Politically Speaking - 3/29/16

Just wanted to hit some political thoughts this week.

1. Random Donald Trump Quotes I Found After 10 Minutes of Googling

"Nobody has more respect for women than me."
"Nobody reads the Bible more than me."
"Nobody knows the system better than me."
"Nobody's done more for equality than me."
"On trade, there's nobody more conservative than me."
On ISIS: "Nobody would be tougher than me."
"There's nobody better to beat Hillary Clinton than me."
"Nobody builds walls better than me."
"There's no one more pro-Israel than me."
"Nobody knows more about trade than me."
"When I am elected, no one will be tougher or smarter than me."
"There is nobody more against ObamaCare than me."
"There's nobody more militaristic than me."
"Nobody's ever been more successful than me."
"Nobody's bigger than me, nobody's better than me."
"Who knows Howard [Stern] better than me?"
"Nobody can be stronger than me on the border."
"Nobody's stronger on the Second Amendment than me."
"You look at those empty factories all over the place, and nobody hits that message better than me."
"Virtually no one has spent more money in helping the American people with disabilities than me."
"Latinos love me."
"The Hispanics love me."
"I love the poorly educated!"
"Who gets worse publicity than me?"

Words can't express, better than his own, what a dishonest narcissist he is. This is what happens when you surround yourself with shameless sycophants and unscrupulous henchmen your entire adult life.

And here's one former Trump worker who's seen the light.

"Trump never intended to be the candidate. But his pride is too out of control to stop him now. You can give Trump the biggest gift possible if you are a Trump supporter: stop supporting him. 

"He doesn't want the White House. He just wants to be able to say that he could have run the White House. He’s achieved that already and then some. If there is any question, take it from someone who was recruited to help the candidate succeed, and initially very much wanted him to do so. The hard truth is: Trump only cares about Trump."

But hey, now Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has surrendered to police for misdemeanor battery after initially lying about it. The charge stems from an incident where he grabbed Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields while she tried to ask Trump a question on illegal immigration. It left finger-sized bruises on her arm; she tweeted out the picture. Lewandowski insisted he never touched her, but video footage has surfaced proving 100% that he did.

Breitbart did not stand by their reporter, leading to a slew of resignations from that site, including her own. Whatever you thought of Breitbart before, it is now just a pro-Trump propaganda site, inflaming white nationalist sentiments.

The initial grab doesn't look that bad, but it's always the cover-up. Not only did Lewandowski insist it didn't happen, but Trump himself said he thought Fields made it all up. Then the Trumpsters started a smear campaign on Fields.

2. RIP GOP

For me, Marco Rubio lost the race when at the last debate, he said he would still support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee because Hillary Clinton was worse. While I admire the attempts of #NeverTrump to try and stop him, I don't see how Trump doesn't get the nomination.

If he goes into Cleveland with 1100 delegates, I am sure the vast majority of the non-Trump delegates will go in with the mentality of making sure it's not Trump. I know I would if I was a delegate. (I missed the filing deadline to run to become one.) There are only two outcomes from this. Either Trump becomes the nominee, or he doesn't.

If he does, he goes into the general election as the least popular candidate in modern history. No one is luckier than Hillary Clinton in this regard. She was poised to be the least trusted, most disliked candidate until Trump showed up. If the Dems had picked someone more like Jim Webb, they'd probably be looking at winning all 50 states.

The GOP has a challenge before them. You have so much baggage there, with the Clinton Foundation working as a slush-fund, with her compromise of national security over her private email server, her constant dishonesty, her stunts like refusing more debates until Bernie Sanders changes his "tone," etc. She could be indicted before the Democratic convention.

And yet somehow, in the easiest slam-dunk election in a generation, Trump shows up. Trump is a golem, an Ozymandias laying waste to all before him. Trump exposed the weaknesses in the Republican party - in their platform, in their lack of results, in the echo chamber of conservative media. The white working class is getting left behind. Some tea party activists are more concerned with obstructing and demonizing their own side.

You had GOP donors throw their money at Jeb Bush, who was never going to win this election. It was a vanity campaign defying all logic. You had clowns like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum crowding the debate stage.

I found the Buckley Club the best compilation site of those who aided Trump's rise, and those who fought it.

But let's say somehow Ted Cruz (the man who said right before Iowa that "Donald Trump is terrific") becomes the nominee at convention. Ted Cruz will be that ideologically pure constitutional conservative that preaches to the choir and no one else. I was really hoping when I saw him in person, I'd see a candidate who could expand his appeal. I didn't. I saw a man give the same stump speech he gives everywhere. The same lines I've heard in interviews and debates. The same televangelist tone, the same red-meat one-liners.

But if it's Cruz or John Kasich or anyone else, Trump will file lawsuits left and right and then runs as an independent. I don't know how he could get on enough ballots - he'd probably co-opt another party to do it. But he would trash the GOP worse than the Democrats, and still, we'd wind up with Hillary Clinton in the White House. Show me a realistic path that doesn't end with Hillary winning the election.

So, really, the best thing the Republican party can do is focus on 2020. Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Susana Martinez, Marco Rubio... The future could be bright once we get this nightmare election season out of the way.