I was flabbergasted last week when it came out that the Des Moines Iowa Register is calling for Donald Trump to get out of the presidential election. And just today, I read comments in the New York Times saying that there has even been some colluding among republican candidates on how they might force Trump out of the primary debates – if they could get enough of the other candidates to go along with a boycott. It would be a “him or us” sort of ultimatum to the Fox network. So far, it doesn’t seem to be happening.
There is no doubt about it. The republican primary has become a three ring circus and Donald Trump has become the indisputable ring master. As close as I could count, there seems to be twenty candidates at this time. I cannot remember such a large field, which will begin to whittle down when the top ten contenders are chosen for the debate. I do remember the good old days when you could count on presidential elections to have at least one or two firebrands revving up the other candidates and the public. The Donald has made me realize just how stodgy the elections have become.
And, I suppose Jeb Bush will be hanging back for awhile, laying in wait, getting ready to assert his place under the big top as the lion tamer. God knows, lying is what the Bush family is good at. And how about that Lindsey Graham? Ain’t he so cool trying to make an Internet video about him smashing up the cell phone that Trump defiled. Graham ought to gain some respect for that amongst the working folks (sarcasm). I guess in his aristocratic haze he thinks fiscal responsibility means destroying a five hundred dollar phone instead of simply changing the number. And how about my boy Rand Paul. Reports indicate he also has made an Internet video – burning the tax code. Rand incidentally, is my choice for Trump’s vice president, at least his antics have something to do with politics.
But, there is a difference between the circus sideshows and the legitimate, if only unpopular to the establishment, rhetoric of Donald J. Trump. It doesn’t just seem odd to me that newspapers and other candidates alike would attempt to drive the most popular candidate out of a presidential race.
Really, for all the circus posturing, I see the red flags flying over the big tent that say – hay, wait a minute, this is a free election in the greatest democracy the world has ever known, and they want to eliminate the most popular of presidential candidates, because they don’t like what he has to say about the most important and persistent political issues in the public’s mind? It’s absurd! It’s messed up! It’s unAmerican! It’s a threat to democracy, to free elections, and whatever pretense of constitutional government we have left – and it’s potentially a prelude to socialist dictatorship.
Donald Trump is not a new comer, and I certainly can see a point where he and I will diverge on policy issues. That’s why I’m still running my own write-in campaign. But in my estimation, the Trump campaign is no longer about the polices and discussions he provokes, or the monopolistic mastery of the media that he alone seems to be able to command. Now, it’s about constitutional rights, the right to vote, the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the media (that might agree with Trump), and quite literally the Bill of Rights and the entire Constitution.
It would do well to remember. Every circus has it’s happy clowns and it’s sad clown’s too. When you look a little closer at the undertow, the attack on Trump’s candor, and the “shut door policies” of establishment demagogs – the sad truth is one helluva reality check that almost seems to have gone unnoticed. Someone recently joked with me that Barack Obama is planning to issue an executive order ending elections and declaring his third term in office. I wonder if that is what the Des Moines Register has in mind…
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© 2015 – Jim Casey
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