I’ve decided not to run for president.  I do seem to qualify.  After all, I am in my seventies and I have had treatment for heart problems.  But, well, with my new job and all …

Anyway, while I was considering it, I spent some time thinking about how I would approach it, what my message would be, what I would say to and about my fellow Americans and my fellow aspirants to the office.  The one thing that dominated my thinking was that the entire object of this presidential campaign was to get rid of Donald Trump.

Yes, there are many things that we Americans need to do.  We do need to find a way to provide affordable health care to everyone.  We do need to remedy the awful damage we visited on native Americans and minorities over the years.  We do need to repair our beaten down and dangerous infrastructure.  We do need to restore balance to income sharing and the payment for our communal, governmental needs.

We need to do all of that.  But before all, and in fact key to all, is to remove the cancer that is Donald Trump from the oval office.  Why?  Look at the list I just recited.  These are each key elements in the pursuit of that ideal which defines us as Americans, the commitment to the inalienable rights of all human beings.  Think about this:  Donald Trump is opposed to each and every one of them.  He is not just a bad president.  We have had and survived those before.  By his words and by his conduct he has conclusively demonstrated that he is unalterably and profoundly opposed to that very defining ideal itself.  He is, at his heart, anti-American.  We either get rid of him or we surrender the very ideals that define us.

So, I didn’t run.  Instead, I turned to the debates to listen to these fine candidates denounce this disaster that is Trump the Chump.  But to my great surprise and dismay, all I hear is each of these people attacking, not Trump, but each other.  Warren whacks Sanders.  Sanders submarines Mayor Pete. Pete pounds on Klobuchar.  And they all butcher Biden.  It’s like watching a murder/suicide.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all that stopped?  Wouldn’t it be nice if one of them would jump up and shout, “STOP IT!!!  We are here for one reason and one reason only — take this awful nightmare out of the presidency.  We do nothing for ourselves, and absolutely nothing for this country that we love, by chewing on each other.  I don’t give one good damn if I win or any one of you wins.  I care only that this country needs to be saved from Trump’s frontal attack on our ideals.  Our every word and action should be only that!”

Would it be nice if one of them said that?  Wouldn’t it be nice if the whole bunch of them was dedicated solely and entirely to ridding this country of the worst, most dangerous president we have ever had?

I’d have done it myself.  But, you know, the new job and all ….

I’m watching the most recent debacle, i.e., the Charleston Democratic debate.  There are, at any one time, three people talking at the same time, which means that I cannot understand a thing any of them are saying.  They are supposed to be running against Donald Trump, who is a serious, dire threat to American democracy, to our very way of life.  Yet these guys are spending their time chewing each other up.  I have yet to hear even the name of Trump.  Trump has worked to make a chump out of every man and woman he talked into supporting him.  But he is the chump, and these guys should be chewing on Trump the Chump.

My real fear is that I can’t see one guy on this stage who can actually beat Trump.  I see some maybes.  Maybe Bloomberg, but he would have a lot of explaining to do.  Maybe Mayor Pete, but he’d have to talk a conservative country into voting in a gay president.  And, of course, maybe Joe, but his problem is that he is, well, Joe.  Maybe Klobuchar, but she is dragging far behind.  And through it all, I wonder why it is so bloody hard to find one attractive moderate human being who can just stand up there and say, “Good on all of you for running.  I am too, and the one and only thing I am concerned with is throwing out this self-absorbed, tyrannical sexual predator.”

This country is in danger of losing its soul, in two ways.  First, Trump has done everything he can to violate the separation of the three branches of government.  Second, we Americans are being pitted against each other.  I am what might be called a classic liberal.  I want higher taxes for the wealthy.  I want affordable education for all.  I want affordable medical care for all.  At the very same time, however, I respect and admire every American who advocates more conservative views but who really wants the same things I do — to give my family a good life and to make sure my children have at least as good a world as I have had.

Trump and his handlers try to make us hate each other.  We can’t afford that.  I am scared, really scared, that he will succeed, and, if he does, he will take democracy down.

I pray he fails.