FOX, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk have devoted 20 years to creating a Republican party of frightened, angry, ignorant, nativists who resent the “leeches and parasites” who benefit from government programs. Unspoken, but at the core of this resentment, is the belief that the beneficiaries of government programs are either African-Americans or illegal immigrants. A majority of the Republican party have thus been conditioned to hate government, hate politicians, hate Obama, hate Hillary, and to fear and resent black and brown people. Is it any wonder then, that around half of the votes in the most recent polls have gone to the candidates who have no political experience and who most successfully pander to what is euphemistically referred to as the “Republican Base”?
A poll taken early this week has Donald Trump in the lead with 25% of Republican voters, Dr. Ben Carson second at 12%, Ted Cruz third at 10%, and Carly Fiorina, queen of the kids’ table debate, at 5%. A later poll has Trump on top at 24%, with Carson, Cruz and Fiorina cumulatively getting 19% of the votes. None of these four candidates has the temperament, the experience, or the knowledge we should expect of our president. But they are effective demagogues and they meet the primary qualification in the eye’s of the Republican base: Except for Cruz, they are not politicians, and he’s only been a politician for three and a half years.
Donald J. Trump aka “The Donald”
Hard to believe, but this guy is leading the Republican field in every state except Ohio, where Kasich has a huge lead. He’s leading among women, men, young, old – everyone loves The Donald. This is after he said John McCain was not a war hero (“he got captured; I like war heroes who don’t get captured”), called women he dislikes “dogs” and “fat pigs”, and complained that Megyn Kelly must have been menstruating when she asked him tough questions during the debate (“blood was coming out of her eyes; blood was coming out of her wherever . . . “)
The Donald wants to deport all undocumented immigrants – somewhere in excess of 11 million people – including their children, even if they were born in the United States and have citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. He wants to build a 40 foot high wall running from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico to keep out Mexicans and he proposes to pay for it by confiscating money sent to Mexico by undocumented immigrants working in the United States and by raising the visa fees for Mexican CEOs. So as not to fall behind The Donald in harshness and nativism, most of the other Republican hopefuls have adopted similarly harsh immigration policies, thereby insuring that the Democrats will get the Hispanic vote in 2016.
It’s hard to pin Trump down – he just talks over questions and filibusters about what a great job he’s going to do and how handsome he is – but Chuck Todd was able to get him to identify the source of his knowledge of foreign affairs and defense issues: It’s from watching the Sunday morning shows! He especially likes John Bolton, a crazed neocon warmonger, and Col. Jack Jacobs, a Medal of Honor winner who is a paid commentator on MSNBC. In other words, Trump knows jack-shit about foreign affairs and defense issues. But that doesn’t seem to phase his supporters. He’s not a politician and he speaks his mind! And he’s going to bring cronies like Carl Icahn and other hedge fund operators into a Trump Administration to get things done! I’m not making any of this up.
Dr. Ben Carson
Ben Carson is totally nuts. He hates Obama because Obama has turned America into “something like Nazi Germany” and because Obamacare “is the worst thing to happen to America since slavery.” He recently declared that abortion is the number one killer of black people—not heart disease as the Centers for Disease Control has established – and that Planned Parenthood sites are often located in black neighborhoods so as to control the black population. This week Carson said that he would not rule out drone strikes at the Arizona border to keep illegals out of the country. He has no political or government experience whatsoever, but he’s running second in most of the polls and the Trump campaign says he would be a great vice-presidential candidate.
Senator Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz has been in the Senate for three and a half years, but he’s spent most of the time grandstanding, reading Dr. Seuss books, and promising to repeal Obamacare, tear up the nuclear arms deal with Iran, and countermand everything Obama has done. His latest crusade is to shut down the government unless the Democrats agree to defund Planned Parenthood. His dream is that Trump, Carson and Fiorina will eventually flame out and their supporters will migrate to him. He’s pretty repellent, but that’s only the view of intelligent, thoughtful people who care about our country – like me – and stranger things have happened.
But is he even eligible? He was born in Canada. There are lots of birthers out there in Tea Party World who don’t think someone born in Canada qualifies to run for president.
Carly Fiorina
Carly Fiorina – the Republicans’ “woman”/anti-Hillary candidate – is a disaster for women. She would prohibit women from getting abortions – all Republican candidates must oppose abortion – but she goes further. Like Cruz, she would shut down the government to defund Planned Parenthood, and she opposes providing contraception under Obamacare. She also opposes raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, and legislation that would close the gender pay gap. True, she’s not a politician, but her self-proclaimed business expertise is also questionable. When she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from mid-1999 to early 2005, she cut 30,000 employees from HP’s payroll, sending most of those jobs overseas, while surrounding herself with image consultants. She engineered a disastrous takeover of Compaq and cut the value of HP’s stock by more than 50%. She got fired and is on everyone’s list of the Worst CEOs Of All Time.
After trashing HP, Carly got bored and ran for the Senate against Barbara Boxer, losing badly. Despite having a net worth in excess of $100 million, she stiffed her campaign staff. (Apparently she has recently paid them to defuse this as an issue in her current presidential campaign.) The people who worked for her on her senate campaign uniformly loathe her. One said he would rather be sent to Iraq than have to work for Carly again. She is truly an odious person, who is frequently talked of as a top vice-presidential candidate for the Republicans.
Jeb!
According to the “smart money” – Las Vegas bookies and Nate Silver’s “Fivethirtyeight” blog – Trump will not get the nomination. Their money is still on Jeb! (The exclamation point connotes excitement and enthusiasm; sorry, Jeb!, but it will take more than a punctuation mark.) Maybe Trump won’t beat Jeb!, but he’ll tarnish him in the eyes of Republican voters. Trump has already nailed him as lacking energy and charisma. Labels like that tend to stick. (Remember Jeb!’s dad having to deny that he was a wimp?) Now Jeb!’s under scrutiny and pressure to show more charisma and energy. Hard to do if it doesn’t come naturally. And if Trump fades, his supporters won’t turn to Jeb!
While Jeb! has the name, the exclamation point, and the money, his performance has been lackluster and he’s got some baggage. As governor of Florida, he supported public shaming of women. He allowed a bill to become law that required single mothers who did not know the identity of the father to publish their sexual histories in a newspaper before they could put their babies up for adoption. He said that women on welfare “should be able to get their life [sic] together and find a husband.” He intervened to keep Terry Schiavo alive in a vegetative state and intervened personally to prevent abortions for women who were raped.
He unleashed the hideous Kathryn Harris to strike black voters from the Florida rolls, enabling his brother to be appointed president in 2000. He wants to phase out Medicare and wants to “reform”, i.e., wreck, Social Security. He’s opposed to the minimum wage.
Bush is trying to blame President Obama and Hillary for the disaster in Iraq and says that “taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.” He thinks “enhanced interrogation”, i.e., torture, was “probably was effective for garnering the intelligence.” He won’t take torture off the table. His advisors include Paul Wolfowitz and lots of the same advisors that did such a good job for Jeb!’s brother.
(As I make this list, I realize that maybe these things aren’t negatives in the Republican primaries, but they’ll hurt Bush if he gets the nomination.)
As for the other Republican presidential hopefuls – mostly sitting governors and senators – no one is paying them much attention. They’re politicians. Duh. The Republican Base is sick of politicians.
So, the question is: Can Donald Trump win the Republican nomination? A few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought it remotely possible, but I wasn’t taking into account who will cast the votes. At least 25% of the Republican “base” loves Trump. He’ll almost certainly be around next Spring and may win some primaries. It’s remotely possible that he will get the nomination; I’m hoping he does. Who is going to beat him? Not Jeb!
But no matter who gets the nomination, when President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho is inaugurated in 2505, historians will look back on this summer as the moment when that momentous occasion was foreshadowed. (Please watch “Idiocracy”. It’s available free on HBO On Demand.)
And, finally, watch Bad Lipreading Of The Republican Debate. You’ll be glad you did.
I'm Not Making This Up... 