I contend that the two political conventions actually enjoyed a visitation by God. This assertion by me will surprise many, but wait. Give me a minute to explain my rational for this idea. I reckon believers’ God saw the craziness of the campaigns developing way back and figured if he could spiritually influence each one, things would go better in the actual election.

So, he gave it a try. Unfortunately, the free Will thing undermined his idea. Each of the candidates’ parties, plying their standard behind-the-scenes shenanigans, ignored his spirit and planted ever more explosive political devices under the innocent looking surface of the two dog and pony shows. As this has been a normal occurrence since time began, I don’t know why everybody’s God actually got so optimistic about his chances of positively influencing the results.

Anyhow, both conventions turned out to be the silly circuses they’ve always been. More attention was spent on script-written videos colorfully and in three-dimensional sound extolling the virtues of each candidate, and on finding and blowing up lots of colored balloons, than on serious substance about anything. More character attacks were conjured up than sober words. How each candidate intended to guide us to a rational state of affairs in our turbulent world was omitted from the proceedings.

The designers of such spectacles out-do the Academy Awards or the Metropolitan Opera for emotional grandeur. Each convention targets the same audience that adores video traffic courts and virtual reality shows. The purpose of the conventions is to incite and expose the most fervent possible demonstrations from the attending delegates. Infusing the candidates’ mediocre palaver with impassioned crowd interruptions to create the illusion of significance is the only reason for the gatherings.

A convention is not a debate, as such. It’s more along the lines of a verbal buildup to a fist fight, just before the actual bloodshed normally associated with that activity. It’s childlike play acting on a grand scale. Believers’ God retired soon after the second convention to his private chambers, I’m confident, to contemplate the expanding farce humans have institutionalized in their politics.

Theoretically, he’ll return and try again four years from now. Presently, I’m sure he’s so dismayed he doesn’t dare show his head. Hopefully he’ll be devising prodigious alterations in human behavior to inject into the 2020 elections, and this was just a research and development run. Meantime, we get four more months of the most fascinating tragi-comedy that TV and Internet News journalists can pretend to take seriously while the owners of their media clean up on the show’s advertising.

At a BBQ last night, friends of mine and I were so disgruntled by the infantile stage show pretending to the mature selection of a leader in America, that we didn’t even get drunk on the wine we brought to the ribs and chicken. Our appetites were reserved; there was half a tub of potato salad left when we finally split up. We all dinghied back to our sail boat homes under a marvelous moon and mild warm winds. That part of the evening made sense to us.