OPINION:
These are treacherous times to be on the internet, especially if you are trying to carry out your civic responsibility of self-governance.
Former President Donald Trump is a fascist, at least according to the sitting vice president of the United States, who made the shocking announcement last week outside her official government residence.
One day — long after the prescription drugs have worn off — we will look back at the unhinged rhetoric of this campaign and marvel. It will be the greatest Netflix series of all time — better than the ones about the O.J. Simpson trial, the Unabomber or even defending the Menendez brothers.
We do live in interesting and entertaining times.
Also, according to the internet, Mr. Trump may be Hitler, but abortion-obsessed supporters of Kamala Harris hate live children.
After the Harris campaign’s disappointing bait-and-switch non-concert by Beyonce on Friday night, a Harris supporter was recorded leaning over and berating a live child in a stroller.
It was not entirely clear what got the screaming woman so wrapped around the axle, but the internet claimed it had something to do with her abortion rights.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that he would like to become a “whale psychiatrist” because the windmills that Democrats are building along our coastlines are driving whales crazy and killing them. As usual, he is not wrong.
I am not hanging around windmills in the ocean — or even watching “The View” on ABC. Nor am I screaming at live children in strollers.
But I will admit I spend half my days lately asking: “Am I losing my mind? Am I going crazy?”
I bet I speak for many Americans across the political spectrum when I tell you that after the election I would like to enter an inpatient rehab center for at least six months to recover from this whole self-governance on the internet thing.
No phone calls. No email. Take everything away. Give me some white scrubs, stick me in a wheelchair and wheel me out for 12 hours a day to take in the sunshine and fresh air and silence. No visitors (except maybe the dogs). No meds. No phone.
Just pretty nurses in paper nurse caps and white stockings wheeling me around in silence to watch the sunrise, the sunset and the sun slowly crawling across the sky.
Yet amid all the noise and rancor, there is good news.
Our politics may have been hijacked by politicians so crazy they are driving even the whales insane. Apparently, however, most American voters are still relatively sane.
We know this because both campaigns realize that the vast majority of voters remain sane and they are tailoring their messages to appeal to these sane voters.
Both candidates have spent hundreds of millions of dollars claiming to support secure borders, lower inflation and safety from crime.
The obvious problem, of course, is that while one candidate has a sterling record on these very issues, the other has the most disastrous record in the history of politics on them.
But kudos to Ms. Harris for finally recognizing the issues that actually matter to normal, sane voters. At least she’s not promising to put Sam Brinton in charge of U.S. nuclear forces or make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the border czar.
One of the funniest things to watch in this campaign has been the spectacle of Ms. Harris pretzeling herself trying to claim she wants to strip out all the federal bureaucratic red tape that makes homebuilding so damned expensive.
Seriously? Red tape, bureaucracy and crushing businesses define today’s Democratic Party. And the Biden-Harris administration has taken this to new heights never before dreamed of.
It is so obviously terrible that Democratic politicians running in Democratic states are out with ads throwing the current administration under the bus and embracing Donald Trump by name.
This tells you all you need to know about the state of the presidential race. It also tells you that no matter how crazy the politicians are, even our fellow American voters who are Democrats have not entirely lost their minds.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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