The Ghost Of Hillary Clinton and the Garbage Collector

Please don't let Yogi Berra's "deja vu all over again", Mr. Churchill's "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" or the ghost of Hillary Clinton haunt this election.

On election night 2016 I gathered with a small group of friends for a night to remember. "Breaking the glass ceiling" and ridding ourselves of the absolute worst human being imaginable for the nation’s highest office. Though the poll numbers were tight and James Comey had recently opened his mouth and allowed idiocy to escape, optimism permeated the room. And then the clock struck midnight around 9 PM, a cold chill descending and the celebration turning into a wake, as the reality of what was transpiring became sickeningly evident. By 10 PM we began to peel off, each of us mourning in isolation, it being too painful to remain together staring into the abyss.

A couple of months ago, different friends spoke of hosting a watch party on the evening of November 5th. These folks have been fundraisers for the party forever and I imagined an important, knowledgeable covey of the most committed to cause huddled together to watch history unfold. But it is not to be. And while I do not know the reason for the cancellation I can only imagine, with far more than ample basis, Tuesday trepidation is the official medical diagnosis.

The cautious optimism of 2016 has now been replaced by a sense of dread, of fear that the impossible is not only possible but maybe even, I hate to write it, likely. I walk around these days with a half empty glass, waiting for the other shoe to drop, worried that Henny Penny was right after all. That Yogi Berra knew exactly what he was saying, that Winston Churchill was acting as a pollster, a prognosticator when he opined on this election three quarters of a century before it even occurred. That the ghost of Hillary Clinton continues to haunt us even as Halloween has, at least on the calendar, passed.

And all that will remain is the orange man, prophetically dressed as a garbage collector, smirking once more.