What's Happening?

So, here we are.  When Trump announced his candidacy for president almost a year ago, I viewed it with mild interest, like one of those touristy places -- you know, the cabin with the tilted floor and the tour guide saying, "Isn't this amazing? Isn't it awesome?" And me, standing there rolling my eyes, checking my watch. "Yea. That's great," I mutter.

I thought DT was a buffoon, an egotistical, incoherent airhead.

I remember watching The Five that day and seeing Eric Bolling convulse in hysteria, while Dana Perino came close to swatting Bolling on his carefully-coiffed noggin.

PROGRESS UPDATE:  Bolling is still suffering from the vapours.

Now here it is, eleven months later. and guess who's winning. Yep, the egotistical, incoherent buffoon. I can sort of understand it, if I squeeze my eyes closed real hard. I get that people are pissed off. Shoot, I'm pissed off. Don't forget what brought us to this moment:  a guy who, for the past eight years, has told us the USA sucks. "We're better than that", he mouths every time something happens that is outside our control, or is simply a figment of his imagination. Today we're harassing Muslims. Yesterday we shot up a convenience store. I'm sick of being reprimanded for stuff I haven't done, or would never in my darkest nightmare even consider doing. Awful things happen, but those awful things aren't my doing. And, by the way, and I'm speaking to everybody who dribbles words in front of a TV camera, white privilege may be your sin, but I'm still waiting to witness some of that privilege in my own meager life.

So, yes, things are bad. Lousy. I've lived through some foul times, but these are among the stenchiest. Maybe, though, I'm old enough to understand that one doesn't trade a Ford Pinto for an AMC Pacer. Because they're both bound to blow up on you. I would love to be idealistic, like the Bernie boosters and the Donald delusives. Except I've stumbled through the real world long enough to know that promises are barren. One can say anything. I can say I'm going to bestow wings on my tiny Bichon Frise, toss her out my second story window and watch her fly. But boasts like that are dangerous, not only to my psyche but to my poor little Josie (who, believe me, I would never toss out a window). You can say you're going to do anything. Unfortunately, that doesn't make me believe you. In fact, your saying it makes me doubt you even more, especially since you've done absolutely nothing tangible to back it up.

In 2008 Barack Obama was the shaman. He was whatever anyone wanted him to be. I thought conservatives were too smart for all that. But here they are, conjuring a god out of a leprechaun.

I can't discard forty years of principle for a fraud. I would hate myself in the morning. I also can't break the chain of forty years of voting for president, because continuity has to mean something. Therefore, my little mind is turning over the idea of writing someone in. I've heard of people doing that in the past, but I thought they were just kooks. I guess now I'm the kook.

I've decided I've earned it.

Music of the Candidates -- Kasich Style!

I frankly don't know what to make of John Kasich.

The Ohio governor dithered around for far too long before deciding that yes, he in fact would like to run for president! And now he wants to whine that nobody is taking him seriously. Well, Johnny, that ship has pretty much sailed! Too bad you were delinquently slow on the trigger. You're thinking you're going to be a spoiler? Why? If we want a spoiler, we can come up with tens of names we'd pick to spoil before we'd ever get to yours! I have no doubt that you've done a good job in your home state, but frankly, you're kind of Hillary-lite -- no offense. And you're creepily happy. Do we really want a happy guy as president? A guy who thinks every heavy black cloud is just waiting for the sun to poke through? ISIS loves guys like you -- in fact, they'd like nothing more than to train their gun sites at your happy, goofy noggin.

Somebody somewhere, somebody way more clever than me, described you as a "groovy youth minister". Perfect.

To whit, I have developed your essential songlist. Please enjoy it while you're beating the stumps in Pennsylvania or...some other state in the vicinity of Pennsylvania, and crossing your fingers and perhaps your eyes in the delusional fantasy that the GOP delegates are going to pick you, after all, to carry the torch of the man you cite endlessly, Ronald Reagan. No doubt hoping that a little bit of The Gipper's DNA perhaps touched your sleeve once, and you are therefore be-gold knighted.

 Okay, granted, Kasich has so far garnered the best songs (give or take). But that's no excuse. No excuse for him staying in the race. I'll admit, Ted Cruz's songs are going to be a struggle for me, but man is not defined only by 1960's classics and seventies schlock.

And he's too damned happy. What does he have to be happy about? Buck up, man! And throw your delegates (such as they are) to Cruz! Lord knows, he needs every delegate tick he can get to beat...well, you know who.

And I'm not throwing in The Turtles, because Kasich's incessant happiness is making me queasy. 

Be grateful, though, John,  that I at least gave you some Summer of Love cred.

And now we return you to the hugging.

Owning It

I've heard Our Savior is slipping a bit. Lyin' Don has stepped in it a few too many times of late. Not that he hadn't stepped in it before, but heretofore some people thought he was, beneath the piggishness and bombast, intelligent. That mirror has begun to crack. They say politics is like the entertainment field; all personality. The difference is that politicians are expected to answer questions somewhat more difficult than "who are you wearing?". Who knows what those nasty, pen-wielding reporters are going to ask? (And they "could have a bomb inside that pen", you know.) Today they may ask about foreign affairs, tomorrow abortion. Who has time for all that deep thought? Drudge's latest poll has just been published! If one stops to consider DT's pronouncements, they boil down to, "Build The Wall! Deals! Make America Great Again! I'm Rich! It'll Be Huge!" People who support him, I guess, read more into these slogans than are actually there. We've seen it before: Obama Derangement Syndrome. Folks made Obama into whatever they wanted him to be. That's okay, but blind trust leads to results like...well, Obama. 

What baffles me is, people I used to regard as "smart" have hitched their wagons to The Don. Oh, there are some dumb ones, too, but I give the dumb ones more of a pass. They're gullible, they like fame, they enjoy coattail riding; pick whichever trait applies. This morning as I switched on Fox News for a brief moment, I caught Eric Bolling pointing his finger at the camera and proclaiming, "RNC, I'm watching you!" It gave me shivers...of derision. Eric, it seems, is convinced there is some conspiracy among the RNC poo-bahs to "change the rules" and deny his idol the nomination that is so rightfully his. This conspiracy nut is almost as deluded as someone waltzing around asserting that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. I would like Fox to develop a talk show featuring Eric, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, and Sean Hannity. Call it "The Five Idiots".  They could sit around a table and discuss how "neat" Donald Trump is. I'll be sure not to DVR it.

And now, as the winds of lucidity start to billow and wreath the primary voters, DT's invincibility is becoming...vincible. Was it his comment about the hundred-pound reporter with a pen bomb? Was it his, "yes...no...well, they edited the tape" abortion response? Maybe his "my wife is hotter than your wife" tweet? Perhaps his overall cluelessness?

 

 I once purchased a book by Laura Ingraham. A couple of years ago, I laid down money for one of  Ann Coulter's screeds. I once said, out loud, "Gingrich is really smart". No more. 

 

I watch The Five because I think Greg Gutfeld is intelligent and funny -- a ripe combination. Dana Perino knows her stuff; she studies. Shoot, even Juan Williams has grown on me. Kimberly Guilfoyle has one spiked heel dug into the world of politics, the other planted in the bee's nest of celebrity. I once found Eric Bolling to be a genial buffoon. Now he's just a buffoon.  Hannity? He's always been a cliche slinger, so no thanks.

Whether I buy another book by any of the aforementioned people or watch their broadcasts is a tiny teardrop in a bucket to them, but buckets eventually fill.

These folks bought it.

Now they have to own it.