Donald Trump is surging on the back of what may be the most dangerous juggernaut of hatred since the DixieCrat defection. However, instead of doing anything substantive, the Democratic National Committee apparently finds its adolescent GOP Bingo Game so clever that they have sent me no less than seven ridiculous emails giggling about it.
To the Democratic National Committee,
Are you people insane? STOP IT!
Do not email me again about playing GOP Bingo during the Republican debate. Are you TRYING to lose? This bingo thing is not only a waste of time and resources, it is an illustration to anyone on the other side and the middle that we are feckless and don't know how to take advantage of opportunity when it's offered us.
The next GOP debate is coming up soon, and we already have a pretty good idea of what the Republican candidates will say ... so we made a bingo game! Order your GOP Debate Watch Party Pack and you'll receive:
- Four (4) "I survived the GOP Debates" 16 oz plastic cups
- Four (4) "I survived the GOP Debates" lapel stickers (please only wear these if you do survive!)
- One 50-sheet bingo pad to play our official GOP Debate Bingo game with your friends
We should be taking every opportunity to make every Republican candidate own every single thing that Donald Trump says. Instead we're sitting in our own living rooms giggling about how funny they are. These people are not funny. They are unbelievably dangerous.
You're making jokes about playing a Bingo game about GOP ineptitude while Donald Trump, without ANY counter from us, legitimizes more and more every day, the vibrating hatred that lives in the hearts and minds of a certain constituency of sociopaths. People who absolutely WILL vote. Certainly there aren’t enough of them for he and the rest of the GOP to win. But…
It seems as if no one on the Democratic side has realized that beyond his constituency of "straight talk" viciousness, Donald Trump has already succeeded in creating a second, a third, and a fourth constituency. When added to the first, these define a path to actual victory. His is not a Fifty State or a Southern Strategy. It is cobbling together into a coalition everything horrible about our society as a unit loyal to him.
To build his second constituency, he needs to create a reality show out of the election. Done. The horrible things he has said are treated as funny TV and may as well have been lines from Housewives of Wherever, Big Brother, Survivor, or Apprentice and every other show with a "money and fame are good no matter how obtained” premise. These shows have been wildly successful. The nastier the better, and with no level of anti-human sentiment considered too much. People aren’t people. They are just contestants.
Trump is paving the way to collect the votes of literally millions of people who never vote and couldn’t find China on a map, but who DO know where every contestant originates on American Idol, the Apprentice, and The Voice. Their connection to and rapt attention to television is a long established cultural meme. Trump has identified a constituency of uncritical television reality addicts that no one else saw or really believed existed as a force. These are people who defend his inhuman comments now and would actually vote for him because “they’d kind’a like to see what would happen.” Or “hell, I wasn’t going to vote anyway. He can have my vote. Anyway, that woman Hillary doesn’t seem like any fun.” It’s all a game to them.
That incredibly stupid Bingo game of yours connects directly to and helps feed this infantile behavior.
The third group comes from parlaying the fiction that "we need a businessman because we need to manage ‘murica's money like a business." "He sure must know business, ‘cuz he’s got lots of money." “I wish I was rich like Trump.” "He doesn’t let anything get in HIS way." “Money, money, money… Nothing personal. It’s just business.” Done.
Corporations have the same rights as people. More. The effect of Citizens United has been worse than our greatest fears. A culture of slavish devotion to the rights of money, and people with it, has cropped up without any counter to it. As an experiment try watching virtually any news broadcast and pay close attention. Where are the discussions of how we can collectively better the human condition? Every story now devolves not to what is simply right to do, but to money. As an embedded component of each news broadcast and discussion there is a spreadsheet comment about how much money something will cost, how much someone sued for, who is WORTH more, how this 23 year old is “living large” in a $25 million dollar apartment. Brokerage commercials, how much for retirement, all the “good payin’ jobs Keystone XL will add to the economy, how many billions political advertising will inject this year, will the new Star Wars beat Avatar at the box office? All of this is everything that Donald Trump is. “Mar-a-lago. Gold everywhere. The best.”
Trump's fourth constituency is ruling class, hard core Republicans. The US electorate is changing rapidly, demographically. Whether the Kochs like Trump or not, they know that they cannot afford to lose major elections lest the cultural view of the electorate change so significantly that they are never in power again. This needs to be a Democratic clarion call for massive vigilance and action right now.
If Republicans manage to use their state house, and congressional control to gerrymander, race bait, gay bait, immigrant bait, welfare bait, healthcare block, Benghazi bait, tax cut bait, climate change block, school prayer bait, gun reform block, dark money inject, black on black crime obfuscate, Planned Parenthood defund, email bait, their way to a close enough election that they can steal it again, these Confederates will then do anything necessary to change the laws of this country forever to ensure that they stay in power because they didn’t amass all of that money to let the electorate determine their fate. If they lose this election there won't be enough people like them to vote their staffs into positions of societal control unless they change things structurally. They plan to change things structurally. They did it in the South after Reconstruction. They are certainly capable of going for it again. What part of them “fixing” the Fourteenth Amendment does not lead to a family of five black people finding out that the next census now only recognizes three? Just for voting purposes.
We need to stop snickering like a bunch of cliquish middle school children and do something substantive. No? Still want to act like children? Okay, then do something useful like insisting that all of your friends who don't normally vote because they're just not into it are into it this election. Strapped into your car on the way to the polls and registered before election day. Tell them that they're coming with you to vote, or at the close of polls on election day you are actually going to end your relationship with them, unfriend them. Speak to them in a language that they understand. Make it clear that you mean it. Appeal to their superior intelligence. They need to counter the vote of some moron voting for Trump because “he fired that bitch.” (This may be the one time that it is completely safe to identify an entire group of people as stupid. Would anyone seriously publicly identify as supporting Trump because he's on television? It is doubtful that anyone will hear, "I am just such an idiot as you have outlined. I am indeed stupid and you have offended me, sir!" On second thought, don't do this. Trump will just turn it into a game and people will show up with "I am an idiot" banners.)
If Progressives don't win this election, there is every indication that it may truly be the end of the American experiment. Trump may truly have found a way to win. This isn’t "watch the funnyman” time. Not enough people are laughing. They are becoming followers. No, it is "look at this psychopath who wants to destroy everything that we are as a people" time. What is even worse, is that virtually every other GOP candidate is falling over themselves to get some of Trump's supporters or positioning as running mates – by agreeing with Trump. The ones who don’t agree are sinking like stones. Combined with repeated shut downs of the government and total obstruction of the President of the United States' ability to govern the country for TWO Democratic administrations, all indications are that reasonableness has completely fled the Republican party.
Consider this a battle for the existence of our country. If that’s not enough, consider this a battle for the continued existence of a lot of people you don’t want hurt.
There is no balanced side of Donald Trump to present, yet his disgusting statements vomit forth while even liberal media pundits give him a pass. Saying that he has “tapped into anger” is just dumb. He has no inclination to hide his intent as he recites the exact narrative of how he uses his money to control people. He will have no compunction against exerting exactly the same control over people who refuse to vote in their own best interests. The fact of his telling the truth about who he is, is insufficient basis to consider him a breath of fresh air. Because someone truthfully tells you that they despise you and plan to kill you along with everything you love should not elicit for them some kind of insane “slow clap” of admiration for their honesty.
Making tepid fun of Donald Trump’s hair is not a successful countering strategy. Putting people from Trump's own reality show on your television show to talk about why they support Donald Trump is beyond stupid. Unfathomably gushing for long minutes about how Donald Trump was gracious enough to come shake your hand, shouldn't be added to help him appeal to reasonable people.
We have running for president, and leading in the polls, a person who came from money, ruthlessly exploits the laws of the country to get more, sues anyone who criticizes him, and is unashamed to collect supporters attracted to the absolute worst possible aspects of humanity. He is the grotesque embodiment of the concept that exploiting everyone else’s resources and the lives of people is wonderful, because doing anything to get money is just good. Nothing but money. Not only is this the last thing our country needs, it is the last thing that life itself can afford.
He is being embraced with open arms. What does that suggest about how serious is this danger?
GOP Bingo is not funny. Stop it.