The Watering Hole, Saturday, January 2, 2016: He’s Trump, He’s Trump, What’s On His Head?

If one were to believe the political poll results published by the scam artists, Donald J. Trump has a lot of support to be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party in 2016. I don’t. I’ve already talked before about why these things should be taken with a grain of salt. Besides the facts that neither the primary nor the general election is being held tomorrow (making the entire premise of many of these question meaningless,) people who make a living following these things say that the vast majority of voters don’t make up their minds until the final weeks before the vote. The only people answering these polls (which is about one out of the seven or eight folks they attempted to survey) have already put forth the minimal effort needed to reach their decisions and concluded that alleged billionaire real estate developer and reality show star Trump would be great for America. Even though he clearly won’t.

For one thing, he lies. One can immediately counter that all politicians lie, and that certainly has an element of truth to it. But Trump’s not a politician, he’s a narcissistic billionaire enjoying one of the biggest waves of popularity he’s ever personally experienced. Not that narcissism disqualifies one from being President; it might actually be a prerequisite to a certain degree provided he’s able to turn it off and listen to other people. Either Trump is incapable of doing that, or he’s surrounding himself with sycophantic hero worshipers who would never tell him something he didn’t want to hear. But he lies. A lot. He lies about Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. He lies about so many things that Politifact couldn’t name just one for their Lie of the Year 2015, so they named Trump.

For another thing, the message itself that Trump delivers is not in any way shape or form a positive one. Sure he talks about “making America great again,” but who says it isn’t right now? And who says it has to be? Why can’t “really, really, really good” be good enough? The problem with a slogan like Trump’s is that it could mean anything to anybody. Trump’s not defining what would make America greater than it is now except to list the kinds of things all conservatives hate about our society as being the reasons it isn’t great, like the fact that we care about people and want to help make their lives better. Conservatism is about selfishness, first and foremost, so it stands to reason a narcissist trying to win the nomination of a predominantly conservative party would concentrate on the things that most annoy people who think of themselves, first. And fear works on people like that. Make people afraid, tell them whom to fear (please, we don’t need to name any former propaganda ministers), and if they’re the type who don’t put a lot of effort into their thinking (which might expose the lies behind your fear mongering), they’ll do anything you ask (or just imply you think would please you, like beating up a protester at your rally.) Trump’s fear mongering and lies have gotten so bad that terrorists really have started using his anti-Muslim comments in a recruiting video.

And where the narcissism I spoke of earlier should be damning to a group of people who are taught to practice humility in their lives, Conservative Christians (an oxymoron, as Conservatives do very little Jesus would approve) seem to absolutely love Trump. And considering what they believe their religion teaches them about women and sex (including Trump’s lawyer, who thinks marital rape is impossible), the sexism Trump regularly displays can only strengthen their ill-conceived love of the man. This would not otherwise be a problem in a country where the freedom to peacefully practice one’s religion is constitutionally guaranteed, but these people vote. And they base their decision to vote on whom they think will move this country toward their idea of a Christian paradise. Which is ironic considering Trump’s fear mongering them into believing the religious extremists want to install Sharia Law across America, in violation of their religion freedom to do the same with Christianity.

Long before the Republican convention is over and a nominee and his or her running mate is announced, all of these things about Trump, his viewpoints, his policy proposals, his budget numbers, his own hypocritical, self-serving lifestyle, all of it will convince the Americans people that the Office of President of the United States is not a character in a reality show, and not a job to give someone barely suited to do that. Donald J. Trump is, if anything, less fit to serve as President of the United States than I, and I know something about the way the world really works. (Hint: It isn’t always for us, and we can’t fire them and replace them with China.) Trump thinks we can order other countries to do as we please or, in his case, as he pleases. Or maybe as his BFF and admirer Vladimir Putin pleases. And what pleases Putin is having journalists murdered. Which Trump seems to refuse to believe is true. And while it may be technically true that no proof exists the man who once ran their secret intelligence agency left no evidence of his involvement in those journalists’ murders, we would then have to believe that being a Russian journalist critical of Vladimir Putin simply has an inexplicable mortality rate significantly higher than one of those not so critical. And that’s not likely.

Stop supporting Donald Trump for president. He doesn’t deserve it, and he isn’t fit for the job. Running a country is nothing like running a corporation, even an international one. And anyone who thinks otherwise is basing his vote on a dangerous fallacy. But then, that’s just what the Republican Party wants you to do. Otherwise they’d never win elections.

This is our daily open thread, so you are totally free to talk about anything other than Donald Trump, which in itself would displease him very much. Go on. There’s other things happening out there. Tell us about a few of them. Just stop making me think of Trump! 🙂