Joni Mitchell wrote "Both Sides Now" in 1967. Though she wrote it in the midst of the '60s cataclysm of protests against the Vietnam War, the advent of free love and all that that entailed, and what seemed like an all-out rebellion against everything that had come before, it was a sweet song about clouds and how children see them. Like Peter Yarrow's "Puff the Magic Dragon", it was just a lovely song. Sure, there is wistfulness in it, regret and ambivalence can be read into the lyrics. But it was well and truly just a beautiful song. And that was the turbulent sixties.

"Rows and rows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way"

Fast forward to 2016. There are no beautiful melodies to what is still called “music” but is not music at all. Consider Kanye West's latest, called "Facts":

"Dirt and grime and filth inside

The story of my lifetime

Of cheating, stealing, never feeling

Pain of a brother, your dirty mother..."

We won't quote the rest because his lyrics are truly disgusting to anyone born before 1995. That millions of young people have made this man a millionaire is a sad commentary to say the least. West is vile, lewd, and rude -- everything we do not want our young people to become. But Kanye and his wife are good friends of Obama and are frequent guests at the White House along with numerous other rappers who spew equally offensive lyrics. 

West's lyrics could almost be sung to Joni Mitchell's music. But they instead reveal the dystopian version of our culture that the Left has successfully brought about; cynical shallowness, no respect for anyone or anything, braggadocio, and a celebration of a materialism and personal wealth never before known or embraced. Because rap and hip hop are the vernacular of the black left, it must not be criticized, no matter how profane, sexist, racist, anti-police, or pro-violence. No matter how much a majority of black citizens hate it, they cannot speak out against it any more than peaceful Muslims can speak out against Islamic terrorists. They are afraid of being politically incorrect or of offending members of their own "community." Some community. The level to which American culture has demeaned itself is a betrayal of the word "community."

The transformation of American music naturally coincides with the transformation of American traditions on every level. The Left's agenda begun in earnest in the 60s has come to fruition with regard to music, culture, and of course, politics. Despite its responsibility for the election of Richard Nixon in 1972, (the public was horrified by the "radicals’" demands and behavior) the adherents of the "new Left" succeeded in taking over nearly the whole of academia where it has been entrenched ever since. Those tenured radicals have done a good job teaching three generations of young people to loathe their own country and dismiss the Constitution as a document written by old white men without a shred of relevance for their lives today. Today speech must be restricted, trigger warnings provided, safe spaces afforded lest someone be offended. 

Today's millennials actually believe that George Bush killed more people than Stalin! They have purposefully been taught a falsified history of America (thank you, Howard Zinn). They have purposefully been taught that communism was not responsible for a hundred million deaths in the twentieth century. They have been lied to, those who went to school, about countless important events and issues in America's past and they have been thoroughly indoctrinated to hate everything great about this country. That is how Obama got elected -- he hates this country too. He, like so many young people, is not particularly skilled in the art of critical thinking.

The current state of American politics has given us Colin Kaepernicks' ridiculous and self-serving anti-"Star Spangled Banner" nonsense, Black Lives Matter violence against law enforcement, and the rise of segregation on college campuses demanded by black Americans who are being taught that all whites are racist because they were born white. They are not being assigned to read Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington, Shelby Steele or Thomas Sowell. They are taught to revile Clarence Thomas. The left foments racial animosity. It's what they do. It serves their purpose. Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave.

All of which brings us to the current election. Hillary Clinton is a known liar, a criminal of monstrous proportions; others have gone to prison for crimes she has committed over and over: lying to Congress, lying to the FBI, violating national security laws by which she was bound as Secretary of State, etc. It's a long list. Trump is a semi-outsider who has dallied throughout his adult life with both sides of the political spectrum. He has crossed the palms of anyone and everyone who could help smooth the many roads his businesses needed to be smoothed on their way to completion. That is what people like him do. It is sort of normal in our bureaucratic, overly-regulated world. 

What the Clintons did and do is not normal. Sure, politicians wheel and deal and find ways to make lots of money during and after they serve in office. But what the Clintons do is criminal because they do it wholly at the expense of the American people. And they feel thoroughly entitled to do it: gain power, use it to enrich themselves and their friends. They are amoral, immoral, and venal. Hillary has no core beliefs beyond power and money. That should be clear to every person on the planet by now. 

Trump, for a rich guy, is curiously clueless about the rules of civility in the rarefied world of wealth and power in which he operates. That must be what has drawn his supporters to him. He speaks in a way that endears him to them and offends the elites of DC and many others who hoped for a different candidate. Those enthusiastic supporters may just put him in the White House. They show up to see him in the tens of thousands. They are excited to vote for him. Hillary's supporters are lethargic and bored; they show up in only hundreds of people. They sort of know she should never get near the White House again but do not have the guts to vote Republican. She and her husband have done terrible damage to this country as has Obama. She will do much, much more damage if elected because she only cares about three things: herself, power, and her personal wealth. She has nothing but contempt for the everyday people of this country.

But now it's just another show

You leave them laughing when you go

And if you care, don't let them know

Don't give yourself away

Hillary is all show, and she gave herself away long ago. No one paying attention is laughing. If elected, she will further devastate our economy and take us down the road to Marxism, the kind that has failed everywhere it has been tried with tragic consequences.