Elizabeth Warren through Me

If I could choose a dream job this year it would be to work on Elizabeth Warren’s speech writing staff.  There is no politician left-of-center in this country who can match her ability to present concepts with both conveyed understanding and honest compassion.  Frankly, I feel it is likely there is no one, left, right, or center, who can match her, but then…I have a bias.

That said, no such dream job is coming my way.  However, I figured I could play my little role anyway.  I’d write her a short speech, maybe more than one, and post them to this blog.  

Right now she has chosen to expose early the unstable nature and character of the Republican Presidential Nominee and in doing so expose the Republican Party itself, as their candidate is of their creation.  I want to join in, even in this very small way.

"Elizabeth Warren" on Trump, May 2016

Broadcast May 17^th, Donald Trump ended his friendly Megan Kelly interview with these words; “…if I don’t win, I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy, and money”. Think about it. What is this man saying? You could not find a more shallow narrative, in this great land, for someone seeking its highest office.

Why do any of us do anything?  Sure we want prosperity, we want security, we want to raise our children to survive our lives, hopefully with joys that far surpass our own. We want to feel our labors have value. Conservative and liberal, black and white, rich and poor, or the middle class, we all set our goals and expectations. In this we have more in common than we have differences.

With these efforts, or even struggles, there are successes and failures.  Ya win some and ya lose some. Who’s not familiar with that? But who are the real losers?

The young single mother who strives to raise her children using whatever help available is not a loser, the banker who lost his deal on principal is not a loser, the news producer who suffered a loss in ratings by choosing to ignore untruths is not a loser, the student saddled with debt who struggles to find a career is not a loser. 

We are supremely blessed to live in a nation with almost incalculable success relative to the rest of the world and history.  We still fail and often, but the resilience by which we struggle and manage the many changes we face become our finest moments.  It is why I believe that America is greater today than whatever time it is that Donald Trump thinks he wants to take us back to.

Make America Great Again is really only a slogan fashioned for reality TV.

Trump may end up being one of our finest moments.  To the extent the voters of this Country rally behind all his opponents and also against those that support him at every level of Government we may be entering a new era of optimism and unification…a grinding end to a Cold Civil War.

Like most Americans, I am tired of systemic and heartless discrimination, tired of people convinced to be scared of anyone not like themselves, tired of the denial of science, and tired of feeling apprehensive with those who may not think just as I do.  This tiresome American is what Donald Trump would take us back to. It isn’t winning.

What Trump was saying in his final comment to Megan Kelly was if I don’t win, then screw you America, you weren’t worth it. I’d have done better using my time, energy, and money picking up a few more foreclosed properties.

Donald Trump, considering his current position as leader of the Republican Party and nominee for President, is the ultimate loser.  He's a loser because he has no concept of what winning is. In fact, his narrow, caustic, narcissistic personality will never…never allow him to actually win. He personifies the lowest, most hideous human characteristic short of sadism – insatiable self-interest.

The greater sadness, even danger is to those who are choosing to emulate what Trump represents.  Please pay attention and realize that all your efforts have meaning, as do the honest efforts of those you encounter. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing in life.

 

 

 

Reason for Hope

Hope and Change was the Obama theme in 2008. Had we been able to see the future it might have been more aptly stated as Triage and Resuscitate.

What he accomplished by leading the nation away from financial catastrophe, to winning the first critical step toward national healthcare, and applying respected rationality to international affairs will make him historically relevant and a source of pride for most Americans alive today.

But what about the hope and change goal he first declared by addressing the Democratic convention in 2004? Remember: “no blue states, no red states, just the United States of America”.

Perhaps his slogan in 2008 should have been Yes We Could (?) instead of Yes We Can. His major political failure of not leading the Democratic Party to be competitive in the 2010 off-season election, a census year, cost him any ability to turn back the divisiveness and inequality that pervades American society.  And so it goes.

So now we have Donald Trump, which newsmen, pundits, and polls are suggesting could, in fact, be the next President.  Trump, a creation of both the divisiveness and the lack of solutions to it, should be no surprise. But he is a surprise…and maybe that’s a good thing.

I still can’t get myself close to believing he could win in November. It would be just too surreal. Trump makes George W. Bush look like an articulate genius.  His ignorance is mind boggling, nearly Sara Palin quality.  I’m not saying he’s stupid like Palin. However going to a quality University isn’t very meaningful when you spend the next 46 years reading nothing more perceptive than a balance sheet or longer than a twitter feed.

Did anyone not see him struggle to read his proclamation to ban all Muslims from entering the country? The only line he was comfortable with was the inane end punctuation “…until we find out what the hell is goin’ on”.  Five dollars says that’s the only line he wrote.  

The real fear I have, as I have written previously, is that he doesn’t lose big.  Because of the uphill climb Hillary Clinton has to motivate voters, she might end up winning no differently than Obama did in 2012, an electoral victory with little down ballot changes. Without at least a Democratic super-majority in the Senate this nation will continue to tread water.

The Republican Party to the rescue!!! What me worry?

The insanity of Donald Trump has been obvious to Republicans for nearly a year and they haven’t been shy to admit it.  Then when reality TV suddenly became reality the Republican political establishment had a choice; support him or throw him under the bus. It was touch and go for a while, but thankfully they chose the former.

Republican politicians, almost without exception, have now actively or tacitly rallied around the Donald.  They think; well the polls don’t look too bad, we sure hate Hillary, he could turn Presidential.  It’s like they’re putting icing on a cow pie and saying it looks pretty good, might as well dig in.

What they’ve done by not throwing Trump under the bus is attached him to every single Republican running for office, from dog catcher to Governor to US Senator.  Every quote of Donald Trump’s will be their quote.  It’s quite possible that many Republicans will be caught between a rock and a hard place having to answer for every idiot statement he makes or Twitters, or for that matter every absurd and asinine comment he has already made.

The Democratic Party better take notice and soon.

I expect Hillary Clinton to be a great President, better than her husband, clearly the stronger personality between the two…more intelligent besides. The fact that she is a woman will impact the nation in even a more positive way than did Obama’s race. What I’m not expecting is her turning into a great campaigner, which she is not.

But who knows. Hope springs eternal.  Maybe the Donald will get a little help from Hillary in deconstructing the Republican Party.  I, for one, would like to see the GOP rebuilt, but without the Rush Limbaughs of the world eating away at its foundation, like so many self-absorbed termites.

Reality Check

We all experience moments when the present becomes inescapable, where we can’t imagine it away.  Such must be the awareness faced by the condemned once their execution becomes imminent or perhaps of a survivor in the desert as he drinks his last drops of water.  This is really happening, one might painfully acknowledge.

With his overwhelming win in Indiana, Donald Trump is now going to be one of two human beings to vie for the leadership of some 330 million Americans.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump?? Sure we all knew the possibility, we observed the show, but…Donald Trump….really??

For me it was like looking down at the bottom of a dry cup and feeling sand between my lips. This is really going to happen??  Yes, America…it really is.

Let me point out that even through my incredulity I had welcomed his candidacy.  I even voted for him in the Virginia Primary with the thought that a vote for the Donald would do more to undermine Conservative extremism than a vote for Hillary.  Hopefully, I was right. 

Still, I’m concerned as to why he has appealed to so many.  Could I be so wrong about this Country or the acumen of its citizens? Why can’t these individuals, including many in the news media, see what is so plainly obvious to me?

I find I am not worried about Trump becoming President, not at this point.  I am, however, worried that he won’t be defeated by historic percentages.  A reasonably close race that doesn’t result in a major turnover of legislators will be a victory for insanity, regardless of having the first woman in the White House. 

There is a desperate need for new perspectives on how Americans can and should relate to one another. If there wasn’t Donald Trump would not have gotten further than his hotel escalator.

What can I do? Well…here’s my vow:  I’m not going to cower when confronted with blind stupidity or lemming-like rhetoric.  The choice is going to be between Trump and Hillary, and I believe picking Hillary is as excellent as choosing Trump is nuts.

Hillary Clinton has been vilified by Conservatives, primarily white men, for two decades.  What Barack Obama has had to face for 8 years, she has experienced, at varying levels, for 22.  Like Obama, whose main fault for Conservative men was his race, Clinton’s primary drawback is her gender. It is a fear that the America of the “Greatest Generation” of white men is being replaced by people that don’t look like them. They find threats and conspiracies around every corner.

Radio talk show hosts and Republican politicians alike have found profit in using and encouraging this fear for their own benefit.  Not a single politician fits the Republican Party they have crafted better than Donald Trump. It is contemptuous that they should be surprised by his success.

Still, good people I know who cannot tolerate Trump will tell me that Hillary is dishonest. They don’t know why they think she is, but they do. They have unwittingly sipped the Kool-Aid. When pressed they’ll reference the slams du’jour, computer servers and Benghazi. 

Pointing out that her attempt to secure her own email was a common practice (used by Republican princes such as Colin Powell) or that neither she nor anyone else in the Obama Administration had any role in conspiring to create or cover up the Benghazi attack (as confirmed by endless investigations) only results in an abrupt end to the discussion.

I won’t be deterred.

I’ll admit that I am bias to the notion that having a female President is an important, historic milestone for this Country.  I’ll also admit that the 22 year role Hillary Clinton has played in national politics feels tiresome to me.  I don’t even like the name Hillary.

That said, she is the only one I can conceive of her gender who can move this Country away from the bigotry and wealth concentration that Trump represents.  She has the potential to do what Bernie can only talk about.

My opinion of Hillary was crystallized on October 22^nd of last year.  I started watching the Congressional Benghazi 3^rd degree of Hillary that morning.  I watched 3 hours of grilling into the early afternoon and, even though I was impressed with her abilities to take on the litany of absurd attacks, I’d had enough. Later, after an early dinner, I turned on the news to see how the event went and was blown away to find that it was still in progress. I turned C-Span back on and watch for another 3 hours till it ended.

She handled aggressive, combative congressmen with intelligence and poise.  She took for 11 hours what Trump couldn’t do for 30 minutes.   If she can run her campaign with the same firm resolve, absent of political doublespeak, hyperbole and emotion, then I think she will get her overwhelming victory, which will be a victory for us all.

Then perhaps we can sit back and watch her appoint Barack Obama to the Supreme Court.

Cut Donald Some Slack

Once again the established world is coming down hard on Trump because of the latest utterances being emitted from his unhinged jaw.  This time, however, the shrill tones being wailed come from opposite ends of the socio-political spectrum in, of all things, harmony.

Okay, everyone is aware that in a Chris Mathews interview the Donald said some kind of punishment should be meted out to pregnant woman who go through with an abortion.  

Any reasonable observer would also know that his response was 98% kneejerk.  Asked the question he paused and paused again, his cerebral search function downloading anything which would tell him the most evasive answer with the least consequence.

It settled on abortion bad, so the answer had to be punishment good.

As what has happened before with the Donald, and in all fairness to almost countless others running for public office, he quickly fired off a correction after being dummy slapped by his “team” leaders.  They poured a bucket of it was taken out of context, I didn’t really say it, I obviously meant doctors, I cherish all women on the fire.  Then he retired to the shadows to see if the whole adventure actually worked to his benefit.  Modus operandi.

The Pro-Choice folks of course stepped in immediately with their outrage. Considering it was Donald Trump they were attacking, their righteous anger sounded more like platitudes than the continuance of a serious debate.

But what was up with these Pro-Life, Right to Life, love of life anti-abortion action groups, including the remaining two Republican Presidential candidates?  They all hurled every nasty epithet they could at the Donald saying he doesn’t represent their position.  “This is not who we are” the groups tweeted, “…of course the mother should not be punished” said both Ted C and John K. 

Now, wait a minute.  Just how wrong was the Trumpster?

Since 1973 and the rise of the Conservative American Theocracy, the Pro-Life crowd has called abortion murder.  The lunatic fringe of that movement has gone so far as to try, convict, and carry out the executions of doctors who aggressively support Pro-Choice positions.  The movement makes no bones about restricting health services to women in pursuing their agenda (a punishment in itself), nor will it address the fact that their ultimate success only affects poor women or women of limited means, essentially a discriminatory penalty.

All criminal law is society’s attempt to externalize ethics for the greater good.  What is good and what isn’t is the constant struggle of our domestic politics and courts.

The entire Pro-Life effort is based on a moral imperative which ranks any successful abortion as a crime.  The hypocrisy of saying that, under a state law outlawing abortion, only the doctor would be violating the ethic and thus the law is painfully clear.  You can’t have it both ways.

The reality is that poor ol’ Donald unwittingly gave the Pro-Life position out loud.  I’m guessing he probably doesn’t give a flying fig one way or the other.

The irony is that the Pro-Life enthusiasts have no problem penalizing women before and during an abortion. They’re doing it in Conservative run states all over the Country today.  Why should anyone think that, given the power, they would have any problem penalizing a woman after an abortion?  If you do, Cruz is your man.

I’m beginning to think it’s no accident that Ted Cruz is the personification of Snydley Whiplash minus the mustache.  I just can’t get that image out of my head.

Trump's Manhood?

I have enjoyed the Cheshire cat position of favoring Trump because I assumed his candidacy would cause the dysfunctional Republican Party to implode.  No more. 

After the February 25th “debate” and the endless playground rhetoric culminating with last night’s March 3^rd fecal assault on this Nation and the World, I can no longer take it. All four of these men are repulsive, nauseating, vile, abhorrent, detestable, gut-wrenching….am I missing something?

Moreover, the sty in which these human swine have chosen to wallow is equally repugnant. That would include “conservative” media, notably Conservative talk radio, and that supportive portion of the Republican electorate which has more in common with David Duke and reality TV than any historical Republican laurels.

Although it might be reduced to the level of titter and twitter, the seminal moment in last night’s debate came early.  During the past week or so Marco Rubio, et al, had decided to have his campaign go Trump. I felt it wasn’t working because in doing so he appeared even less Presidential than he did before, were that possible.  I should have known better, although I believe I remained half-right.

Rubio’s team decided they needed to take the Donald down. However, intentional or not, they decided to employ kamikaze tactics.  If their goal was to goat Trump’s ego into self-destruction they may have succeeded, even if Marco’s candidacy went down in flames doing so.  All the normal insults weren’t working so they were trying hair color, facial makeup, cowardly incontinence, and (what the hell…might as well go all the way) penis size.

So there we have it. Trump could not resist, I guess no more than Rubio could. This time the messenger deserved to be shot, but Trump decided instead to defend his penis to the world. There was no problem (there), he said, “…I guarantee it”. I wish I knew Latin, because there’s got to be some ancient pithy quote out there that puts all this together.

So now we’re faced with should we believe him?  Forget about his tax returns, we need some objective verification on the size of Trump's manhood.  Polling amongst his numerous significant others (married or otherwise) might work.  Instead of bland numbers, the Republican electorate would probably prefer check-off boxes with pictures; cucumber, banana, jalapeño, or wine cork for example. Is he circumcised or not, and does that make a difference?  What about Marco and the other two contenders, how do they compare? There are just so many questions that need to be answered.

Well, I’m not going to wait for the answers to those critical questions, any more than I could lift my eyes to the TV last night as I heard what I heard. 

I long ago lost respect for the current Republican Party, its racially bias obsession with undermining the Obama Administration to the point of sacrificing any kind of national wellbeing.  The issue of health care alone strips that party of any credibility as representatives of the Nation as a whole. But now I have also lost any charitably opinion for those in the general electorate who are duped by these self-interested egos. 

The sports team mentality toward politics now governing the Republican Party and its supporters, which benefits only the team owners, deserves no consideration…at least not on my part. The Democrats had better get their act together because hope is no longer a word in the GOP lexicon, and with post-Obama Dems it’s on life-support.

We’re a Nation that desperately needs that little boy to step out of the crowd and point out that the Emperor has no clothes.  Someone of consequence has to convince an electorate that these Republican candidates are all stark naked, that their imaginary garbs will do nothing to improve the lives of the American people, and that the Party they represent has lost its grip on reality. However, it will do no good if in the revelation of that nudity the Republican electorate is only interested in the parts that are displayed.

Adjusting

When bowling a player may find his ball is drifting to one side or the other, often missing the headpin.  Logic might incline the bowler to compensate; if I’m rolling far left, I need to move my body to the right. However, professionals will argue that the player should move their stance toward the drift to adjust and correct.  Being counterintuitive will more likely brings success.

I somehow doubt Hillary Clinton bowls. However, I suspect that if she did her advisors might be telling her to move in the opposite direction of her previous bad deliveries. That seems to be her response to Bernie Sanders’ populous appeal.  If highlighting her differences with Bernie isn’t working then double down twice as hard.

As the presumptive favorite, Hillary’s has routinely been missing the headpin with each challenge she has faced in her attempts to generate enthusiasm for her quest to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.  Such failures may be given short shrift by her campaign due to continued confidence that when all the votes (primarily delegate votes) are counted she’ll prevailed.

The real danger is that her actions in this primary may adversely affect the outcome of the general election.  At the very least they might cripple her Presidency by crippling the success of Democrats in Senate, House, Governor, and state legislature contests.

The first and major misdirection has been her failure to understand the Bernie Sanders phenomenon.

This was beautifully illustrated by one of the last questions asked of her in the February 4^th debate on MSNBC.  She was asked if she would consider Bernie as her running mate should she get the nomination.  Her response was dismissive, again moving away.  She should have said: absolutely, I would place him near the top of any list of candidates I might consider. He is insightful, consistent with my values, and I hope he would remain one of my closest advisors. It would also need to be (and should be) the truth, or close to it.

Because of her trivializing response, she may, regretfully, not be asked this question again…a lost opportunity.

My son, a two tour Iraqi veteran, now a student, who has been for years particularly non-political, recently posted on Facebook that he had displayed his first bumper sticker ever: Feel the Bern. It is simply a current reality that Bernie’s supporters love him, and for some very good reasons.

Sanders has elevated a message of empowerment to a National level. He has become, for this election cycle, the rational counter-balance to the power brokers who use the Republican Party to control the less educated, irrational, or just plain stupid electorate with fear mongering. He has done it with the rhetoric so many hoped would come out of Obama’s mouth, but never did.

More than that, to younger and relatively educated voters, men and women, Bernie represents the antithesis of the curmudgeon grandfather who watches Fox News and says that anything governmental (other than the military) is bullshit.  Saunders is more like the Grandfather who works as a college professor and throughout his life has been consistent, perceptive, independent, and admired. He’s the one they not only look forward to eating Thanksgiving dinner with, but also the one they want to spend time with after the meal.

Could Sanders win the Presidency? Not likely against a moderate Republican who could, with half a billion dollars, turn him into a doddering old Communist in the pivotal states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida (where the entire election will be decided). Perhaps he could win against the lunacy of a Donald Trump, but even with Trump, Bernie might be just one terrorist attack away from handing the keys to the asylum over to the insane.

So how have Hillary and Bill Clinton responded to this heady yet emotional following for Sanders?  They have decided to use the old line political hack jobs that have been the political modus operandi for generations: attack the man. This is Hillary moving away from the strike zone and I would guess that she, her husband and advisors are currently trying to come up with anything they can to undermine Sanders’ candidacy, which will move her even further off the mark.

Hillary needs to legitimately become part of the Bernie Revolution, but add the construction that Sanders leaves out.  For example; instead of attacking him for suggesting a universal single-payer health care system, agree with him that a single payer system may in fact be the final step on the journey begun by Obamacare. She is the one to continue that journey by reintroducing the Public Option that the medical insurance industry (via the Republican Party) kept out of the Affordable Health Care Act.

With her considerable wins on Super Tuesday Clinton may calm her rhetoric (if she would just stop shouting it would help).  It is to her advantage if Sanders stays in the race, but only if she begins to feel the bern herself.  For Hillary to be an effective president she needs to do more than just win.  She needs to bring out an electorate which will put her in office, but also make changes down the ticket and force an evolution in the Republican Party.

Missing the Point

Bernie Sanders may have enjoyed Cervantes’ Don Quixote (Don Quijote de la Mancha) a little too much in his youth. Then perhaps he read or saw it more recently.  Either way, the Romantic view that he fashions himself as the leader of a “revolution” speaks more of windmills than of reality. 

That doesn’t discount the value of his opinions.  Bernie has garnered substantial support because he has addressed, with authenticity, systemic problems that our current divided government is incapable of addressing.

Nevertheless like most politicians, he presents these problems with little substance.  He’s heavy on the what and rather light on the how. A case in point is healthcare, which he doesn’t even address as an “issue” on his website.

I find that disappointing since Sanders is the only candidate with the courage enough to advocate a single payer system.  It’s disappointing because in the real world healthcare has no equal for stressful issues that impact our daily lives…our actual lives. 

People can stress over terrorist attacks, gun use, runaway germs, environmental deterioration, bad parents, puppy farms, you name it, but none of these actually impact the daily lives of the vast majority of Americans.  This is not to say that we should ignore issues that don’t affect us directly.  Were that the case, slavery might have lasted into the 20^th century.  But we should not ignore the obvious.

In the recent December Democratic debate Bernie was asked how he planned to pay for a single payer healthcare system. He was actually asked how much specifically in taxes would have to be raised to pay for it.  This was a how much more this month do you expect to be beating your wife kind of question.

He awkwardly (and timidly, in my opinion) attempted to point out that, essentially, every American is already paying a huge healthcare tax in the form of premiums and co-pays (my words), and the elimination of that would offset any tax increase.  He didn’t succeed.

Moreover, he failed to give even the slightest idea on how we get from here to there.  Democrats, in their desire to defend Obamacare, have added nothing significant to the debate on this issue.  The Republicans simply want to eliminate the law (which they invented) and let the chips fall where they may.  Not surprisingly, those chips would be like poker chips going to very few winners.

Saunders and other politicians often ask this question but don’t have the cohunes to give an answer: why do Americans pay multiples more (per capita) in healthcare costs than any other developed nation yet receive outcomes no better or inferior for the society as a whole? The American capitalist approach to healthcare, unique in the world, makes the difference and the reason it doesn’t work has to do with healthcare itself.

General healthcare is not a marketable commodity as Republicans would like you to think.  It is a service which is essentially inelastic, meaning that regardless how much the price goes up the demand for the service does not drop.  It is no more marketable than Police protection, Fire Departments, the Military, food safety, road repair or any one of many public services.

There is no free enterprise pressure to lower cost and no practical way to shop for services based on price. Controlling cost is the real issue and Obamacare doesn’t take us one step closer…but it could have.

Insurance based Universal Healthcare, as they have in Japan, is probably the type of system we could gravitate toward, given the passage of Obamacare.  However, Japan’s system has both central control of pricing and outlaws for-profit hospitals.  These are critical ingredients to controlling healthcare costs and a near impossible goal given the flora and fauna of American politics. Or is it?

In enacting the Affordable Health Care Act Obama caved on the most important aspect of the law, the public option.  He was willing to risk long term failure for short term success. It was a bad deal. It was like negotiating your right to bake bread by giving up the yeast.

The most cost-effective healthcare in the Country today is Medicare.  The public option would have essentially created a “Medicare” for American’s under 65.  It is likely it would have attracted a lot of support and combined with over-65 Medicare could have given the US Government the kind of leverage that is needed to control costs.

Given enough support we might be able to back door into a Japanese type of Universal Health Care, which ironically America created for the Japanese after WWII.

For those brain-dead Conservative Republicans who robotically respond that the Government is incapable of handling such power, I suggest they give a portrait of Lyndon Johnson the finger and turn down their Medicare benefits when they turn 65.

Bernie, Hillary and common sense Americans who know that Obamacare isn’t going away anytime soon need to start to address how to improve it and deal with its overriding fault…cost. It is by reinstating the “public option”. That is what Saunders should have responded with and should have done it with gusto.  Does he even get it?

Take a Deep Breath

Take a deep breath America, relax…it’s only Donald. 

What we’re seeing in the Republican Party this political season relates more closely to Reality TV than reality.  The massive attention “The Donald” has received from both news media and bias media (Right and Left) is no less bizarre than the affection he gleans from his supporters.

He has been called or accused of being a fascist, a tower of strength, a demigod, a racist, a patriot, a loser, a winner, a womanizer, a fighter, or a megalomaniac, among other things.  Take your choice. 

None of them are true.  I liked Martin O’Malley’s label of “carnival barker”. After all, what kind of colorful, fast talking trickster stands before a crowd trying to entice them into the Fun House.  Sounds like Trump to me.

In truth, what he says is meaningless, beyond the generation of endless rhetoric.  It’s what he does that defines who he is, and as of yet he has done nothing other than talk.  Moreover, there is nothing he can do and, likely, nothing he will do.

I’m not suggesting that rhetoric has no value, far from it, but a weather report is not the weather. When someone is forecasting a July snowstorm in Miami, it’s time to stick your head out the window.

Trump is not alone. All politicians, but the Republicans especially, campaign with the use of outrageous fantasies.  How many times have I heard Republican presidential candidates advocate the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service?  An $18 trillion Federal budget with no agency assigned to collect the money??  We’re going to run the Country on goodwill and the honor system??  Perhaps we could employ the Salvation Army bell ringers during their off season.

Deporting millions of people, building impenetrable walls, stopping immigration (even visitation), or tagging Americans by their personal beliefs are just as cockeyed and brain dead as any other political fantasy.

So can this carnival barker actually become President of the United States? After all, we did have Warren G. Harding, Chester A. Arthur, and (gulp) George W. Bush. Of course Trump won’t become President.  No prior President ever gestated in the world we know as Reality Television, and it’s not going to happen, all other things being equal.

It should be no mystery, however, why Donald attracts the starboard side of the good ship GOP.

Republican politicians primarily trade in the use of fear to harvest support.  They’re good at it and they readily get mass media to help. It doesn’t matter if it’s because of immigrants, minority crime, “leftists”, or even simply the “Government” (which they are trying so desperately to be part of) their followers are, by their opinion, deep in doo-doo…and it works.

When a Republican candidate expresses his dire concern about the cunning insertion of Shiria Law into our Judicial System, as most of them have, it should evoke universal belly clutching laughter…but it doesn’t. Hell, we can’t even get good law passed, let alone Shiria Law.

Instead of gun control laws let’s pass laws that take away the driver’s licenses from all women.  Yeah…that’ll be easy.  Regrettably, it doesn’t cause laughter even in those who know better. What it does, when said over and over, is to create uncertainty, the mother of fear.

So who are these “legions” that support Donald, Ted, Rubio, Ben, Jeb and the like? 

This week Bernie Sanders was asked that question.  He said emphatically that they were those individuals angry from the injustice and inequality of our (non-pluralistic) economy in which the power barons in Washington fight to maintain.  According to Bernie, Republicans like Trump give them a scapegoat by blaming the Muslims or Latinos, just as Hitler used the Jews to gain power in a very sick Germany.  Sounds good but, sorry Bernie, you couldn’t be more wrong, except for one thing…they are angry.

The diehard Trump supporter is white, Christian, and with reasonable income and assets by national standards. He or she is usually rural, older, suspicious of education generally, and adverse to change. What makes them angry?  Quite simple really: bias talk radio and television. 

Most all the things that make them angry and engender irrational fear are not really happening in their lives.  Without Rush Limbaugh, Carl Levin, Fox News and the like they probably could deal with, for example, a black President.  Does that make them stupid?  Not really. Still, when fear walks in one door, generally intelligence walks out the other.

The good part is that there are just not that many of them.  One well thought out estimate I read recently argued that if The Donald could hold onto every one of his current supporters in a general election he would garner less than 5% of the vote.  Breathe easy.

The United States is not the German Weimar Republic of 1934…not even remotely close. However, the similarities on the kinds of things that can cause fear in both cultures are notable. Add to that our 21^st Century ability for instant mass communication and you can see how relatively small events or incendiary rhetoric can have widespread impact. 

Donald Trump knows this and uses it to his advantage…but not to be President. 

The Donald is a business man, as he claims.  It is what he actually does.  He is currently merchandizing the “Trump” brand with hundreds of millions in free advertizing.  I believe he’s not interested in being President, probably not even the Republican nominee.  He might leave the Party as an excuse to exit the race, but he won’t run a third party campaign because he wouldn’t spend a dime of his money on a sure loss. He is not a man of principal…obviously.

Trump is a smart, rich narcissist and we’ll be seeing him in the news long after we start saying “Marco…ah, what’s his name?”  So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.  Reality starts again next fall.