Today is “Super Tuesday”. The sun may set on a nation where Trump has destroyed all R’s that oppose him. For his next trick he’ll point his laser augmented sword of demagoguery at the party of D and start removing heads. The D’s defender will be the mainstream press (what’s left of it after spending most of the last decade propping up their current lord and saviour) and the D’s candidate. The candidate will be either a Socialist nitwit or an ex-president’s harridan wife with a penchant for crime. Good luck with that. Maybe the press will emerge from their gimp box and save the party of D one last time. Maybe not. It’ll be as ugly as it is entertaining and most importantly it’ll be visited upon those for whom a good solid hammering is long overdue.
Back to Trump. WTF? Nope… no WTF… the guy’s arrival is logical in it’s own way. Obama paved the way. A magic mirror that reflected to his supporters anything they wanted to see. Trump was watching and learned and now he’s giving it a good shot and the Nation seems ready for a freakshow. In fact both parties, by their failures, made a freak necessary. If it wasn’t Trump it would’ve been some other freak. Ron Paul, Oprah, who knows… but it was going to be someone the establishment loathed.
It didn’t have to be that way. Had Obama and Bush before him, the party of R, the party of D… if anyone at all had led like reasoned adults Trump wouldn’t have happened. It’s boring to follow the Constitution and act with deference and avoid doing stupid shit but the nation needed boring and it has realized it’ll never get boring until it plays a game with the parties I like to call “scorched earth”. Regardless, a new form of both parties is now inevitable because nobody is putting the freak back in the box once he’s been let loose.
It comes down to both parties abdicating their role as reasoned representatives of the people in a constitutional republic. Remember those big words from when you slept through high school? Well they mattered. In response to both the parties’ failure the Nation created the current form of Gozer.
I touched on the concept in 2013:
“Sequestration implies that we cannot make wise decisions about debt so we must make unwise decisions about debt.”
So are we doomed? Not particularly…. or rather we’ve been doomed a long time. Trump’s peculiar form of shambling stupidity not even remotely as dangerous as other things we’ve been long enduring. A bipartisan instigated debt of $18,000,000,000,000.00 can rock the firmament. Trump pissing off Mexico is a side show. Obama’s (and Bush’s) long slow crumbing of the rule of law is similarly bigger than a New Yorker with questionable hair. I could go on but you get the point.
The universe itself conspired to upset the applecart because the establishment’s status quo is unsustainable. There’s a phrase that explains Trump; “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
So buckle in and enjoy the ride. It’s going to get ugly but remember that ugly is better than a straight jacket.
Also for your viewing pleasure I’ve gathered to alternative versions of Trump:
First, from everyone’s favorite prophesy, I present a man who needs no introduction, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho!
Now pay attention here because this guy, in addition to being satirical (and a second amendment supporter), was a better president than we’ve had in a long time. His people were suffering and so the “nutcase” found a smart guy (with a peanut head) told him to solve it, and then got the hell out of the way. This president, unlike the losers we’ve been electing preferred solving problems to creating them! Seen DC solve a problem lately? Go ahead, name a real life political problem from the last 15 years or so and tell me that it’s been solved by DC. Heck, our current establishment says they’re awesome so surely they can name a few really resounding successes. I’m waiting. In the meantime I’ll read a press report that says “plants crave it” and DC will go back to freebasing debt.
Second I’ll turn to a different prophesy; Harrison Bergeron. It’s a short story from Welcome To The Monkey House, a nice simple little movie that seems to have been shoved down the memory hole (I can’t find any video clips or photos of President McCloskey), and a disappointing shorthand remade video abomination. In the story the President is selected by random lot from the totally equalized people of an affirmative action wet dream / dystopic future America. McCloskey (like all presidents) has foreign affairs challenges. Unlike our current Nobel Prize winner he seemed more eager to solve problems than create more. Let’s see some dialogue from how a freak handled things:
- [Harrison Bergeron gets to see an official having a video conference with a private citizen who also serves as the randomly selected president]
- President McCloskey: No, no way.
- Reynolds: Mr. President, the Premier is only asking for another 24 hours. He wants the approval of the Moroccan parliament. He fears a civil war be axed(?) without their backing.
- President McCloskey: Fuck ’em. I told them two weeks ago if they didn’t agree to dismantle that factory under our supervision, we’d bomb the shit out of them! Now they’ve got one hour to agree, otherwise – bombs away.
- Reynolds: But Mr. President, the installation is only 5 miles outside of Rabat. The nuclear fallout could be apocalyptic.
- President McCloskey: Well, that’s what they get for building a T-bomb when we told them not to. Those cocksuckers got to learn not to fuck with us. 59 minutes!
- Newman: Inform the Premiere. Tell mission control to make final preparations for the strike.
- [a female official complies and walks away]
- Reynolds: You’ve got to be kidding me. Shouldn’t we get Klaxon down here?
- Newman: You know his motto – [cynically] the will of the people.
- Reynolds: Well, this isn’t the people! This is some steel worker from Scranton we picked as president!
- Newman: I’ll remind you, Mr. Reynolds, that since that nasty Canadian business, American policy – brutal and unsophisticated as it is – does work. The rest of the world seems has learned to use the president’s stern words [cynically] that they can’t…fuck…with us.
- Reynolds: This Moroccan business is different. The Premiere is at an impossible situation with a board of dispute in Algeria and an unrest in his army. The president does not understand the complexity of the matter. Now, he may be an average person, but I can assure you leaders of other nations are not average. They are subtle, sophisticated men and dealing with them takes great skill and patience and diplomacy!
- Female official: Sir, the Moroccan Premiere has agreed to the terms of the president’s ultimatum.
- [Harrison Bergeron signs the words “thank you” in relief in the corner]
- Newman: [smiles cynically] As you were saying?
So… has our current president done better than a randomly selected fictional dolt?
Has he either normalized or closed Guantanamo. Or has he done a little of both?
Did he win in Iraq or lose it? Or did he win it first and then bail out and lose it?
He wants to let everyone south of the Rio Grande emigrate. We all have goals. Did he find some clear, legal, and popularly supported way to accomplish that? Conversely did he actually defend the border? As far as I can tell he temporarily hamstrung enforcement of actual law (you know… how it’s written on paper and stuff) and then encouraged throngs of peasants to become criminals on our soil. How’s that a solution to anything? It looks to me like a deliberately created problem as his gift to the next administration.
So a satirical dolt saw a problem steamrolled it in a humorous exchange. An exchange that’s even more amusing because it’s both honourable and truthful. No bluffing and red lines from this dipshit. President McKlushy had it done and went back to watching TV smoother than Bush could find an entanglement or Obama could snatch defeat from the hands of victory.
See what I mean. When you’re in stuck in a rut and everyone wants to keep digging maybe a freak is the reset the system needs. At the very least he can smack some sense into the rest of the crowd who apparently forgot how to be adults. One might hope at least.
Happy Tuesday.