Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Devil Escapes from Hell, Set to Become Republican Nominee for President

The Republican presidential candidate who yesterday floated a story from the National Enquirer claiming that Ted Cruz's father was somehow involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination is now the obvious Republican nominee for president.

Wow.

So the Republicans are set to put up against the corporatist, corrupt, and dishonest Hillary Clinton a billionaire reality TV star who quotes tabloids to bolster his beliefs and boasts about the size of his junk on national TV.

Go Team!

How did this happen? There are several reasons:

1. Most Americans have had the practical equivalent of a lobotomy from getting our education in public schools;

2. No one took on Trump early enough. This is what happens when you self-professed conservative leaders out there stay silent in the face of evil (or, in this case, idiocy) hoping for the bad thing to go away. This is what conservatives do on a whole host of issues. They are doing it now on the gender absurdity that is now making the rounds. They're doing it on religious freedom. They do it, although less often, on life issues. The Republicans have a large and unvocal Surrender Caucus. If someone as devoid of intelligence as Trump can hang tough on what some of the preposterous positions he takes, why can't much smarter, supposedly conservative Republicans do it?

3. The leadership of the national Republican Party made Trump possible, and when he became possible, he became necessary. Pat Buchanan pointed out that, of the three greatest issues in the presidential race, Trump is right on two and wrong on one. He's right on the exportation of jobs overseas. He's right on the stupidity of an expansionist foreign policy. But he's a liberal (despite his more recent opportunistic proclamations) on social issues. The national Republican Party has, like much of modern conservatism, bought in to the Religion of the Free Market. It's one thing to believe in the Free Market; it's another to think that "free market principles" should dictate everything, and be adhered to even when it is clearly to our country's disadvantage to do so. The Republican establishment is also deep into the neoconservative foreign policy idea that, rather than a republic, the United States should be an empire, ready and willing to force democracy on the world. Hand it to Trump, he has completely turned the table on the establishment on economics and foreign policy, and he beat other candidates like Cruz because they are still wrong on the first two of these issues.

I agree with Trump on the economic and foreign policy issues and I'm still not going to vote for him. The Republican Establishment, however, ever opportunistic and unprincipled, is going to support him despite the fact that he violates their most deeply held beliefs. This is what politic prostitutes do.

Just watch, even Lindsey Graham, who has warned that Trump will destroy the Republican Party, will surrender his principles and report to the nearest Trump reservation.

Even now, the conservative faithful are being told that their only two options are Trump and Hillary.

I guess if my only choice was between the Son of Sam and the Devil himself, I'm supposed to go with the Son of Sam. But the fact is those are not my two options. There is a third: Don't vote for either.

The short term argument is correct: Hillary will get to pack the Supreme Court. But maybe that's the best thing. Maybe we should let the liberals have the Court so it can be seen by everyone for what it already was before Scalia's death: A rogue group of unelected judges who think they can rewrite the Constitution in accordance with their liberal political beliefs.

But no one it talking about the long-term consequences of Trump. If you thought George W. Bush destroyed the Republican brand, wait till you see what Trump does.

2 comments:

simplemusing said...

2/3 is pretty good. Maybe you're asking too much of the guy? Especially seeing as sticking right on social issues is pretty much a death sentence in this cultural climate. As you've pointed out previously, even the GOP realizes this. I'd actually go as far as to say Trump is right 3/4 of the time, and add his being anti-PC. As a college student I don't know if he can fix that problem (it's more deeply rooted than people realize), but it would sure send a signal.

Art said...

1. Donald Trump's strategy to treat the election like a TV ratings game seems to be working. The upcoming general election campaign would seem to hold lots of surprises, as Trump tries to come up with new ways to push his ratings higher. Reality TV shows survive by getting ever more bombastic, something Trump knows all too well. Keep the popcorn handy.

2. There will be two pro-choice candidates at the tops of the respective tickets. This suggests that, even amongst Republican voters, there is no patience for the fringe group that demands on telling everyone with whom they can have sex, and when.

3. A bit of good news for Martin, perhaps. Parallels have been made between Trump and Mussolini, another nationalist who promised to make his country great, to reclaim past glories. The Catholic Church collaborated with Fascists in Italy to create what was a Catholic theocracy. This is Martin's vision for the USA, and it may be that President Trump would cut a similar deal with Christian theocrats in this country.