Tag: Convention

So here we are at the Republican Convention. Melania Trump is plagiarizing from Michelle Obama’s boring speeches and after every floor vote by the rules committee the republican clown car ricochets off of all three circus rings. Under any other circumstance I’d be laughing at the chances of Trump being elected. But this is the Bizarro World. Every time Trump says something stupid or pompous or insane, another BLM madman kills a bunch of cops or a jihadi slaughters a crowd of people and once again makes Trump the sane choice.

Let me be perfectly clear. Bozo the Clown would probably make a more dignified President of the United States than Donald Trump. But once again, in the Bizarro World where Donald Trump is the only candidate unafraid of talking about Islamic Terrorists, Inner City Thugs or Illegal Aliens, he’s the best choice available.

And what does that tell us? I think we can break it down into a few different facts.

1) Donald Trump recognized that there were things the republicans needed to say but were afraid to. So he said them.
Republicans knew what a lot of non-progressives disliked about the democrat agenda. What they didn’t realize was what these same people disliked about republican priorities. They didn’t like the globalist agenda. That includes off-shoring jobs and on-shoring people (massive immigration whether legal or illegal). Also part of that agenda is the endless defense of the “religion of peace.” The repeating of this mantra after each horrific attack has finally turned it into a sad joke. Trump has recognized these things and they have resonated with both republicans and blue collar democrats. Despite his many obvious flaws as a candidate and a human being he was able to see these things clearly. This ability to identify what people are unhappy about is an advantage that almost completely neutralizes his otherwise enormous negatives. This is completely separate from his skills at attacking his opponents and deflecting attacks. But these do point to his realization that people are fed up with politically correct speaking rules. He is unapologetic and extremely plain spoken. The electorate likes this.

2) The Republican leaders were out of touch with what their constituency wanted.
This point is the flip-side of what Trump did right. The republicans have been trying so hard to court all of the democrat constituencies (women, young adults, blacks, hispanics, gays) that they’ve managed instead to alienate their own core constituency (adult straight white men). Without that demographic almost completely on its side republicans have a very difficult task winning elections. What they seem incapable of processing is that they won’t increase their appeal to these other groups by being a watered down version of the democrat party. You’re never going to get most hispanics voting for you without losing a larger number of core constituency voters. The democrats will always be promising more loot than the republicans.

3) The American people are divided and extremely unhappy.
The United States is no longer united. A large chunk of the population wants a nanny state where the government feeds you, houses you, tells you what to say and think and decides everything for you. The rest of us sort of still adhere to the basic idea of the Constitution. Neither Trump nor Clinton actually embrace the Constitutionalists. The best you can say about Trump is that he has pledged to recommend supreme court justices that are strict constructionists. But this is indeed a difficult period for American democracy.

Conclusion

So where does all this leave us? In my opinion, in a very bad spot. A lot of this stuff is very reminiscent of the end of the Roman Republic. The plebians and the patricians were at each other’s throats and rich demagogues were promising the mob bread and circuses for their votes. Back then they also experienced a decay of religious belief and family values. Disruptions to the economy associated with globalization obsoleted many of the comforting ways of life.

So my advice to you dear readers is embrace the bizarro! Trump is the man of the hour so hitch your wagon to his star. If he loses then Caligula (the Clintons) will have all of us crucified in January. If he wins then we’ll muddle on until something even stranger and more disastrous appears on the horizon. But either way hold on to your beliefs about what is right and wrong and pray that eventually we’ll re-emerge on the other side of the worm-hole where America is normal again. My secret hope is that Mike Pence will turn out to be stronger than his recent flip-flop on religious protection showed him and after Trump’s reign we’ll get an actual conservative in the White House. But I’m not holding my breath.