This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

While I don’t watch much television news, I happened to catch an anchor say the other day say that, in the upcoming mid-term elections, “the very future of the country is at stake.”

Could be overstatement.  Mostly, though, I agree.

That’s because Donald Trump and those who follow him want to tear the country down, not build it up.

President Joseph Biden underlined the concern when he gave a speech contending “the country could be chaos,” if, as threatened, some Republicans, following Trump’s lead, won’t accept election results.

Here is how bad the Washington Post says it is:

“Local governments have erected barriers and called in police reinforcements to protect buildings where votes will be counted.  Election officials have prepared rapid social media responses to false claims of ballot fraud.  And a human rights group typical focused on fragile democracies has turned its attention to the United States, asking candidates to pledge to respect the results.

“Two years ago, after Donald Trump tried to overturn a presidential election, Tuesday’s mid-terms will test American democracy once more, with voters uncertain whether they can believe in the process, Republican deniers poised to take positions of power, and the mechanics of voting itself under intense scrutiny.”

Washington Post contributor Gary Abernathy struck a chord with me when he wrote that politics is no longer “fun.”

I almost thought he was poised to use the word “bemoaned,” as in that he bemoaned the loss of civility in politics.  He didn’t, but if the phrase sounds memorable, it was uttered by the late General Colin Powell as he contemplated, then nixed, a run for president several years ago.

The quote lingers in my mind.  Politics:  Not fun; not civil.

The “this ain’t fun anymore” article in the Washington Post started this way:

“With just a week until Election Day, the focus grows more intense on predicting outcomes.  And that means more intensity and even rancor in the debates on cable news stations and social media outlets.  It’s getting vicious out there.

“I used to think politics was fun, and, like so many, I pored over polls and love listening to pundits and politicians predict the coming results and argue about the merits of their candidates and issues.

“Even as a kid in presidential election years, I stayed up until all hours watching the Republican and Democrat national conventions – back when it took until the wee hours of the morning to know who the nominee was going to be.

“When an election ended, my buddies on the other side and I would rib each other for weeks about it, but that was fun, too.

“Now, I just can’t wait for it to be over.  Why?  I think that, by entrenching ourselves so deeply into partisan bunkers and so viciously demonizing the other side, we’ve taken all the fun out of politics.

“We’re just angry instead.  While it’s always been a serious business, there should also be a joy to the democracy, a celebration of process.  We live in a free country and get to decide who our leaders are going to be.  That’s a big responsibility – but we also should have fun while doing it.”

I remember the same things Abernathy does.  Staying up late to watch returns.  Waiting nervously to see if candidates I favored had a chance.  Going on-line to see what I could find out early on.

And one time when I had managed a local school bond measure campaign in the Salem-Keizer district, sitting on pins and needles waiting, with my colleagues, for the outcome.

In that case, we won – a great relief.

Today, I sit on pins and needles for a different reason.

I wonder if the election this time around – at least the national one – could mean the end of democracy as we know it in America.  At least the beginning of the end.

In fact, that appears to be exactly what Trump and his ilk want.  They want to be in charge because they always think they know best and don’t need elections to prove it.  Democracy doesn’t matter to them.  If they don’t win an election, they contend forever that they did and then they go to court to prove it, results be damned.

So, for me, politics – in other words, the election tomorrow – is not fun anymore. 

Instead, it carries a foreboding sense of darkness.