Friday, May 27, 2016

Congratulations Donald Trump!


Congratulations, Donald! My hat's off to you. I'm not exactly sure how you did it, but you actually ended up the Republican presidential nominee. You accomplished what I and just about every other pundit except the loathsome Ann Coulter repeatedly predicted was the impossible. Though I disagree with virtually everything that's come out of your blabbering, bullying, sexist, racist mouth, I have to give credit where credit is due. You made history. You changed politics as we know it. You did it your way, all the way. Now we just have to pray to the gods of politics that you never get elected.

I admit, you made me look foolish. I predicted you'd drop out early. I predicted Jeb Bush would win. I said Republicans would never elect such an ignorant, polarizing, rabble-rousing empty-suit like you. I believed at some point you'd say something too offensive, go one step too far, be caught in such an obvious lie, that your circus-like campaign would come crashing down like a house of cards. What I didn't expect was that 45% of Republican voters would gleefully embrace your incendiary rhetoric. Your bigotry. Your shameful defiling of the office of the President. I gave them way more credit than they clearly deserved. My bad.

You're the first person since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 to win the nomination without a day of political experience. You raised and spent almost no money. You offered no substantive policy proposals. You pissed off virtually every ethnic group. Mocked people with disabilities. Disparaged countless women, calling them "bimbos," "fat pigs" and "ugly." Engaged in name-calling like a 12-year-old. Cursed like a 1970's Times Square pimp. Called for violence at your rallies. Refused to release your tax returns.  You lied more than Pinocchio. You've essentially told the heads of your party, including RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and House Speaker Paul Ryan, to f**k off. In short, if there was a "Things Never to Do or Say If You're Running for President" instruction manual, you'd have violated every commandment. You've defied the odds like no other phenomenon in the history of phenomenons.

The conventional wisdom is that once a candidate wins the nomination he or she will move to the center to win over moderates and independents. But "conventional wisdom" are two words we've all learned not to use in the same sentence as "Trump." As such, judging by your juvenile behavior over the past couple of weeks, you clearly have no intent to lower the temperature, tone down the rhetoric and unite the party.

To be sure, now that you're in the infancy stages of a general election battle with the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, you show no signs whatsoever of slowing down. You're continuing to tear up the presidential campaign playbook and do it your way. Afraid of nothing. Of no one. As mean, nasty and belittling as ever. Maybe even more so because you're empowered like never before. Because your rapacious id has been feasting for a year now on monumental adulation and attention. Talk about enabling.

And so, incredulously and perhaps a tad arrogantly, including from this writer as well, the predictions will start up again."Trump can't win in November!" "The general electorate is much smarter than Republican primary voters!" It's gonna be Hillary in a landslide!" Except this time they'll be made not out of confidence and assuredness, but from an overpowering sense of frustration, panic and fear.

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