Good-Bye, Nikki

      I woke up this morning with a case of what I guess could be called the confused blues. 
      I was blue because the last sure firewall between this,

...and the presidency of the United States came tumbling down yesterday when Donald Trump swept up all but one of the Super Tuesday races and Nikki Haley threw in the towel on her  campaign.
        But though I was feeling plenty blue when this all-but-certain outcome became an actuality, in truth I was feeling even more confused; for, stir it around in my brain pan as I may, I can't make any sense of how so many millions of Americans want Donald Trump to return as their president.
​        I could understand people having supported Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, really, any of the initial group of 2024 Republican candidates (well, except maybe that 38-year-old hyperkinetic ChatGPT-esque Donald Trump Mini-Me animaniac Vivek Ramaswamy, but then, nobody took him very seriously, anyway).

       Not that I particularly liked or supported any of those above candidates; but I get how other folks could. Except that, with Donald Trump in the ring, almost nobody did. 
       But there was Nikki Haley, possessed of all the conservative Republican bona fides: pro-life, tough border policy, hawkish international stance, promoter of smaller government and reining in the national debt, and years of governance  and international relations under her belt as governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador.
        And yet over this experienced, capable, basically decent woman the Republican electorate has chosen a man who spent his four years in the Oval Office sowing chaos, who cozied up to North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and praised Russian intelligence while denigrating American agents, who alienated our foreign, allies who was incapable of putting together the infrastructure bill he bragged about during his campaign, during which he also bragged about grabbing women by their private parts, who made fun of a disabled reporter, 

...who called these white supremacists at the violent 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia rally "very fine people," ​

...who cruelly ordered that small children be separated from their parents at the Mexican border,

...who threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine if its president didn't dig up some dirt on the Biden family, who suggested using a nuclear bomb to stop a hurricane, who promoted horse de-worming medicine and injecting bleach as cures for COVID, who incited his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol and try to overthrow the 2020 election, who is indicted on 91 - 91! - felony counts.  I could go on.
         I don't understand my fellow Americans.
        They say that the last thing Americans want is another Biden-Trump presidential race. But that's obviously the very thing Americans want, since during the primaries they threw away the opportunity to choose someone other than Donald Trump to run against incumbent Joe Biden.
        They also say that Trump is leading Biden among American voters. Maybe they're wrong about that, too.