Let’s begin with a question. Is anything troubling you these days? Maybe the upcoming election? Or maybe the COVID-19 crisis? Or civil unrest? As for me, having watched last week’s final debate, I’m stewing about November 3.

I’ve voted in more presidential elections than I care to count. The candidates haven’t always thrilled me, but never have I seen such sour alternatives as our two main choices this year, one being the egotistical, un-presidential man now occupying the Oval Office (“a self-obsessed blowhard” according to a recent column in the Wall Street Journal). His opponent is a fading ancient with signs of cerebral inertia and a spotty political record stretching back almost half a century (a span that fertilized the lush money tree for his family). If this pair doesn’t make you queasy, you have a stronger stomach than I.

I was a Jack Kennedy democrat when I came out of university, and my mind is still comfortable with what the democratic party stood for back then. But the Democrats, especially lately, have shifted far too leftward for me to embrace now. On the other side, most Republicans stumble around with glum faces, wringing their hands and accomplishing little. Sadly, I claim no political home.

Beyond that, neither candidate lights up on my personality scale. Admittedly, Trump can be charming, but that’s hardly his normal state. Although Biden’s demeanor generally is calmer, he too erupts with flashes of anger. As I see it, if the November vote rests on likableness alone (or more precisely unlikableness), Biden will steamroller Trump something like 60 to 40.

My problem this election, and I’m hardly alone, is to decide which candidate to vote against. It’s a tough job to find out what’s really going on in Washington. Deception is now de rigueur in D.C. Politicians seem to have reached a new high, or low, for lying. They stare directly into television cameras and spew utter crap with the straightest of faces. “Analysts” on television spout their own biased dogma 24/7.

I limit my exposure to TV, but I watch enough to cover the spectrum of views by shifting among channels. My sampling is spotty, but I’ve watched the gamut enough to realize that most networks are obviously left of center (MSNBC, and CNN being farthest left, followed by NBC, ABC, CBS, and PBS to lesser degrees). Newspapers are no different. Even major sheets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and most large city dailies, season their “news” stories with democrat-approved salt and pepper. I balance this heavy left load with two sources of right-of-center news, namely the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

This left-right difference was glaringly apparent to me during the extended Trump/Russian collusion accusations, which I followed closely as it slowly unraveled and the malfeasance gradually shifted from Trump and his associates to the FBI itself, and beyond. In retrospect, this particular saga was reported more accurately by my right-of-center sources.

After evaluating the obvious flaws in each presidential candidate, and other matters, I’ve come to the conclusion that the guy who moves into the White House for the next four years is less important than the furniture he brings in with him. I’ll explain in future blogs.

When I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in the middle of the last century. I belonged for a time to an eating cooperative, the Green Lantern. In those days Wisconsin, beside being a fine academic institution, was known for a number of oddball things. Its Student Union sold beer (gasp), and it was the only university in the country that had an open chapter of the Labor Youth League, a Communist organization, on campus.

During my meals at the Green Lantern, with some regularity, a student (I think his name was Matthew) would get up and with glassy‑eyed zeal blast us diners with Communistic propaganda. “Who’s that?” I asked the student seated beside me the first time he started his rant. “He’s a member of the LYL,” she whispered.

Matthew’s sputterings over his doctrine struck me as loony. Before coming to Wisconsin, I had spent three years in Germany with the Air Force. I’d seen firsthand what communist USSR had done with the part of Germany it controlled after WWII. (I later had more personal experiences in East Germany and the USSR that were even more illuminating, first‑hand episodes showing me how dangerous and degrading that form of government is. I’ll get to those in later blogs.)

The word around Wisconsin’s campus in the 1950s suggested the LYL had only three members, but nevertheless it managed to make noise along University Avenue. Actually, the number was understated. I discovered recently it had “silent” members as well, some 20‑plus students who bought into the ideology but didn’t want to be identified. (This information, and much more, is available online from an extensive 2005 telephone interview with Henry Wortis, an open member of LYL who also took his nourishment at the Green Lantern.)

Wortis mentions he was a “red diaper baby,” a term referring to a child of parents who were Communist party members or sympathizers, and often Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe. If you’re not familiar with the term, look online where you’ll find the names of prominent Red Diaper Babies. Not surprisingly, Bernie Sanders is one, but other names may surprise you. A number of well‑known politicians make the list, as do famous folk singers, along with other types.

To focus on Bernie Sanders for a moment, he was a leftist political activist while a student at the University of Chicago, and he continued along a trail of Communist/Socialist associations afterward. In 1988, while mayor of Burlington, VT, he took his new bride to Russia on a 10‑day trip and returned with praise of that totalitarian country while reporting the public transit system in Moscow was “the cleanest, most effective mass transit system that I’ve ever seen in my life.” He even raved about the transparency of Russian leaders.

I happened to visit another part of Russia about that same time, traveling to Leningrad with a bus load of Finnish tourists. Unlike what Bernie saw, I encountered a country even grimmer than I had expected. I saw streets filled with dirty, banged‑up buses and rather scanty numbers of mostly unimpressive automobiles. I saw poorly stocked stores, tourist hotels with grimy windows, a rampant black market for rubles, and one undeniable jewel, the Hermitage Museum. I also saw the detrimental effects of governmental control on personal lives. I’ll write about that trip soon.