Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

On this Sunday, normally a “day of rest,” I cannot help myself but to write more about Donald Trump. 

He is such a buffoon – other words also may apply – that it is not possible for me to ignore him on this or any other day.

As I reported in advance of the presidential debate, I said I was not going to watch it, preferring to review quality newspaper reports afterwards.

So, based on reporting in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, I thought Kamala Harris scored a huge victory.  One analyst called it a “rout.”

Of course, Donald Trump thought otherwise because, as a narcissist, he can’t tolerate the thought of losing.

I can – and I hope losing for him relates, not just to the debate, but also to the coming election.

A debate win for Harris won’t mean that it, alone, will dictate the outcome, but it was a solid next step toward victory.

Even as I convey these notions, I also was struck by what Atlantic Magazine columnist, Tom Nichols, wrote recently

Here is how he started his column:

“I find it exhausting to have to point out that Donald Trump has — yet again — threatened to engage in violent and dictatorial behavior, and that — yet again — the collective reaction by some in America seems to be a numb acceptance that this is just who Trump is.

“…Trump’s goal is to exhaust people who care about democracy:  That’s why he regularly inundates the nation with his rancid word salads.  His screeds are aimed at making us all so tired that when he actually attempts to carry out these schemes, we’ll hardly have the energy to notice. 

“Oh, he’s ordering Homeland Security to arrest people in unconstitutional dragnets? Yeah, I’ve been hearing stuff about that for a long time.”

Here is part of what Nichols reports that Trump posted at his personal “rantatorium,” Truth Social:

“CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election.

“It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

First, I avoid mentioning the inappropriate capitalization, as well as the sorry syntax.

But, as Nichols points out, “This post is the 45th president of the United States putting in writing that he must win, and that after he wins, he will mobilize the machinery of government against his opponents because there was clearly fraud anyway.

“I will just note that I refuse to believe that Trump really coughed up a word like skulduggery on his own.  Spelling it incorrectly does point to him, but the likelihood that someone else is writing these posts is a reminder that Trump is surrounded by people who have no objections to his plans and will willingly carry them out.

“Some of this was drowned out by Trump’s other deranged statements last week. Just before he issued his Stalinist threats, he dropped a piece of pure weapons-grade nuttery about kids getting gender-changing surgery during a normal school day in America.

“;Can you imagine you’re a parent,’ he said at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, ‘and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation.  Can you even imagine this?  What the hell is wrong with our country?”

Nichols says “you cannot imagine it because it’s never happened.  Any parent knows that most schools completely plotz if they even have to give a kid some ibuprofen, but on Planet Trump, school nurses can apparently do surgery in the office.

“At the same rally, Trump threatened to round up undocumented immigrants en masse and admitted it would be ‘bloody story.’

“To recap:  In one day, Trump threatened the use of mass government violence inside the United States, asserted that kids are getting secret medical procedures at schools, and promised to lock up his political opponents.”

Now, all of this does not even take into account the incredibly – not to mention dishonest – claim by Trump during the debate the immigrants in Ohio are “eating cats and dogs.”

Enough.

Just send Trump to the trash bin where he belongs and elect Harris.