Since it's Election Season, and that means incessant election commercials, I thought it time to deal with our local Game of Thrones problem:
Rain is coming (it's Seattle).
Including the White Walkers — a plurality of whom are 2020 election-deniers (can't determine whether it's a majority because four of them have just refused to give a direct answer when queried). In a state that is already 40% non-White, which doesn't account for the pale-skinned-non-European-ancestry subsets… or the substantial number of mixed-race residents in rural areas who don't state that.
Consider, too, the vicious, often personal, attacks on citizens as unworthy, because they're not Just Like Me, while carefully ignoring their own… difficulties with their resumés. Sadly, that's coming from just about everyone — it's worse with the White Walkers, but unacceptable from most candidates regardless of party… or their own ethnicity.
And the gerontocracy problem is just making things more annoying. This is unofficial, but it's a useful rule of thumb: If you were eligible to vote when the US Embassy in Tehran was occupied (by a group of reprehensible totalitarians opposing a reprehensible totalitarian), or personally remember — not have seen later, studying for some class — broadcast news coverage of the evacuation of the embassy in Saigon, let alone the assassination of Dr King, you're too old for major elective office. (And that includes me, in all three dimensions; I distrust members of m-m-m-my generation because, well, it's my generation and I know them.) GTFOOTW, and gracefully accept that you're suitable as an advisor or advocate — maybe, if supported by an exceptional staff, as a restricted-subject-matter appointed-and-confirmed department leader — but no longer for general elected office.
But whether or not you agree with me, vote. I voted early (but since I no longer live near Chicago, there's a decent chance I'm not voting often)… and my ballot included nobody Just Like Me. Admittedly, I didn't have such a choice — as one obvious distinction, I didn't vote for any men, and there weren't any military veterans in any race I was eligible to vote in (for which I did not withhold my vote — as I've explained before and repeatedly, I abstain for offices that require a professional license or supervise elections — which would have added one veteran out of seventeen line items). Which is, indeed, the ultimate point of this screed:
Tribalism inevitably leads to bad government.
Just Don't Do It (a certain out-of-state apparel vendor's branding consultants and lawyers can Just Bite Me).