My interest in politics right now is pretty low, and the 2016 presidential election still seems a
long way off. So I don't often think much about it, and I rarely blog about politics (heck, I rarely blog at all these days -- though I write a lot in my journal). But the 16 ring circus that is the fight for the
Republican nomination is pretty hard to avoid, especially when my wife
watches MSNBC and I occasionally sit in. Rachel Madow and other MSNBC commentators
have been having a field day with the motley crew of Republican
contenders. But since Donald Trump announced his run for the presidency
in June, he has made their jobs even easier and has dominated every news
cycle with his ever more ridiculous shoot-from-the-hip pronouncements.
He started with Mexicans and
immigration, claiming that most illegal immigrants are rapists and drug
dealers. He says that when he is president, he will build an
impenetrable wall along the border with Mexico, and force Mexico to pay
for it. Then the other day in an interview on stage, he ad-libbed some
remarks about Senator John McCain and how he isn't really a war hero,
followed by, "OK, maybe he is, but only because he was captured. And I
like people who weren't captured." I'm definitely no fan of John McCain,
but anybody who does not respect the service and sacrifice of a naval
aviator who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison is insane and
despicable. Though of course we already knew that Trump was insane and
despicable. Yesterday he went on the rampage against some of the other
Republicans who have insulted him in the press, especially Senator
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Speaking to an audience in South
Carolina, Trump insulted Graham as a loser and a wimp and actually gave
out Graham's private cell phone number to the crowd.
Trump's form of campaigning is
basically improvised insult comedy -- Don Rickles with more money and a creative hair stylist. It's only a matter of time before
everyone, no matter how conservative, realizes what a toxic waste dump
he is. It's hard to understand how he can achieve 16% in any poll of
anybody, Republican or not (some suggestions here). Someone pointed out
on a show last night that four years ago, Sarah Palin (not even
running), Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachmann were leading in Republican
polls at this point (summer 2011, ahead of the 2012 election season).
Romney and Santorum were far behind. In spring 2011, Trump himself was
actually leading in the polls. I don't recall when he bowed out of the
2012 race that Mitt Romney ultimately won for the GOP nomination. So his
strength in the polls at this time really means nothing, except that
under the crazy rules set by FOXNews, national poll position will
determine which 10 of now 16 Republicans will get to participate in the
first GOP debate on August 6. So Trump will be on stage that night,
making the Republican debate even more bizarre than it would be with
only "serious" candidates.
As comedian Andy Borowitz has
written, Trump is the first openly asshole presidential candidate, and
there apparently are a lot of assholes in the country who are rooting for him. He
is not a serious presidential candidate, and he certainly knows this
himself (I read somewhere that he's only spending 50% of his time on his
presidential run because of his business commitments). But Trump is an
entertainer who thrives on any sort of publicity, and that is what he is
getting now by the ton. The good news is that it disrupts the GOP. The
bad news is that he makes somebody like Jeb Bush almost look like a
reasonable person. Almost.