It's Time To Burst The Trump Bubble

I have held off for so long on posting too much political discussion because taken as a whole on social media, it tends to breed strife, discontent, disillusionment with our friends, and generally frustrate many without changing anything (except a few opinions of others).  However, I have also seen some very worthy debates and discussions arise from such posts when civilized discourse is used and so I am going to attempt that kind of post.  I have no idea if I will succeed or fail miserably, but I will at least be able to say I tried.

These words and thoughts are just mine, I can’t pass blame for them onto anyone else.  You can disagree, feel free.  I have tons of friends who do not share my view of religion, some who are in fact atheists.  I have friends who embrace nearly every political opposite of things I believe to the core of my being.  They, nonetheless remain friends.  Good debates on issues SHOULD help shape our minds and thoughts in a meaningful way.  Odds are most will stay the same, but not at least trying is like not voting and then complaining about what you get.

So, with those precursors laid out, I am going to tackle the great debate of 2016, our forthcoming presidential election.  For this post, I am going to focus on the current state of affairs, specifically trying to understand the polling numbers. On the side of the aisle I typically land on, business man and world class-narcissist Donald Trump leads in the polling of Iowa and New Hampshire, and many other states.  To say he enjoys broad support within the GOP though is to completely misunderstand the world of politics.  His support honestly comes from one source and one source only (no it is not simply lower class white people by the way).  No, it comes from a complete and total disgust with the entirety of the US government in Washington, DC. 

 

Really.  Sorry for the long setup here, but I think understanding recent history is paramount to understanding the current situation.  

In 2008, an electorate put all their hopes and dreams for a transcendent president on a guy who had not even served a single full term in the US Senate, and had never once held an executive office in his life.  His naiveté was seen as a positive, since he was not a long established part of the “Washington machine.”  He was ushered in with landslide victories in the US House and Senate, giving complete control of the government to the Democratic party.  He didn’t get elected for his extensive plans to fix the economy, his perfect solution for immigration, nor his detailed peace plan for the Middle East and Southern Asia.  He did get a lot of support from simply not being a Bush and for being an “outsider.”

What we got out of that was the long held Democratic wet dream of the huge first step towards a Single-Payer Universal Health Care system and not much else.  Immigration, a huge problem in the Southwest, Midwest and the South, did not get fixed, or any kind of significant reform.  The ballooning deficit was given a massive steroid injection by a president and congress to try and shake off a recession which took hold just as he came into office.  No meaningful gun policy, no agenda to resolve the student debt issues, but Obamacare got to the finish line.

 

So, in 2010, a very angry electorate set about trying to ‘undo the mistakes’ in the 2008 election, and threw out Democrats in the House in droves, and replaced them with representatives who were supposed to walk back, if not seek outright repeal of the health care law, and try to get the budget beast under control.  Many other issues were also brought up, but ultimately those two highlighted the unrest and a new batch of congressmen went to DC (and a few firebrand Senators too).  A group called the Tea Party came to light. 

Upon their arrival in DC, absolutely nothing changed.  The leaders of the GOP in the House and Senate were not about to give up their power and stand aside for these newcomers, and they worked more tirelessly than ever to merely maintain the status quo and they beat down every attempt to thwart the budget apparatus and any hint of a rebellion within the GOP rank and file.  The Senate remained in Democratic hands and the President was not going to sign a law repealing his legacy, so the GOP leadership simply quashed any notion of rocking the boat too much, and they made gridlock a policy instead.

In 2012, the same cadre of country club, upper class we know better than some rednecks from the South or bumpkins from the Midwest and Southwest GOP power brokers ran Mitt Romney for Prez and those millions who had seen their voices shushed in 2010 and the rest of the ‘independent voter world’ said "Thanks, but no thanks" and we got the status quo again because there was no other option available.

Fast forward to 2014.  The Supreme Court, whether you agree or not, rendered a landmark decision in the Obamacare challenge, featuring the most fractious Supreme Court decision in the last 50 years, allowing Obamacare to stand because it ruled it was a tax (even though that one word actually never appeared in the 363,086 words in the Affordable Care Act-almost twice as many as in a typical Harry Potter novel).  This gave voters who wanted it overturned or modified little recourse but to try again in electing firebrands to serve in the US legislative branch.  And the GOP won an even larger victory than in 2010, as the economy remained a disaster, debt remained a huge problem and a last ditch effort tried to fix the sinking ship.  Again, no change.  GOP Leadership didn't want to rock the boat, they wanted to just sail into retirement with as little turmoil as possible.

Now we stand at a crossroads in 2016.  Our economy is still stuck in reverse at worst, neutral at best; immigration issues continue to derail any real efforts at economic recovery and debt reform, not to mention adding thousands of headaches to national security concerns.  The world which once feared the US and its reach in the early 2000s now views the US as a grumpy old man on a porch who won’t lift a real finger of effort to thwart those who would plunder the weaker of the world.  The crazy nutjobs in power in Iran have been given a $200B boost to their expansion plans and given a seat at the nuclear table.  Gun violence is rampant, mostly I would contend due to 2 intersecting issues (mental health shortcomings and a growing economic despair).  Even race relations which had been relatively calm for over 20 years suddenly have become a flash point and another layer of divisiveness in what should be a very United States of America.  We spend so much more time now focusing on our differences than on our common bonds and dreams.  Again, this is how I see it, and in many regards I think it is a view shared by a lot of my fellow Americans.  It has reached a crescendo now in 2016.

Sorry, that was long.  Anyhow, this festering animosity towards Washington has now grown so ingrained, so woven into the fabric of so many people’s everyday lives, that a non-politician whose claims to fame are his runaway hair, his over-the-top self-aggrandizement, the phrase “You’re Fired” and perhaps most of all, a willingness to not give an ounce of shit what anyone in the media (or likely in the world itself) thinks about him, is now the leading candidate in most polls.

Holy Crap!  I have long contended and believed Donald Trump has no chance of becoming the GOP nominee, and God forbid, the President of the United States, but here we sit a mere week or so away from the first states voting in the primaries and this crazy mess is the leader approaching the clubhouse.  WTF?

Let me help you relate.  The anger you saw and heard in the Ferguson Missouri unrest, the anger and unrest which came to the fore in Baltimore, those were VERY visible signs of a long festering anger and resentment for the status quo in race relations and law enforcement in those areas.  Those folks were willing to resort to outright civil unrest to make their views known and to force people to notice.

The support for Trump is the exact same anger just in the political arena.  Hold you horses.  They are different angers yes, I said in the POLITICAL arena.  It is an anger in which more civilized discourse is ignored and emotion rises to the top.  Because it is so inflamed and impassioned.  

That political anger is blinding a large number of people, and may actually simply give rise to creating the exact thing which every die-hard Trump supporter fears most: even more of the same.  Why?  Because Donald Trump cannot win!  I am a long time libertarian/conservative/slightly open-minded voter.  I have never voted for the “D” for President.  Ever.  And I will not vote for Trump. Ever.  He is not the least bit Presidential.  The closest he should ever come to that is staying in the “Presidential Suite” at one of his hotels (although that will have to happen before they file for bankruptcy).  

Trump partisans, please reconsider your present stance.  Should you be angry?  Yes.  Should you demand change?  Hell yes.  But find someone who offers more than “We’re gonna fix it” and “America is going to be great again” as his main platforms.  Hope and Change were all that were offered up in 2008 as a policy and look what you got: enough unrest and failure to drive you to this point in life.  The race for the White House is not a reality show, and the Presidential chair is no place for an apprentice candidate.  A President must have an agenda and work with congress to implement it.  He cannot "fire" those senators and congressmen he doesn't like.

Who else can you look to?  Well some say Ted Cruz.  I don’t dislike Ted Cruz like so many, but he serves a purpose.  Ted is in the place where he can do the nation the most good: stirring the pot in the US Senate.  Jeb Bush some might say.  He seems disinterested to me as a candidate, like he is running because he can’t think of anything else to do at the moment.  And his campaign makes the Cleveland Browns look like a shining example of stability and success.  Ben Carson?  Great guy, world class surgeon and one of the most civil candidates I have ever seen.  But I just don't get the sense he is ready for the big chair.  A book tour yes.  Speaking engagements?  Yep.  To stand toe to toe with Putin.  Sorry, just not feeling the vibe.

So, who you ask?  Personally I am supporting Marco Rubio.  Here is why: of all the candidates, I feel he is the only one who has formulated and articulated a clear plan of what he is going to do regarding a wide range of issues.  He has a very firm grasp on all the major ones (foreign policy, the budget, taxes, the economy, and immigration) which show he understands the reality of the world in which we live.  You can’t ship 12 million illegal immigrants home in a year and split up families.  You must find a way to allow integration of those people into our society, and get them to contribute to solving the problem.  Get them to be tax paying, productive people.  You can help solve the immigration problem, and find a way to use that solution to help with the budget woes.  Plus, I think Marco is one of the very few who understands the foreign policy issues we face, and he has demonstrated it repeatedly in his debates.   Of all the candidates presently running, he is the LEAST financially “set” candidate in the field.  He is not a multi-millionaire; I think he is one of the closest things we have to a candidate who can relate to the average American struggling from paycheck to paycheck.  I’m not saying he does, I am just saying he actually needs his job.

There are many, many other reasons why I support Marco and I understand he is not without his flaws too.  I know he has not held executive office before.  Based on recent past experience, that is a legitimate concern.  He is not on the right side of the privacy debate, and I am not thrilled with his zealous support of the NSA.  But honestly, there is no candidate who supports everything I do, and who opposes everything I do.  So I have simply chosen the person I think will best represent my views and beliefs on most issues as they arise.  I want a President who understands the expectations of the office, who will represent the United States with class and respect.  Furthermore, I think Marco offers the same “vibe” of the Morning in America which Ronald Reagan once spoke of in his campaign.  I think Marco has a vision of what American can and should be, and he is willing to work as hard as he can towards that goal. And most of all, I truly believe Marco can beat Hillary, Bernie or whatever walking cadaver the Dems put up this time. 

All this said, I hope everyone participates in the primaries when their time comes.  Now is not the time for being so fed up with the process that you would simply hit the self-destruct button for America and vote for Donald Trump.  In all honesty, a vote for Trump on the GOP side is nothing more than a vote for Bernie or Hillary when the general election rolls around.  Is that really what Trump supporters want?  Maybe it is.

Now, I am not even going to try and lay out the multitude of issues with the Donkey party here.  There is plenty of time to address those thoughts later.  

Maybe I am wrong about the Trump phenomenon.  Maybe I am too out of touch these days.  But I have had months to ponder it and this is where I am at.  This election really is too important to just shut up and let it be.  A vote for Trump is like taking a dump.  You may feel better briefly, but all you have produced is a lump...of $#it.  It really isn't something to be proud of.  

Alright, I am sure if anyone bothers to read this far, there might be a comment or two.  If so, please keep it civil, and let’s engage in civilized discourse and make a mockery of modern social media.