I’ll open with a potentially dangerous admission. … I voted for George W. Bush. Twice. I also voted for Barack Obama twice. In both cases, my thinking was they were the right men for their times.

Both of these decent, moral, inclusive men were forced to process disasters not of their own making. Did either of them do everything right? I’ll suggest not. But both of them led with conviction, and heart,and with the interests of all Americans in mind.

The current occupant of the White House is also being forced to process a disaster not of his own making. But his character – antithetical to that of the fine men who preceded him – is unsuited for the job of bringing Americans together to subdue our enemies within.

Instead, the United States of America leads the world in pandemic deaths, while the occupant continues to sow discontent and disunity,purely as diversions from his lies and failures. Like a three-card monte player, he is still getting the far-too-many suckers among us to look the wrong way,while he steals money, lives, and futures.

“But look at the stock markets,” some might say. “Look at the economy!” they might exclaim, parroting the words out of the Oval Office.

Stock markets are not the economy. Far from it.

Stock markets are now mostly a game played, and manipulated, by the very wealthy, who make small fortunes every time they drive it up or down.

Barely more than half of Americans are vested in stock markets at all, and almost 85 percent of their value is concentrated in the hands of the top 10 percent of us. (Yes, including me, probably somewhere near the bottom of that 10 percent.)

For everyone, though – even those in the top 10 percent – the economy is something other than the stock markets.

The economy is our jobs; our local grocery and corner stores, bars, restaurants, barbershops,hair salons, fitness centers, doctors, dentists, hospitals and care facilities; our local theaters, favorite performers and sports teams; hotels and meeting places;vacation destinations and the means to get to them;the myriad small business we depend on to get through everyday life; and our day care centers, schools and colleges.

So the challenge actually is the economy. How is yours doing? Really. No worries? Are you partying like it’s 2019?

If not, perhaps your vote on November 3rd should be for someone who will also make mistakes, as all presidents do, but will make them while genuinely caring about the well-being of us all, not just himself.

Casey Holt, a writer and the managing partner of Ideabenders, an advertising/marketing firm with offices in Nashua and Prague, has lived in several locations around Nashua, since 1968.