When did the Republican presidential primary become a Bravo Reality TV series – “the Desperate Candidates?”
We have trash talk from a bombastic billionaire developer, Donald Trump, putting down the “Republican Establishment,” and those, who he convincingly says, are his “establishment” competitors.
In the latest round of churlish misconduct, Trump blasted one opponent based on his height (“little Marco”), countered by the charge that Trump was a crook (“con man”) according to Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, prompting Trump to come back on Senator Cruz (“lying Ted”), and Senator Rubio’s toe-curling grammar school innuendoes followed, knocking Trump’s face, hair and, the most controversial, Trump’s sexual prowess (“small hands”), causing Trump to offer a national on-air description of his private body parts (“no problem there”).
In Loudoun County, despite Senator Rubio’s “below the belt” rhetoric, he was enthusiastically invited to Patrick Henry College to rally his true believers at a school founded “to impact the world ‘for Christ and for Liberty.’”
At the rally, Senator Rubio promised to compromise the medical care anyone was receiving under the Affordable Care Act, to step up the war on terror, to keep Guantanamo open and to “find out everything they [the prisoners there] know,” without saying precisely how he’d make that happen within the law and “as a devout Christian.” Congresswoman Barbara Comstock touted Rubio as “the most conversant on all of the top issues of the day.”
The Republican presidential candidates, including those deeply mired in this dehumanizing dialogue, undeservedly affect a moral superiority as compared with Trump.
This political food fight is unsurprising when you consider the bitter political stew they all share, a virulent intolerance toward persons of color, of faith (especially Muslims), the immigrants from Syria, and from Mexico (“put up that wall”), women (who insist on choice), gays (who would marry), the ill (who need the medical services available under the Affordable Care Act).
Each has expressed a relentless mind-bending itch to kill. Cruz wanted to “carpet bomb.” Trump promises to be more severe than anyone else on the dais with a form of blood thirsty military action he promises to authorize
Trump distinguishes himself, however, by his “establishment” argument, that there is an elite stewardship, a combine of insiders that frustrated what voters were promised – but didn’t get – and this crop of competitors is no different; they’re part of that “establishment.”
Trump’s plain talk, his late night brutal twits and harsh haikus, salve the bottomless hurt “his voters” believe he’ll ease.
Failed Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, most recently accelerated the Trump phenomenon when he appeared as the voice of the “establishment,” and lectured Republican voters to pick a winner from the primary also rans, other than Trump.
When the establishment seemingly gave its nod to Senator Rubio, as the “slayer” of Trump, his campaign began to suffocate.
The GOP unleashed this monster of intolerant ignorance years ago, stirred the creature with high pitched dog whistles, awakened the Grendel beast in the body politic, only to have the beast turn on the GOP establishment, and the GOP is entirely unable to control this unchained monster, to such an extent, that one Trump adherent reportedly said, “We’re either gonna’ take over the GOP or blow it up.”
For the Republicans, there’s no strong-handed Beowulf in sight to save the old guard GOP “establishment” from the corrupt bargain they made with the know-nothing masses, now storming the gates.
Some may believe this is a just outcome for the party’s irresponsibility.
It’s a shame there’s no finer leader to reclaim the lost soul of what was once a grander party.