I started this post as a reply to Booman’s recent article Trump Tickles the Hatred Zone. It grew.
Booman says essentially the same thing twice in this article:
If Trump drops out and Carly Fiorina starts talking about Mexican rapists, these voters will be ready to pick up her banner.
Trump can go away, and this problem will remain. No one can stop it.
They both betray a kind of progressive wishful thinking that is actually very common. “It’s not the person that’s the problem, it’s the problem that’s the problem.” I offer the disastrous presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as evidence that this is simply not the case. Both of them ran on themselves, not really on the issues. Not really. You could make the same case for the candidacies of JFK, RFK (I believe that he would have won had he survived) and Bill Clintons as well.
It’s a stardom thing.
An emotional thing.
Some people have it, and some people don’t.
Trump has it in spades, and…bet on it…he’s not dropping out so Carly Fiorina or some other joker can take over. He is basking in the attention. It’s his lifeblood. It’s almost sexual in nature. It’s an addicition. These are the symptoms of a serious mental and emotional illness, in my opinion, and combined with his enormous wealth they make him a most dangerous man. If he does disappear for some reason, his constituency will scatter to any number of other, less charismatic candidates. But he’s not going anywhere. Not voluntarily, anyway.
So…as is implicit in his every appearance…I repeat:
Whatchoo pencil-neck geeks gonna do about it!!!???
Read on for more.
The only thing that you…we, actually because as much as I have opposed the various (largely failed, unfortunately) so-called “progressive” efforts of the past 7 years or so, I cannot sit idly by and watch this madman bluster his way into the White House……the only thing that we can do about it appears to me to be to put up an equally charismatic Democratic candidate who offers a better platform than demonizing Mexicans, valuing the power of big money and almost literally jerking off onstage.
Maybe the PermaGov will somehow eventually isolate him to the point that he needs to start a third party to take care of his obviously very rapidly growing…metastasizing, in a word…attention addiction and then manage to put the fix in for a loyal DemRat like HRC, but other than that?
Who’s a potential DemRat candidate who could meet him head to head and prevail?
I can only see two, myself, and it’s neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders.
Who?
Martin O’Malley, an outside chance of Joe Biden or a really good chance (if done right) of a Biden/O’Malley ticket with O’Malley the designated attack dog on Trump while Biden plays the experienced statesman role.
Trump would massacre either HRC or Bernie Sanders in a debate. HRC just doesn’t have that populist fire and Bernie? When the “Black lives matter” folks gave him some real red meat opposition…red meat opposition that pales in comparison to a Trump attack… he transformed into immediately being just another whining old Brooklyn-style liberal. (“These people today…they just don’t play fair!!! They aren’t listening to me,” etc., etc., etc.) O’Malley actually handled himself quite well under the circumstances. He went neutral and let the fire burn itself out. Good instincts. Opposition would have bred more opposition and capitulation would have bred some very bad press. “He’s weak!!! Like dat. He Aikidoed ’em and then disappeared down the street with little or no real damage to either side. Like I said…good instincts.
Dassit. That’s all I have to say on the matter except that the Trump candidacy is scaring the living shit out of me. Scaring me enough to begin looking for where to go if the Trump hits the fan.
Really.
Denmark comes to mind.
Later…
AG
