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.

So soon after an aggressive State of Union speech, one in which President Joe Biden made a solid case for re-election, it may make no sense to write again about Donald Trump.

In the past, I have written a lot about Trump for at least one reason:  Every time I write about this polarizing political figure, a narcissist at work and at heart, I feel better.  Just became I rail against him.

Feeling better is important for me.

But, though I occasionally say I will try to avoid more blogs about Trump, I routinely retreat on that pledge.

Because, as someone who has been involved in politics for many years, I continue to be flummoxed about Trump and why so many Americans fixate on him.

And, as I write this, Biden is receiving a lot of plaudits for an aggressive speech in the halls of Congress, one where he went after “his predecessor,” and skewered Republicans in the hall who were out of get him, often by yelling as he talked.

Chief among the combatants was Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene who made a fool of herself again by yelling at Biden while he was speaking, because is what she does routinely – make a fool of herself, which is easy, because she is one…a fool.

But back to “the predecessor,” Trump.

Washington Post columnist Matt Bai helped me by writing under this headline:  In 2016, Trump was lucky to win. In 2024, he’s desperate.

Here are excerpts from what Bai wrote:

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“This time around, there will be no ambivalence.

“Not from the party that eight years ago tried to mount a hopeless last stand against him.  And not from the candidate himself, who never seemed all that jazzed about becoming president in 2016 and almost certainly didn’t expect to win.

“This time, watching Donald Trump romp through the Super Tuesday primaries on his way to the Republican nomination, I see a man who is running as if his survival depends on winning back the White House — because, in a very real sense, it does.

“I’ve been wrong a lot when it comes to Trump, but I’m pretty sure I was right about one thing:  Trump didn’t begin his presidential campaign in 2015 with some Wile E. Coyote-type plan to upend the party and take over the country.  Like everything else Trump had done in his life to that point, that campaign began as little more than a Barnumesque exercise in self-promotion, a chance to further the family brand.

“It was happenstance, really — a collision of celebrity and social media, a nativist backlash against the Obama era, and a seething resentment toward the Clintons, the Bushes and the bankers — that made Trump’s rise possible.  He didn’t need much by way of strategy or money.  He needed only to break through the fourth wall of politics — to look directly into the camera, like the practiced reality-show star he is, and channel the rage of the audience.”

So, now we have Trump trying to reprise something he doesn’t value as it should be valued – elevating himself to the highest political office in the land.

So why?

• Like the epitome of the narcissist, Trump fixates on himself.
• Nothing else matters other than his fame and glory, which is usually not earned ethically – and ethics is not a word that should be used in the same sentence as the name Trump.
• If he wins the presidency, he’ll pardon all those in jail for high crimes on January 6, then try to pardon himself.
• And, I continue to have no idea why some persons who call themselves “Christians” flock to Trump who exhibits no traits of a real Christian.

Here is the way Washington Post writer Charles Sykes described Trump:

“A federal judge has declared him liable for rape.  He faces paying a half-billion dollars in legal judgments for fraud and defamation.  Twice impeached, then defeated for re-election, he has been charged with 91 felonies.  He has been arrested and his mug shot published.  He will spend much of the year in and out of courtrooms.  On the campaign trail, his rambling speeches are gaffe-ridden and prone to malapropisms and meltdowns.”

Finally, Bai adds that, if there’s one thing we can infer from Trump’s career as a con man, it’s that he will do whatever it takes to save himself.  

My hope is that voters will see the light before it’s too late.  Don’t save him!

Joe Biden may not be the perfect alternative, but he clearly is better than Trump.