Despite what people say, I think Trump’s main problem is that he isn’t schooled in the narrowness of “permitted” political discourse. Every now and then some other politicial will “put his/her foot in it” and the media goes nuts over it. I too think Hillary’s barking like a dog was ridiculous and unpresidential, but to have it on TV night after night? Whatever she said before or after it was lost.
Add to that the fact that the candidates, by and large, only speak in platitudes and talking points, carefully crafted by others, but devoid of practical meaning. I am so weary of Cruz going on about the Constitution I could throw up into my mouth every time I hear him do it. Yes, we know there’s a Constitution, and we know Obama ignores it. But my goodness, doesn’t Cruz’ writers know about anything else?
And Hillary Clinton going on about women about whom she cares nothing, and “free college” which she will never deliver on and will never mention again when she beats Sanders.
We allow ourselves to get trained by the media to constrain our own thoughts; to think in the ways they tell us we must, and we actually comply. We didn’t always. Harry Truman could (and did) turn the air blue with profanity and scatology. Notwithstanding that practically every ten-year-old in America now salts his conversation with the “F” word, we have all been trained to regard harsh language with horror if delivered by a politician. We have all been trained to think we’re at a tea party in the Hamptons, and the politicians have to play the same part.
Truman, again, openly threatened a music critic with a black eye, a nosebleed, and a hernia for criticizing his daughter’s performance. Lyndon Johnson used to put visiting dignitaries at unease by insisting on talking to him while Johnson was seated on the commode doing his duty.
“S.O.B” was one of JFK’s favorite epithets, and he sometimes said it openly.
And does anybody really believe any of these politicians have coherent strategies? Remember Hillary Clinton’s horrific mishandling of the war on Libya? Remember her laughing about Khaddaffi’s death-by-torture? Does anybody really think Cruz is serious about his flat tax? He isn’t, and he knows he isn’t. Kasich, I think, is probably capable of actually having coherent policy positions. But I don’t think anyone else does.
So Trump speaks generalities about “making America great again” without having a coherent policy statement like those who purport to have them, but really don’t. Next January, somebody will be in the White House, in charge of the massive thing we call the federal government; as irresponsible and wasteful an organization as ever existed on this planet.
Are we really going to put a person in it who has sold out her country for the sake of garnering millions for her husband’s speeches, and could engineer the biggest sellout this country ever saw? What’s the “speech price” to Saudi Arabia for sending a U.S. cruise missile into Iran or sinking an Iranian ship bound for Yemen? When it came time for Obama to buy her, did anybody really not know why she wanted Secretary of State? Or are we going to put in a person who talks a lot about the Constitution and flat taxes and Christianity but has exhibited no expertise in doing anything except winning elections by doing it? Maybe we’ll hire an actual manager this time instead. For my money, the only ones who imaginably fit that description now are Kasich and (oh yes) Trump.
