We better elect a Democrat as president. I want the torture of thinking about the prospect of one of the Republicans winning to end. As disturbing as it is to contemplate while awake, this is the stuff of nightmares for liberals. I can handle it during waking hours, but if it ruins a good night’s sleep I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope.
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Speaking of torture -- Trump repeated this false narrative about General Pershing: during the time he commanded a garrison in the Philippines in 1911, supposedly had a group of Islamic terrorists executed by bullets dipped in pig blood. The story says that one was left alive to return to tell his compatriots what happened, and this assured that there were no further attacks for decades. This tale has been credibly debunked (see Snopes and Time Magazine) but Trump keeps using it.
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Of course, Trump would have the United States renege on the Geneva Conventions which forbids the execution of POWs. After all he wants us to kill family members of terrorists.
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From telling this story to cheering fans at his rally he went on to rant about how he’d do "much, much, more than waterboarding.” Not more than waterboarding, already deemed to be torture, not much more, but "much, much more." I wonder what forms of medieval or modern torture he has in mind. The hell with using torture to get a terrorist to reveal information, Trump wants to use it to inflict pain for pain's sake. If president, perhaps he’ll have a torture parlor constructed in the White House basement where he can observe (or worse). I wonder if he was a fan of the popular TV series “24” where Jack Bauer routinely used torture to get terrorists to reveal secrets. I should note, that while the Emmy Award winning show won critical acclaim, it also received heavy criticism for the justification of the misuse of government authority and the use of torture, which was always successful.
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Trump may be a deeper thinker than we want to admit, but he knows that his rally crowds aren’t. So he also brought onstage a group of people who claim that they had family members murdered by illegal immigrants. One of them told a story about how his son was shot dead blocks from home by an illegal immigrant in what was a gang initiation. Shades of Willie Horton! Of course, the blame for this murderer being on the streets was placed squarely on the head of Michael Dukakis. The blame for crimes committed by illegal immigrants are more nebulously placed on Democrats who want to make it easier for them to live in the United States. Trump doesn’t want to address the fact that the street murders in our cities are largely gang related, and he has no idea how many gang members are homicidal illegal immigrants.
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While the prospect of Senator Ted Cruz being nominated, let alone becoming president seems remote, I feel obligated to say something about him. While he doesn’t say much about the issues Trump does, at least not at the same hysterical volume, he manages to limp along as the only viable alternative to Trump for Republicans. John Boehner’s saying he’s “Lucifer in the flesh” may hurt more than anything said so far. Boehner, who as far as I can tell still has standing with the general GOP electorate, may wield more influence than he’s been given credit for. The statement is being replayed again and again to the point that low information Republicans who don’t even know who he is will assume he’s someone important.
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Ted Cruz probably doesn’t entertain thoughts about torture and execution the way Trump does, but when it comes to domestic policy he is most likely more extreme than Trump. Hey, thinking what goes on in Trump’s mind either frightens me or makes me queasy. I mean, thinking about his daughter, even as a baby, in a carnal way is beyond the pale.
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Of course, Cruz is a religious zealot who wants to impose his religious beliefs on the entire country. While not a cringe inducing misogynist, Cruz is anti-woman’s rights in a way Trump isn’t. I hate to say it, but Trump would be better for women’s rights than Cruz. Cruz cares about taking hard won women’s rights away. This isn’t even on Trump’s radar.
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As we plod along towards November I am relieved every time I see polls showing that neither Trump nor Cruz will beat Hillary or Bernie. It’s inevitable that on Daily Kos and elsewhere in the mainstream progressive blogosphere (Kos, HuffPo, Salon, Beast, Slate, Buzz, Politico, etc.) we have some balanced and rational, and some hyperbolic one-sided pieces. Some articles have click-inducing headlines like in Salon “A liberal case for Donald Trump: The lesser of two evils is not all that clear in 2016” about Trump vs. Hillary.” Lots of similar articles pit Hillary against Bernie.
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Exaggeration may be inevitable because some blog writers commit to making regular contributions. Rational exposition, often not easily reduced to a short enough essay to be read, is being left for the post-mortems conducted by historians where it’s okay to be boring. I’m just tired of the doomsday articles about Hillary. Both she and Bernie are highly qualified to be president. Both will keep us on a progressive track into the future. Hillary wouldn’t sell out to banks and corporations any more than Bernie would put a hammer and sickle on our flag.
Oregon Democratic Party primary mail-in ballot
I just received my Oregon mail-in ballot for the primary. Having lived in Massachusetts where I was in Barney Frank’s congressional district, I moved to equally progressive Portland. We have a bisexual female governor, legal physician assisted suicide, recreational pot, and (for what it’s worth) more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the United States. This is Bernie territory where he turned out 24,000 for his Portland rally, only beaten when he had rallies in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
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To make my vote count for something, like most Democrats I talk to here every morning over breakfast at our retirement community coffee shop, I’ll vote for Bernie to send a message to Hillary to remember that a big part of the Democratic electorate wants her to heed Bernie’s messages.