We have to thank Donald Trump for a few things. That said, if I had to choose between voting for Donald Trump and tying myself to a train track I would opt for the latter. The idea that Donald Trump could be POTUS turns the blood in my veins into ice. For we the voters already had a love affair with a buffoon who knew nothing. But everyone thought they knew his parents. And the smirking frat boy seemed a nice enough guy with whom to have a beer and for whom to vote.
No one needs to be reminded that electing the clueless buffoon into office yielded an unmitigated disaster for our country. We will be paying for W.'s foreign policy and economic debacles for decades. Especially if we stupidly elect another Republican President who embraces trickle down economics. Which would be all of the establishment Republican Presidential candidates who are competing with Donald Trump for the Grand Prize to empty our federal treasury into the pockets of themselves and the 1%.
I am grateful to Donald Trump for a few things, though.
First of all he makes me laugh. I am originally from New York City and though I've lived in Houston for a long time I haven't forgotten the wise guy bluntness and saying the unsayable. So sometimes I turn on the TV to see what Donald Trump has to say because it will be likely so outrageous that it will make me laugh out loud. Others I know have a similar reaction. But sometimes the outrageous rings true.
Donald Trump indicted Jeb's brother for turning the Republican Party into one in which gave "us" Barack Obama. According to Trump, Abraham Lincoln himself could not get elected as a Republican today. This sounds somewhat extreme but it is true. Except, of course, for the part in which President Obama ran brilliant campaigns in 2008 and 2012 that did not include cheating, stealing, voter recount shut-downs, a Supreme Court decision, and voter disenfranchisement.
But Trump is right in one respect. The Republican Party has gone so far to the right that Ronald Reagan would be tarred, feathered and run out on a rail today. This might be a fact but the Presidential candidates waxed lyrical about St. Ronald the Great while standing on the debate stage in the Reagan library, in front of Reagan's Air Force One on Wednesday night.
Trump was wrong about the need for Rick Perry to take an IQ test. It is more relevant for Rick Perry to take a test on human compassion. Throwing millions of poor and sick Texans under the bus by refusing to accept federally expanded Medicaid was a pretty cruel thing to do.
The Wednesday night 2nd Republican Presidential debate was a true horror show in my view. I couldn't watch the entire event but I did hang in there for two hours and twenty minutes.
I don't think I ever heard so many unchecked blatant lies and stunning whoppers in one setting before. The moderator, CNN's Jake Tapper's goal obviously intended to stir the pot and incite conflict between the candidates. Fact checking blew by the wayside.
When I realized that facts didn't matter and the candidates could simply make stuff up and get away with it, my opinion of the debate changed.
This was not an honest exchange of ideas or policies. Nor was this about the future of our country and what we need to do to address essential challenges, such as climate change and income inequality. Nope. It was more like watching an episode of the Twilight Zone, a melange of science fiction, fantasy, horror and psychological thrillers. It lacked only the scary voices and music.
I did not see a cast of Republican Presidential hopefuls. But I did see an array of demagogues, carnival barkers, con artists and tricksters. I heard a lot about warmongering, fear, FEAR, and more FEAR, an invasion of immigrants, especially pregnant ones, 9/11 never happened according to Jeb as his brother kept us "safe," the evils of President Obama and Planned Parenthood and mind you, the killing of a live born fetus with a beating heart and kicking legs.
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!! Enough is enough!
I couldn't watch anymore.
When CNN and its moderator Jake Tapper ignored facts, substance and blatant lies, CNN turned the debate into Trump TV.
So we should be grateful to Donald Trump, I guess, for helping to rip off the mask of our mainstream media and its role in politics. CNN promoted a show that included conflict and drama. Facts and substance be damned.
The mainstream media also not so subtly shows a bias for the candidates it thinks should rank at the top. Within minutes after the debate the pundits and talking heads gushed about Carly Fiorina's performance. That's right. The candidate that made an outrageous and false statement about a born fetus with a beating heart that would be harvested for its brain. Facts be damned. The show must go on.
The fact of the matter is, establishment Republicans and their hopeless water carriers in the mainstream media are afraid of Donald Trump. All of them expect someone else to knock out Trump and slap him back into world of reality TV that does not include politics. But few among the coward class are willing to go there. All hope the super pacs and dark money groups will do the dirty work for them.
What else can one expect from a Party that worships money and power over everything else?
At a recent rally for a fake veterans group Donald Trump reminded his audience of how the TV business relies on ratings for relevance. Please join me under the orange croissant to learn why we should thank Donald Trump for crapping on the cable TV news industry.
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