1. It’s Wednesday, August 19, 2015.

2. It’s Bill Clinton’s birthday. It’s a real possibility that he’ll be a figure high in our consciousness for at least the next 14-1/2 months. That was quite a ride last time. 

3. It’s a little too early to get worried that Fabulous Donny Trump is in striking distance of Hillary Clinton, as a new CNN/ORC poll reports. I don’t doubt the poll. I just doubt that people are seriously thinking about how they’ll vote more than a year from now. It’s August 2015. These polls will be more to think about when it’s August 2016. 

4. That doesn’t mean that anyone who cherishes Western civilization shouldn’t be making sure that Fabulous Donny Trump’s message gets rejected resoundingly. Big time. I don’t want see this pond scum get even a moral victory, because there’s nothing moral about him.

That starts with making sure that voter registration begins now, and is thorough. That means that African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and women need to secure their voting privileges at the soonest possible moment. That means accelerating the fight against these godawful voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising people of humble means and circumstances.

If enough people who know how to walk and chew gum at the same time vote, there’s no way Trump or most of the other jokes being tossed up by the Republicans can win.

But if they don’t vote, that would be its own form of stupidity, turning the reins of the world’s greatest democracy to people who seem uninterested in preserving it.