When I was 23, the most traumatic thing ever in my life happened: Bill Clinton got elected President over GHW Bush. In all honesty, it took me until the 1994 midterms to "get over it." I never liked the guy, and every guy in the south had a pipsqueak weasel like him as part of their so-called "man circle." The guy who would pretend to be one of the boys, screw one of them's girlfriend and then argue technicalities like "you were on a break" (that's where Ross got it) or "she was mine before she was yours" or whatever. He was never much more than a guy who never stopped running for class President just so's he could get the victory party but then didn't do much with it.
But you know one thing that NEVER - I mean NEVER ONCE - crossed my mind:
"Clinton stole the election."
Yeah, I chalked it up to Perot splitting the vote or Clinton's willingness to lie or the Democratic Party's willingness to tolerate deviation from the hard left line for once (I realize now that's actually a GOOD thing).
But never once did I EVER think, "Clinton stole the election."
Yes, one could argue with the close elections in 2000 or 2004 not so much Bush "stole" it (some radio folks did but generally speaking the rank-and-file voter didn't) as "the wrong person won it because recounts!"
I hated Clinton.
I hate him to this day.
His wife is even worse, her sole asset being she's retired.
But I never once thought he "stole" the election.
And if he ran against Trump today, I'd literally walk over glass to vote for Clinton.
There's still the basics of the whole thing that keeps us as the functioning republic we've tried to be.
My brother said that, at the hours they got to sleep and had to get up for missions, there was no way he could have handled navigating a B17 without the bennies...
