What was he thinking?

The more outrageous things are, the more outrageous they become. On Wednesday, Donald Trump called on Russian premier Putin to hack into the private files of Americans to discover the emails that Secretary of State Clinton deleted. Sources have said that the only files she deleted were personal but, based on the results of the FBI investigation, who knows?

But regardless of who knows or doesn't know, should a presidential candidate be calling on the head of state of the country we've been enemies with since the end of World War II to hack into our emails? George Patton was even ready to fight them then, saying, and I paraphrase, 'we're going to have to fight the bastards sooner or later so it might as well be now'. Trump now says it was a sarcastic remark not to be taken seriously but I heard it when he made it and there was no sarcasm in his voice.

Now a significant minority of Americans support anything Trump says or wants to do . If he says build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, they support it. If he says don't trust the media, they don't. If he says don't trust the scientific evidence, they don't. If he says Mexican immigrants are rapists and thieves, they believe him (a lot of Americans are rapists and thieves too). If he degrades women, pokes fun at people with handicaps, and encourages his supporters to assault protesters, they approve and applaud him and the reason they give for these things is that he's a different kind of candidate. People are upset with politics as usual and I understand that but can we afford to give a presidential candidate free rein to say and do anything he wants because he's not a typical politician? Evidently we can if his name is Trump and his opponent is Hillary.

We've been here before you know. Republicans have long hated the Clintons, going all the way back to Bill's election as President in 1992. Soon after that, Ken Starr was named as special prosecutor and spent the next several years and 70 million dollars of the people's money trying to get an indictment against either Clinton for anything and failed to do so. Not many people could withstand that kind of constant investigation and scrutiny and come out clean but the Clinton's did. How much difference did that make in the minds of the Clinton haters? It made no difference at all and they're still investigating everything she does just like they were back in the '90s with no success now either.

After I left the police department, I've spent the rest of my life in education. I know, as you do, that when we look to fill vacancies, we don't look for the person who knows the least, we look for the person who knows the most. We look for experts in the field and, if we can't get them, we at least look for those who have the ability to be the best. Every company and corporation hires the same way. Very few people ever get a job based on the fact that they don't see the world the way everybody else does. That's why we ARE the greatest country in the world. That's why we've excelled in practically every area of expertise and because of that, that's why migrants from other countries want to be Americans. Knowledge, education and expertise is crucial and ignorance of the facts and the situation is anathema to solving our problems.

But we're facing an election in which that same significant minority of people doesn't want an expert. They don't want someone versed in international affairs. They don't want someone knowledgeable about domestic policy. They don't want a diplomat. They don't want someone who will compromise to get the best deal for Americans. They want a four time bankrupt, three time married egotistical land baron who buys whatever he wants regardless of how the neighbors feel or how it upsets the natural ecological balance because it's all about him and what he wants.

Most of the people believed when Trump started his campaign for the Presidency that he was a joke, an afterthought. But then he challenged the status quo and beat fourteen challengers, most of whom were far more qualified than him, to emerge as the Republican Presidential candidate. Many prominent Republicans stayed away from their convention a week ago but this only added fuel to the fire of those who supported him. Anything he says or does that upsets the establishment has the same result.

But sooner or later the chickens come home to roost. Many Americans don't care how other countries see him but few of them see him favorably. They continued to think as many of us thought initially, that he was a flash in the pan and now that they see that he wasn't, they're alarmed. They're not only alarmed at him, they're alarmed that this many Americans could support him.

There was a comment on Facebook yesterday in which the writer hoped that we could all still be friends after the election is over. I hope so too. But the hateful, spiteful rhetoric being thrown about by both sides cuts to the bone and is hard to dismiss. Many of my friends in this part of the country are Republicans and we've agreed to talk about anything but politics, even though we all know how each other feels. We agreed to this because we believe our friendships are more important than who we vote for or who wins an election. Those relationships are going to endure regardless of who wins in November and we can't wait for it to be over although we all want our candidate to win.

I don't know how this is all going to play out when the election IS over but I DO know that Donald Trump went beyond the pale when he encouraged Russia by name and Putin by inference to hack the files of American citizens.

If that doesn't make you rethink your position, then nothing will!