Rage Against the Trump Machine

Information Age of Hysteria

This is a political post.

If you do not want to read this political post, feel free to leave now.

Here’s a picture of Smokey:

---

Politics Begins Now!

Note:

When it comes to American politics, I am a (generally) right-leaning Independent.

. . .

I have refrained from making overt political statements because I respect the right of all people to agree to disagree. However, I will now speak some of what’s on my mind.

Has the Republican Party lost its ever-loving mind? Donald Trump, really? The arrogant, bombastic buffoon of a billionaire so-called celebrity? Please tell me when, before registering to run as a Republican, Trump actually started acting like one. Wait, he hasn’t, as anyone who actually listens to the debates or reads their transcripts will attest. Instead, he continues to supports agencies the Party opposes and would deny Party “enemies” basic rights afforded by the Constitution – freedom of speech and freedom of expression come to mind.

Trump’s showmanship, vitriolic rhetoric, and base appeal (that is, his appeal to man’s base nature, not his appeal to the base of the Republican party) are reminiscent of another man circa 1932. Make Germany Great Again! Whoops.

To be fair, Trump hasn’t called mass exterminations (yet). But he has called for a sort of American purification. “Make America Great Again!” with the 6’2”, blue-eyed, light-brown-bordering-on-blond haired white man!

Trump’s rise to prominence frightened me. Surely, I thought, cooler heads would prevail. Surely his lack of credentials, lack of plan, and outright meanness would disqualify him. After all, didn’t Republicans levy the same charges against President Obama? Aren’t they better than that?

Apparently not. Now, with a surge in delegates but still a tough row to hoe for a majority, Trump – or at least his supporters – has threatened violence if he doesn’t get the nomination. The art of the deal requires knowing the rules of the game; Trump is playing by the picture on the box.

Do Trump & his supporters realize we live in a Democratic REPUBLIC? That means we vote for representatives who vote on our behalf. Sometimes they vote according to what their constituents want, sometimes according to their conscience. Barring state-specific rules, the delegates the Republican Party selects to represent its members at the National Convention or the electoral college should be no different. Yet Trumpites act like a child losing a game of marbles: if things don’t go their way they’ll upset the board, take their marbles, and go elsewhere.

Trump & Co. talk of the will of the people being silenced. Did “the people” vote? If so, they have not been silenced. Yet, like children refusing to take their medicine, Tumpites refuse to accept that what they WANT may not be what is BEST. The calls for “more democracy” sicken me because democracy of the sort advocated by most Americans would be little better than mob rule.

All this is not to say I’m ready to join the ranks of the Democrats. Believing that the people who know what’s best for me are those closest to me and that I should be able to decide what I do with my earnings, I am against federally-mandated healthcare, further restrictions on gun ownership, federally regulated education (e.g. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core), abortion-on-demand, and the general “Europization” of America (to name a few policies).

Choosing Trump/Cruz or Clinton/Sanders is akin to choosing cyanide or arsenic. They’ll both kill you, but one takes a bit longer.