In 2016 American voters have been witness not only to the ugly presentations and personal invective from the absolute worst presidential candidate in modern US history. We have also seen the spectacle of the Republican Party, one of our two major political bastions for the past 2+ centuries, overtaken and dominated by a fringe element that has been percolating for the past two decades right in front of us. And in GOP presidential nominee and entitled bullyboy Donald Trump, we have amazingly seen the personification of everything the present-day conservative movement in our nation has actually stood for over the past 20 years, only writ very, very large. The national Republican Party has had the “Trump Look” for years. He has simply magnified it past all recognition and sanity.
Nobody in their right mind on either side of the aisle could have envisioned the turmoil, white-hot (pun intended) anger, as well as sheer lunacy that Donald Trump has foisted on us over the past year. America’s voters could have ideological differences and disagreements with recent/past Oval Office candidates ranging from Mitt Romney, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George W. Bush (obviously) on any number of issues, without having their basic “Americanness” being in question. There was always a level of decorum, intelligence quotient and competence present…we could all disagree with each other without calling into question our own decency, current-events’ acumen, and even rationality.
In 2016, those days are gone. Donald Trump’s ascension to Republican nominee flies in the face of everything America has and should stand for. Open and vulgar racism; near-total lack of knowledge concerning even basic national and international issues; serial lying almost every time he opens his mouth (33 falsehoods uttered during the second debate to Hillary Clinton’s 3, all of hers’ attempting to defend her husband from Trump’s irrelevant attacks); espousing totally opposite opinions in the same spoken paragraphs on scores of issues from national security to birth control depending on what day it is and what ether his mind is floating through at that moment. Any reasoning person following this crazy election year should know by now how surreal this unending nightmare slog to November 8th has been.
Donald Trump is the enemy of all our daughters, wives and girlfriends, and undoubtedly has nothing but contempt for even the American women who are still going to vote for him, except for the ones he deems “hot” enough to interest him. His degrading comments and unwanted physical actions with various females and their angry response has been recorded in full, but a point that seems to have been missed is that his foolish excuse of it being “locker room talk” and that these trash conversations are routine with men is an insult to every decent male in America. No Donald, we DON’T spend our time talking about all the sex we’re having with our wives and girlfriends. Nor do we dwell lasciviously on descriptions of our daughters’ bodies. Not just because you do.
Trump is the scourge of every single minority demographic in America, African-American, Hispanic and Muslim, home-borne or not, save for the gay population. He leveled some of his most acerbic and notorious kiddie-insults and nicknames against Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and his other Republican primary competitors as his adoring fans guffawed along with him, dividing his own political party in the process. And Trump is the last president that our allies have ANY desire to have to deal with in either friendly or contentious issues, a schoolyard bully/loose cannon who has no business discussing issues of import, domestic or external, with any of the world’s real leaders.
Donald Trump is an exaggeration, not an aberration. So don’t be fooled by all the phony hand wringing being done currently by all those caught-in-the-spotlight “disaffected” Republicans. Many of them from Paul Ryan to Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell to Marco Rubio have already announced that they will support Trump on Election Day despite their absolute knowledge of what a destructive candidate he is. Most of the rest will without question be swinging back to his side over the next week and will pull the lever for him, forgetting all the insults to both themselves and their other conservative partners, along with the rampant ignorance and ever-present hate displayed every time he opens his mouth, no matter the topic. Viewers finally lost count of all the times he called the Obama administration “stupid” during the (thankfully) final debate. And this proves unquestionably what most of us have known for years that the national GOP cares not a whit for America’s well-being as long as “their boy” gets in, no matter the dire consequences that will explode across the United States and the world if he does.
And lazy Democrats, a group that NEVER votes with the numbers and fervor of their GOP counterparts had better lose the big heads they’ve acquired recently with all the rosy BS emanating from the Daily Cos and other liberal paper-and-online magazines. The only poll that counts is the one on November 8th, and voters who realize the potential disaster we’re all sweating out until then had better get their Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein or Gary Johnson votes ready. Or better yet, vote early if you can.
Furthermore, if you asked all those Trump supporters 12 months ago what they thought of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the smart money says that the replies would’ve verged on unprintable. Now, however, they lionize the man, as more and more knowledge comes out that through the Wikileaks dissemination of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails, he is working behind the scenes in an attempt to influence the election Trump’s way. The bad news for all the Trumpophiles is that there is nothing incriminating on Podesta’s emails, just the usual behind-the-scenes maneuvering routine in political operations Republican and Democratic: what candidates would work best for vice president, disagreements with seemingly-friendly constituents, tough business talk about various political enemies, etc. But as we all know, if the emails contained Clinton’s grocery list Trump’s flock would still be gnashing their teeth and screaming about her “unfitness for office” (along with their continuing and sickening howls to physically harm or jail her at all his Roman Colosseum-level rallies).
And Trump continues to stonewall all attempts to release his tax returns over the past couple decades (imagine the hue-and-cry if Clinton hadn’t released hers), laughably claiming that his failure to pay ANY taxes over that period was perfectly legal due to the 1995 largest ($916 million) of his SIX taxpayer-bailout bankruptcies. If all his tax machinations financing Trump “University”, his Atlantic City casinos, Trump Shuttle et al were “perfectly legal” he would’ve released them months ago, and anyone with a brain knows it. Trump in short was a great salesman but a lousy businessman.
There are certainly one or two legitimate attacks against Hillary Clinton one can cull from her near-40 years in the national spotlight, but none of them rises even close to the level of incompetence and evil that Trump represents, and certainly don’t equal the rape culture and xenophobia for every demographic except for the angry white male that he espouses. And his latest rabble-rousing canard is his lying claim that the upcoming election is somehow “rigged” in Clinton’s favor, while offering exactly zero proof for his whining allegation. Leaving Trump sycophants Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich out of the equation, even the most conservative Republicans in government are refuting this one.
Perhaps Trump’s simply setting himself up for a bunch of lawsuits against the federal government if he loses. But judging from both his thinly-veiled comments urging his masses to appoint themselves enforcement officials and congregate at voting places, monitoring closely for any “clandestine
activities”, as well as the many recent violence-promising quotes from his white male fans across America, it looks more and more like there’ll be plenty of potentially-tragic displays we can all look forward to on November 8th. He’s obviously using this tactic to target and frighten away minority voters as they attempt to practice their Constitution-given right. So there’ll probably be lots of available overtime pay for all the extra police security that will be necessary due to his latest incendiary posturing, this being maybe the only real example of job creation that Trump has been able to come up with in his specifics-starved campaign.
And his anarchic admission in the last debate that he won’t necessarily accept the will of the people on November 8th, and will “keep us in suspense” until then as to his intentions, only buttresses that fear. As does his declaration in an Ohio speech the next day that he will only accept the election’s outcome “If I Win!”
This is the awful imitation of America that the Trump supporters want. It’s up to the rest of us to stop him. He will take the United States on a straight trajectory to hell if he’s elected, a hell that would make the eight disastrous Bush/Cheney years last decade seem like a smooth cakewalk by comparison.
