us are trusted. (And, no, Barnaby, starting a second family while you still have your first is NOT a commitment to family values. It’s called Adultery and it’s mentioned in the Bible, which I’m told is a good book…)

As I was driving home today, I heard one of those chats between the person on the radio and a person who’s done something and – like so many of those chats – they stray into areas that they know nothing about. In this case it was the need for students to be doing STEM subjects. One of them said that we’d recently improved on the PISA tests but that was only because other countries had gotten worse, which may be true, but I never remember any time Australian students slipped on an international ranking that it was suggested that it might be because other countries were doing better.

Ok, we could go down the various rabbit holes and end up deciding that all we need to do to improve our Year 12 Physics results is to start each lesson with a quick phonics instruction but we’d be hear four ages (like what I did there?), and it’s not really the point.

Open the paper, listen to the radio, watch Sky After Dark, listen to the various people explain how instead of doing some of the things we did during the Covid pandemic, we’d have been better off doing other things, or listen to some of the various people telling us that there was no pandemic and anyone died from Covid was the victim of a con, and listen to Uncle Alf at Christmas lunch who gets to speak because you promised your mother you wouldn’t fight with him this year even though your thesis was on the very thing that he’s so misinformed about, and listen to Peter Dutton tell us that he has the facts on nuclear and CSIRO is just misinformed because it disagrees with him and he’s had a lot of time to research given how long he’s spent on flights to WA lately…

Yeah, listen to all that and then say how confused you are that kids aren’t picking STEM subjects when there’s nothing as noble and respected as a scientist. And, of course, there’s plenty of work, because the CSIRO isn’t about to stand down hundreds of its staff.

One thing that those MPs who’ve stolen those Liberal seats… Oh yes, all right, they were elected, but we all know that certain suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne are really owned by the Liberals and it was only a lack of votes that put in those rabble-rousers…

Anyway, one thing that I’ve felt was good is that every now and then one of them will say about an initiative that it’s a good idea or that it has merit. None of the political parties seem capable of doing that. The Greens will tell us that Labor haven’t gone far enough, Liberals will tell us that Labor have gone too far and Labor won’t tell us what we need to know.

While some problems are ignored, politicians generally know what’s really important: anything liable to cost them votes. I’d suggest that cost of living, climate change and housing are all problems that we can agree about. The solutions, of course, are a bit harder, but part of the reason is that some of them would not only challenge vested interests, but they might actually work!