Suffering from the DTs

Life is stressful.

Galavant isn't returning for a third season. I can't write about my favorite baseball team for fear of jinxing them. Wells-Fargo (the robber-bank) is still in business. And I have to wear long polyester pants and a polyester shirt in 89 degree heat as I digest the news that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are taking a ring off it.

If that isn't enough—and it is—Donald Trump continues his battle with Tourette's in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sigh.

Can I confess something to you? I have the DTs.

Historically, DT Is shorthand for delirium tremens, a condition brought about by the sudden absence of alcohol in the human body after an extended period of abuse. In 2016, it refers to exposure to presidential candidate Donald Trump.

On the rare occasion when Mr. Fact-free does take his medicine and announces that Barrack Obama was born in the United States after all, the media goes ape shit. 

If only Barrack and Hillary had responded to their requests for comment with “Donald who?” or “So?”

Alas, they took the media as seriously as an Edward Albee (R.I.P.) play.

Is it too late to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize? The 2016 deadline has long since passed, but 2017's Nobel slate is as empty as Donald's yawning maw. For those of you congenitally immune to irony, you can submit Donald's name here:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee

Henrik Ibsen Gate 51

Oslo, Norway 0255

Who knows, maybe it will all be better in November. The team that cannot be named will be champions, the president-elect won't have a y chromosome and Brad and Angie will have reconsidered.

In the meantime, anyone got a drink?

Trumped

That seems just about right. The man responsible for the most toxic and divisive political movement of the last hundred years (with the possible exception of Joseph McCarthy), is walking away with forty-million dollars.

And that's after the sexual harassment charges and twenty-million dollars worth of hush money his boss shelled out to silence accusers.

The truth behind all of this is that Roger Ailes made his boss, Rupert Murdoch, a whole lot of money. Fox News corrupted the truth and distorted perception. It put 'facts' on the endangered species list. It helped polarize a population into left and right while the wealthy ran up the middle for trillion-dollar touchdowns.

This is the twenty-first century ethos that allows Donald Trump to be considered as a legitimate candidate for the office of President of the United States of America. Lies over leadership. Demagogues, not democracy. And worst of all, entertainment over experience. 

Have Trump supporters even considered what Donald will be if he wins this thing? 

A politician!

After watching the farce-slash-forum last night on NBC, and imagining the mouth-breathing minions awe-struck by Trump's celebrity and single-cell political platforms, it is difficult not to imagine him winning this election.

Donald has perfected the verbal and body language snark of the reality TV crowd. Of the monster truck crowd. And of the professional wrestling crowd. To them, Trump's comical ego passes for confidence. And his put-downs for wit.

Clinton's fatal flaw is to credit Americans with a.) an attention span, and b.) a brain.

Like scores of Republicans before him, Trump successfully plays to the lowest common denominator: white, stupid and angry. He pushes their buttons like the teen-aged king of an eighties video game arcade. 

He is also a masterful manipulator of media. Even as his campaign threatens to curtail their freedoms, they cannot stay away. Every utterance of Donald's is front page news. Every new slander, every new libel, every new outrage is the lead story on that night's network news.

See what I mean?

The great irony, of course, is that the LCD folk who are his core supporters won't even exist after a Republican victory. They won't even be beneath the radar. They'll remain marooned in their small towns, mired in the hopelessness of their opioid abuse and abortion/LGBT/racially-fueled hatred.

Oh, they'll bellow on Rush Limbaugh and fly Confederate flags from their pick-up trucks. But they'll be among the first thrown under the bus when the TPP is enacted and the wealthy are further enriched, their power even more firmly entrenched.

If nothing else, a Trump victory will certainly prove that a people gets the government it deserves.