Ethan and I have been best friends since either of us can remember, tearing around the hills in the NEK. Now a glorious tall blond he expected us to be married one day, he is also the first person I came out to, he shrugged and said "that sucks" and we just carried on as before. He is over here now and causing quite a stir with the locals, all that rural Vermont charm on a bear of a man. He is a Republican as we used know them in Essex County, fiscally conservative and socially "don't mess with others and they wont mess with you". He travels the world and speaks several languages, selling organic agricultural products and helping local farmers use the appropriate product for their local production techniques. No, I am not playing matchmaker, yet, although it's long past time he settled down.

Anyhows, that is just some background.

Of course over dinner last night Marie-Louise had to ask him about Trump and Clinton, I decided that right then was a good time to go make coffee in the Kitchen. Ethan, so soft spoken normally almost detonated, I swear the house shook; stone built as it is. "Fucking disgrace" was the mere introduction to a tirade that caused even my ears to go pink and I can be pretty agricultural at times. Once he had calmed down a touch, we discussed the two and even laughed at how similar our perceptions were and even the reasoning was pretty damn close. Now Ethan and I will fight tooth and nail over some issues and that has never hurt our friendship, people are allowed to have different views upon how to make the world a better place. The point is "better" and if you cannot do that at least "do no harm".

Where we will fight together is against people who hurt others for their own selfish reasons, whether deliberately or not, be it climate change and pollution or war. Trump and Clinton are an anathema to both of us products of the vile and putrid politics of the last few decades. No issue is too small to cause hatred, no issue too personal to be ignored, as Ethan says it's the politics of "messing with someone else's rights to appease their own bigotry". We talked about the use of misogyny and racism as accusations as means of defense and how that reduces the real weight of the questions being asked to the periphery. If all you have are accusations in response to a reasonable demand then by default you have lost the argument right from the get go and all you have then is hot air.

We talked for a few hours and the result of it all, neither of us are in anyway motivated to vote if those two are the only candidates on the ballot, call it bipartisanship in action. It's good to see him, it is also good to know it's not just this socialist that is disgusted by the whole shallow money polluted system. Now to get him hitched, OK, I'm evil like that and he deserves someone very special, I have someone in mind.