Elise Sereni Patkotak

I grew up at a time when the only glass ceiling I ever heard about was in London’s Crystal Palace during the 1851 Great Exhibition. Women had a very specific place in the world and that place was in the home. Girls got engagement rings as their high school graduation present and no one thought they were too young to marry. When I graduated from college, getting your MRS was almost, if not more, important that getting your BS or BA.

I am well aware that there are people who view Hillary Clinton as the devil’s mistress. But how you feel about her is, at least momentarily, secondary to what she just did.

So this is what it’s come to. Statesmanship, patriotism, the welfare of our country, not giving the button to nuclear weapons to a reality star… all this goes by the wayside because party unity and hating the Clintons is more important. I have been disappointed in our congressional delegation many times in the past but this time is the worse. They are all uniting behind Donald Trump because they believe defeating Hillary Clinton is more important than electing someone with even a modicum of credentials for the job of United States President.

This is like a patient asking for someone who just got a nurse’s assistant diploma from DeVry University to do their open-heart surgery because they don’t like the highly credentialed surgeon available for the procedure.

Not since Al Gore tried to kiss Tipper onstage at the Democratic National Convention have I seen an embrace as uncomfortable as the one happening between Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It reminds me of dancing with boys for the first time at an 8th grade mixer where neither the boys nor the girls have a clue how to actually dance. Couples clumsily wander across the floor with absolutely no synchronicity. That, in a nutshell, defines the embrace between Republicans and Donald Trump.

It’s actually hard to decide which is more appalling. Is it the Republicans who say they will vote for Trump but won’t actually come out and endorse him? Or is it the Republicans who have come out in support of Trump and then announced their disagreement with just about everything the man they are endorsing proclaims?