One of my life observations has been that people who are trusting (until given reason not to trust) can usually be trusted. People who are not trusting should not be trusted. In both cases, they know how they'd behave if given the chance.

It's interesting to see the states where the politicians in charge use claims (disputed by fact checkers) of massive voter fraud as justification to make it harder for the wrong sort of people to vote - i.e. people whose demographic group tends to vote for the other party. Fortunately, Colorado isn't one of them.

Unfortunately, one of our presidential wannabees (yes, He Himself) is continuing to proclaim that if he loses, it's proof that the election was rigged. Himself is enough of a flaming narcissist that he might actually believe that.

With his recent (but not new) offensive and erratic behavior, Himself is doing a great job rigging the election against himself by persuading ever more voters that they really do have to vote for his female opponent if they care about the future of their country.

So voters are conspiring against Himself. Yes, they are. It's called democracy. The evil media also is conspiring against Himself, by reporting accurately on what Himself has been saying and doing, and what he's said and done in the past. Bummer.

Never mind that members of the media probably don't like being labeled as horrible, horrible people, and they're upset about being snookered into providing many months of free publicity to Himself. They are citizens and voters as well, and I'm guessing many of them also fear for the future of their beloved country. I sure do.

Himself is not a trusting person, with good reason. See paragraph one. He also has shown himself to be vengeful. His poll numbers have been going down, and his claims of a rigged election have become more strident.

The vengeance being enacted is to poison the community well, the base level of trust that's necessary for our society to hold together and our representative democracy to function.

National Public Radio reports that the Arizona Republic newspaper has received death threats after the paper endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in its long history. This past weekend, someone firebombed a Republican county headquarters in North Carolina. There are even some concerns about violence at polling places on election day. Those are unacceptable!

An essential part of our representative democracy is for everyone to accept election results, even if they don't agree with them (I admit it's easier for me to say that with Himself's poll numbers falling), and allow for a peaceful transition of power - one of the things that makes America great, by the way.

If Himself can't destroy the things we celebrate on the Fourth of July by being elected, will he destroy them by other means? I've heard talk of Himself starting his own TV network, presumably to keep the poison flowing. How do we turn that around for the good of the country?