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Everybody is asking the same question: Which will end first? The never-ending summer that keeps making encore appearances or the presidential election November 3rd? There are rumors of fronts, but many, once they negotiate the desolate hinterland of the King Ranch, reach the border exhausted, a gust or two maybe lowering the temperature a few degrees. So the air-conditioning keeps purring. In the north the scientists fear a COVID spread. The inhabitants of those gray regions congregate inside. The summer poses a stiffer challenge for the border's inhabitants. Who wants to step out of his front door and feel his head sizzling like the proverbial egg frying on the sidewalk?

As to the presidential election as well as the state, county and Brownsville elections, the contestants are scouring through their opponents' closets for anything that resembles a skeleton. They are content if they can discover a pair of pants that the skeletons used to wear. There might be something in the pockets that holds a well-kept secret.

The Republicans have exhumed the body of Hillary Clinton. There isn't much left anymore except the hair that resembles Trump's aging impression of a Beach Boy. They keep dissecting Biden's wayward son Hunter only to find that the liberal press, after casting a quick glance at the chopped-up mess, ignore the gore and prefer to perform their autopsies on the president's children who hold to the conviction that they will be a political dynasty, but there is little chance that the citizenry is going to confuse them with the Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bushes of the modern era.

We have started the countdown. We are midway through the fourth quarter and team Trump is trailing. Is there time for a comeback? Yes, but Hail Mary passes aren't going to cut the deficit. Only Our Father bombs can rescue the the smack-talking benchwarmer from certain defeat. And nobody, not even Argentina, will cry for him when he is gone. For someone who loves crowds, he will sigh bitterly if he's looking from above and views only a handful mourners at his funeral and none of them shedding a tear.

Biden has to keep breathing. The electorate doesn't want anymore drama. Biden can sit in the Oval Office attached to an oxygen tank and his approval rating with hover around 65%. He can be dead and win reelection. Biden's team of advisors delegate curing the Coronavirus, the economic woes and the civil strife to the best minds. It will be no different than hiring an electrician, a plumber and a gardener to restore one's home to normal. If the problems prove too big for the Democrats to solve, there's another election. Don't be surprised if the misfit Donald Jr. announces his ambitions and preens for the racists, rednecks, reactionaries and Religious Right bigots, but the Republican Party may have evolved from a white-only establishment into a separate-but-equal party since demographics aren't working in their favor.

No different than the futile lives we live punctuated by cheap thrills that don't come without their risks and repercussions, both the summer and the elections will come to a close and in a matter of weeks, if not days, we will have forgotten about the freak shows disguised as political campaigns. With Washington, Austin and Brownsville concentrating on their responsibilities to their constituents, we will regain our health, find new sources of income and treat each other with more kindness. Perhaps the Democratic Party can dedicate large swathes of wilderness so the Klansmen, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacist, militias and born-again Christians yearning for a crusade in order to unleash their murderous instincts can kill each other. It's an American tradition where the white cops surround a barrio or a ghetto and then give free reign to the local hoodlums to slaughter 20 or 30 of their own blood-thirsty element.

At The Murphy Report we look at the November 3rd results, get drunk and awake the next day with our energies directed to the future and not to the past. You would think by our impassive attitudes that the last six months had been little more than a one-night stand. The only exception to this scenario would be a Trump victory. Then the alcohol will flow unabatedly for the next four years, marijuana consumption will skyrocket and sedative prescriptions will quadruple, but the increased sales of the spirits, dope and pills might be the prescription for an economic recovery.

Notwithstanding the reality that awaits us, life's impetus never stops us from moving forward. In the near future there will be Thanksgiving, Christmas, cold weather and maybe Dallas Cowboy wins. We will forget politics for a while. Come May we will work ourselves into another frenzy over the municipal elections only to forget the drama the following day. Without being bound by reporting this entertainment that at best qualifies as a B movie, we might write something of substance, something worth reading or something for the ages. 

Most likely we won't do much that will prevent us from becoming a rapidly fading memory a month after our deaths. Our mates will start desiring someone else and after a bottle of wine will be fucking their brains out with no thoughts of us. Our children will curse the inconvenience of our departures. They can no longer count of us for money. But it's the same road we took in our youth and though the experience was hardly perfect, we experienced the same cycle. When all is said and done, we can at least boast that we had a little fun; we'll go to our graves knowing that the Dallas Cowboys deprived us of all-night celebrations as they fell well-short of our wild expectations.

What do you say? One more for the road?