Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Trump: Make America Grope Again

 

My head is going to pop off like a dandelion’s if I hear one more fresh-faced newscaster wax philosophic on how Donald Trump represents a true break from the political rules of old. True, Donald sealed his fate with last week’s hot mic, but the scandal, however salacious, is hardly new.

I know Twitter limits you to 140 character per missive, but come on; just a little institutional memory, pretty please.

God knows I’m no historian. But I can at least (vaguely) remember events in my life. Your own life span should be grounds for a hint of historical context. And there is much to contextualize here, just as there was a half century ago.

In the year of my conception, 1964, another Donald Trump threatened to wreck not only the GOP, but the republic itself: Barry Goldwater. goldwater

Consider Barry Morris Goldwater Trump beta: also a Republican, a businessman, rich and nasty as hell. Like Trump, he despised what America had become. Namely, less white. He would earn his fame by filibustering and voting against the Voting Rights Act — and taking a shellacking in the presidential race by a guy who wasn’t even sure he wanted the job. lyndon

As Trump will in a month.

This will likely come naturally, as the Donald and his ilk choke on his own vitriolic bile. But just in case, all historians and the Clinton campaign need do is look at the Democratic advertising strategy of Lyndon Johnson. Like Clinton, he was ahead in the polls.

But there is an important stratagem here in Johnson for Clinton: Don’t take your foot off an opponent’s neck.  Johnson, for instance, was worried of an 11th hour rally and, not wanting to risk a GOP resurrection, sprang an attack campaign that created the modern template of American politics.

Johnson approved “Daisy Girl,” one of the most terrifying and effective political ads in political history. Sure, it was alarmist, sensational, and had no real basis in fact.

But at least it kept a nut from learning the nuclear ATM passcode.

Clinton would be well-served to follow Johnson’s lead. While her lead in polls (if they can be trusted; who under 40 even uses a home phone?), now is the time to break into the Secretariat Stretch, finishing off the Republican Party as it lurches in Tea Party/Trumpian death throes spasms.

Maybe she could even find this guy, if he’s not dead from cancer. The parallels are frightening. He even kind of looks like Trump, if a world away in logic. But it would be a kick to Trump’s slats, which is apparently the only place Donald can feel.

No one enjoys negative ads.

But it’s a lot better than negative nuts.

Oh the Bigly Humanity

 

So rare, when sensation meets realization.

How often do we hype up, only to be let down? Titanics sink. Hindenburgs blaze.  Y2Ks fizzle. Super Bowls are rarely super. And you just know the new Star Wars is gonna suck.

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But somewhere, a pig is flying over its pasture. Somewhere, Satan is getting pelted with snowballs. For I have seen far more miraculous.

I applauded Ted Cruz.

Sure, he’s still crazy as a spotted loon. And there’s a residential suite waiting for him in hell for holding gun rallies at the site of school massacres (where he often eats bacon heated only by the hot muzzle of a freshly-fired AR-15).

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Still, there was something gratifying about Cruz’s turning on Donald Trump. Like when a pit bull mauls its dogfighting owner.

Add to that the plagiarism scandal of Trump’s 11th wife, the Hitleresque anger over party dissent and an acceptance speech that Vito Corleone would have envied (Trump may as well have said “Nice country you got here. Shame if something should happen to it…” It was a reality show that lived up to its publicity, if not its promises.

Admit it: Didn’t you expect Chris Christie to burst in anger like a suicide bomber humpback whale when he learned he’d been passed over for vice president in favor of a human cue tip?

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None of the carnival acts, however, broached Cruz’s speech, in which he urged — to a thundering chorus of boos — that Republicans vote their consciences in the next  election. Think about that contempt for thoughtfulness for five seconds.

Because the media did not. In our desperate search for something to filibuster 24 hours a day, we blathered over how Cruz had betrayed his party. How he doomed himself for Senate re-election. And we had truckloads of b-roll footage of Trump’s assault on Cruz’s wife and father that we couldn’t wait to rerun.

But ponder the unthinkable: that Cruz may have made the canniest maneuver of his political career.

Consider: When he knew he wasn’t going to win the Republican nomination, what did Cruz have to lose? He is positioned perfectly for a third-party presidential run.  And while a third party won’t win the presidency this year, it could derail one. Cruz remains an icon of the religious right, which has hardly been converted by Trump. Even the Pope took a dig at Donald, suggesting he tone down the homophobia (when devout Christians tell you to take it easy on the LGBT community, you know you overreached). pope

And to the fellow reporters predicting doom for Cruz’s political career, remember: We said the same thing about politicians who voted against invading Iraq.

Trump may have won the Michigan primary, but he apparently didn’t learn Detroit’s rule of thumb: Never talk about someone’s mother. You’re likely to get the shit beaten out of you. Or, at the very least, a snap-back.

And Cruz seemed hellbent on delivering one to Trump: “Yo mama, yo daddy, and yo slappy happy grandpappy.”

And the Rockets Red Glare

 

Another Sunday Mass.

This time, a gay Florida nightclub, where 50 people were shot to death and another 50 wounded (by conservative estimate) today.

There’s no reason to expect this shooting to unfold any differently than, say, the Sunday Mass in Charleston.

The sane will say this needs to stop. The confederacy of dunces shall take up arms. And it will dissipate into name-calling in the Twitterverse like so many roman candles on a July 4 eve.

But one day, shootings like this will ricochet back into the TNT bin. It has to, simply by the law of averages.

Because, unlike a Baptist church or elementary school, the Florida shooting puts the right to bear arms in the crosshairs of the right to build walls.

After all, deporting American Muslims is suddenly a presidential issue, yes Mr. Trump? I’m assuming deportations must be preceded by the disarming of Americans, as the Second Amendment makes no mention of race.

Those fears are about to share a dance card.

In the meantime, where’s the Bernie Sanders-like enthusiasm for liberal intervention? Not even a unified call to get a national learner’s permit, like a car? Maybe that doesn’t reach the right demographic.

But one day, shootings like this will. Two centuries of U.S. democracy suggest that. From women’s rights to civil rights to the gay rights literally under fire about 2 a.m. today, the branches of justice eventually, inexorably, lean left.

It’s simply a matter of time before they provide ample cover.