My modest career in politics began one fall, many years ago, when I ran, with the urging of a gaggle of my buddies, for president of Mrs. Cook’s third-grade class at W.B. Simpson Elementary School in Camden-Wyoming, Delaware. I’m sure I had some kind of campaign slogan that my little brain cooked up, though I don’t remember what it was, and I’m relatively certain that I made a few outlandish promises concerning less homework, more chocolate milk at lunch, and the separation of boys and girls at recess. You have to give the people what they want.

We had more boys in our class, and I was running against a girl (whose name stayed with me for the longest time but now, like much of my schooling, escapes me), so in those pre-pubescent times, my election should have been a slam dunk. As it turned out, though, a few of my perhaps more mature mates fell in behind my cute pony-tailed opponent, all the girls in class stayed true to their candidate, and I lost by about four votes in a class of maybe 30. And so my political career ended. It never occurred to me to ask for a recount.

Now, as happens every four years, we’ve come down to another pick for president. As always, I hope this one turns out better than that one.

*******

There will be no October surprise on this blog, no great reveal. I’m an always never-Trumper. Eight years ago, I wrote what I thought was a well-reasoned (and, true to this blog, too long) post on why Hillary Clinton should be the next president. That, uh, didn’t happen.

Four years ago, after an exhausting 48 or so months of Donald Trump in the Oval Office, capped by his complete bungling of the beginning of a pandemic that eventually killed more than 1 million Americans, I again voted against him. Most Americans agreed with me that time. Still, Trump and his ever-faithful minions, elected and not, tried to overthrow that free and fair election, an effort that included a baseless, deadly assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2001. Democracy held, though. Joe Biden, rightfully, became the 46th president of the United States.

As anyone with eyes and/or ears and/or a nose knows all too well, Trump never went away. Despite four years outside of D.C. that featured a conviction on 34 felony counts and another on sexual assault — with more court dates possibly to come, depending at least in part on the outcome of this election — Trump is again gunning for the presidency, with several axes to grind (he always has axes to grind), a neutered Republican political establishment at his heel, and somewhere around half of the voting public still on his side. He’s sticking to the Big Lie (that the 2020 election was “stolen”), he has a smarmy new vice presidential candidate who also denies the outcome of that election, and Trump is already claiming — it’s an old schtick of his, one that he unfurled before he was elected president in 2016 — that the only way he can lose, evidently ever, is if the election is stolen from him.

Again, for the billionth time: The 2020 election wasn’t stolen. The Big Lie has been proven a lie so, so, so many times, it’s downright tiring. Yet here we are. Again.

Trump’s opponent this time is vice president Kamala Harris, the former attorney general for the state of California, a largely unknown politico (the vice presidency will do that to politicians) who has breathed fresh air into the race with an optimism that Trump seems bent on sucking out of the country. It took some strong-arming by the Democratic political machine to convince president Biden to step aside, making room for Harris at the top of the ticket. But it was the right move.

That’s the choice in front of us. It’s not exactly boys vs. girls at W.B. Simpson. It’s not me vs. whatshername. But the choice is just as stark.

******

We are forced, those of us who take this voting thing somewhat responsibly, into a comparison of Harris and Trump. But that whole exercise is bogus. It’s apples and (ahem) orange. Comparing the two suggests that they are somewhat alike, somewhat equal. That each is a valid choice. That both candidates are worthy. That’s simply not true.

For the moment, let’s put aside the sketchy details of Trump’s life, the personal and very public, before he became a politician. Let’s forget the formidable legal hassles still engulfing him. Those details, past and present, to many disqualify him for the job. They show him to be the man he is.

Let’s concentrate, instead, on the four years that he was Commander in Chief. Remember it all. Not just any triumphs — he had some — but the failures that you have to remember. The tweets, the chaos, the interminable lying, the impeachments (plural), the non-stop utter absurdity. The childish insults, the unkept promises, the damnation from many who worked most closely with him, his always fake and completely unconvincing bravura, his absurd pronouncement that the “China virus” was “under control.” Injecting bleach. “Find me some votes.”

Remember January 6, 2021. He was a big part of that. Remember (as if he’ll let you forget) The Big Lie. Remember — remember this most of all — that in 2020, voters soundly rejected him (for the billionth and first time; he was rejected, soundly) for a reason. For many of the reasons listed above. For many more.

It’s true that Harris is not nearly the known quantity that Trump is. She would have a lot to prove if she’s elected. She’s smart (though Trump, as he so classlessly does, calls her a “dummy”). She’s capable. (She was District Attorney of San Francisco before she became AG of the largest state in the union.) She knows her way around the political landscape. (She was a senator before becoming VP.) In many ways, though, admittedly, we still don’t know her.

But we know Trump. We know. Even those who will vote for him, I suspect, know. We just have to remember.

******

Before we go too much further, let’s acknowledge the biggest reason that many people will vote for Trump in a little less than a month. That is, the price of Coke. Or eggs. Or butter. Or cars. Or whatever have you.

Prices are up since Trump was in office. Maybe you’ve heard. Under Trump, the argument goes, we had the “greatest economy in the history of the world.” (No. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.) How can we not want to go back to that?

The Trump economy was not the greatest ever, but to be absolutely fair, it was good. And then came March 2020 and the pandemic. That robust economy — also to be absolutely fair, that economy was built up through eight years of the Obama administration (remember what he inherited?) and presented to Trump in great shape after his win over Hillary Clinton — cratered. Remember? No, it wasn’t Trump’s fault. But remember? Things were so bad that Trump and Congress handed out stimulus checks to millions of Americans. Trump, of course, made sure his name was on those checks.

After the election, in came Biden. The pandemic roared on, Russia invaded Ukraine, the supply chain tangled … remember? It wasn’t that long ago. Remember? It was a certifiable mess. Biden handed out more stimulus to spur the economy. His administration passed monstrous bills to try to jump-start it (the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act). Meanwhile, prices on everyday products jumped unmercifully.

Inflation: the great bugaboo.

Still, the economy responded to all that money handed out by the government. The U.S. has created more than 16 million jobs since Biden took over, more than in any single presidential term. Manufacturing has come back to America in a big way. Infrastructure, long a Trump failure, has been addressed. The GDP rebounded. The stock markets are at an all-time high, meaning those with 401Ks are sitting pretty. There has been no recession. And inflation, a pain throughout much of the last four years, has receded. The big headline here should be that the economy is objectively good, better than most any in the world, and certainly much better than when Biden walked into the Oval Office as president.

But … the big bugaboo.

Make of all that what you will. Some will say the Biden administration has performed admirably on the economy. Some, understandably, will decry the high cost of eggs. Or butter. Or whatever have you. This much is certain: Whoever walks into the Oval in January faces a much rosier outlook than Biden did in January of 2021. Economically, Biden leaves this country a ton better than how he found it.

******

As I was saying … we know Trump. We know the man and the president. And that’s why I’m an always never-Trumper.

You want reasons? You want bullets? Here. I could come up with more. Many more:

• Trump lies. Constantly. You can’t believe a thing he says. Ever. He’ll make Mexico pay for the wall. Perfect call. They’re eating dogs and cats. The coronavirus is under control. Health care is coming. I won, by a lot. Infrastructure Week. I was Michigan Man of the Year … Obviously, I could go on. Many have. In his four years as president, the Washington Post counted more than 30,000 “false or misleading claims.” Thirty thousand! More recently, here are 162 from one press conference. That’s astounding. That’s damning.

• His climate policy, or more accurately his lack of one — the word “climate” is not mentioned once in his platform — is scandalous. He has called climate change a hoax. (Tell that to the people in Florida, in western North Carolina, to the people in California or Arizona or many other places suffering through never-before climate crises.) “We will drill, baby, drill,” he says. A majority of Americans think we should successfully address climate change. He doesn’t address it at all.

• His economic plan stinks. Even conservative think tanks agree. The plan, such as it is, centers on cutting taxes on things like overtime pay and Social Security payments, and laying outrageous tariffs on goods from China and elsewhere. You can read all sorts of analysis on this. Here’s a respected, and what I’d say is a majority view: “If tariffs work, they work by raising prices in the U.S.,” David Wessel, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution and director of their Hutchins Center for Fiscal and Monetary Policy, told NPR. “And almost all economists would say that the bulk of that is paid by the end user, the consumer. So that’s a tax in a different name …”

• His foreign policy is un-American. He says he’ll end the war in Ukraine even before he takes office. Which is nonsense, first of all, and happens only if he can somehow strongarm Ukraine into surrendering to a country that invaded its borders and killed thousands of its people. That invading force, of course, is Russia. Its murderous leader, according to Trump, is “genius” and “savvy.” Trump abandons allies and rolls over for enemies. Un-American.

• He threatens to put Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic and all-around whacko, in a position of power when it comes to public health policy. That’s an unnerving proposition.

• Trump remains a fearmonger and a divider. We are a nation built by and for immigrants. But, according to Trump, immigrants in the country are committing heinous crimes. They are voting illegally. The countries they come from are emptying their prisons and sending criminals and the mentally ill our way. “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said during his one debate with Harris. They’re taking our jobs, using up all our social services, and trashing our economy. They’re “poisoning the blood of our country.” None of it is true. None of it. But those lies serve him. They separate us. It’s why he keeps telling them.

• He is no friend of workers, soldiers, or women. He is an outright enemy to many of them.

• Nothing is ever his fault. He makes no mistakes. He is perfect. He is infuriating.

• Project 2025. From mass deportations to the elimination of the Department of Education to many other radical ideas, you know — you know — that he’s been briefed on it and will employ much of it, if elected. He denies it, of course. But, again, he lies. All the time.

• He prompted the most radical of his followers to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power in a violent attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. The key conclusion of the committee that investigated the attack, nine Democrats and Republicans: “The rioters were inside the halls of Congress because the head of the executive branch of our government, the then-President of the United States, told them to attack. Donald Trump summoned that mob to Washington, D.C. Afterward, he sent them to the Capitol …” Remember?

• Trump, at 78, is just too old. He’d be 82 at the end of his final term, if elected. There’s ample evidence that his cognitive ability is not what it was. His stump speeches are rambling, filled with invective and hate, promising retribution against all who have wronged him, painting a dystopian vision of America without him at the helm, and too often incoherent for long sections. Putting someone like that in the White House could be disastrous for the nation. (Harris, by the way, turns 60 this month.)

There’s so much more I object to when it comes to another potential Trump term, all foretold by his last one. Those stupid, antagonizing, unprofessional, classless, unthoughtful tweets. His constant denigration of the media, a critical cog of America’s democracy. (Love ’em or hate ’em, who other than the media is going to call Trump and the politically powerful on their nonsense?) His lackadaisical attention to detail. His refusal to attend critical policy briefings. His cozying up to dictators. His never-ending narcissism. So, so, so painfully tiring.

Someone recently accused me of “hating” Donald Trump. What I hate is what American politics has become in the past 10 years since this huckster, this former “reality TV star,” decided to get into politics. (Americans are now to the point, thanks at least in part to Trumpism, that we think if the other side wins, it would result in lasting harm to the country … even though, as Americans, we agree on so much.) What I hate is the bleak, and I think wholly inaccurate picture that he paints of modern-day America, all just to get elected. What I hate is what he’s done to the Republican Party, silencing reasonable voices like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, forcing others like Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, and Mitch McConnell to bow to his will, and producing a veritable army of sycophants like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Kari Lake, Tommy Tuberville, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Clyde, Jim Jordan, and thousands of others at the federal, state, and local levels.

What I hate is that so many people, disillusioned people perhaps legitimately looking for a change, buy into this charlatan’s act. What I hate is that so many somehow forget what he was like in that first four years. What I hate is that, yes, it can happen again. And it could be worse.

There’s only one choice in this election for me. But, by all accounts, only half the voters agree. Maybe a little more. Maybe a little less. Like many, I’ll spend the next three weeks looking for the Tums and avoiding the polls as much as possible.

What happens if Trump wins? Will we make it through, as we did last time, even after the assault on the Capitol? Or will this small, petty man, bent on vengeance and drunk on increasingly unchecked power, do some real, lasting damage to our democracy this time around? It’s impossible to know for sure.

We do know, though, what happened the last time he won. We know. It was a cluster from the start. It got uglier as it went along. It ended with a stumbling response to the greatest public health challenge of our lifetime, an economy in tatters, and a deadly riot in Washington D.C. ginned up to keep him in power even though he lost the election.

Surely you have to remember that?