Maybe you’re a Donald Trump supporter. But probably not. If you are a Trump fan, you’re celebrating. Because the Republican delegates at the National Convention just officially nominated him to be their 2016 contender, and why would you feel anything but bliss? Your TrumpTrain left the station. Your orange-haired god-king triumphed.
For the rest of us, July 19, 2016 will mark the end of the Grand Old Party. Even if you’re a liberal, a Democrat, a progressive, or a Socialist, you should nevertheless mourn.
The Republican Party didn’t get its nickname for nothing. This was the party founded by Abraham Lincoln, on the promise to end slavery. This was the Party of Dwight Eisenhower, the Party of Ronald Reagan. The Party of unabashed, unbiased celebration of freedom and democracy.
It saw Alexander Hamilton as its philosophical father.
It passed the Emancipation Proclamation.
It passed the Civil Rights Act.
And now it has passed its noble history to a standard-bearer who very likely doesn’t know a damn thing about any of that.
I’ve spent the better part of a year writing about Donald Trump’s unfitness for public office, much less (my G-d!) the presidency. At first, it was fun. In fact, my inaugural article was an imagined conversation with the failed steak salesman’s hair.
As the weeks wore on, Trump’s endless supply of racist, sexist, inflammatory remarks convinced me that he had NO chance of becoming the nominee. Even he didn’t think he could do better than double-digit polling, maybe a second place finish. Perhaps Trump dreamed of a prime place at the convention, to revive his flailing brand.
Jobs. Winning. Take Our Country Back. Crooked System. These words mean nothing because Trump knows nothing except how to self-promote his phony persona.
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And yet, week and after week, voters continued to indicate that they did not care. They did not care that he race-baited, that he took pleasure in publicly humiliating fellow Republicans. They did not care that he has a history of straight misogyny, and they did not care that he would force military members to break the law.
They did not care that he opened a debate by bringing up his penis size.
They did not care about anything except his empty, foolish promises.
Jobs. Winning. Take Our Country Back. Crooked System.
These words mean nothing, because Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
How is the man who makes his own ties and shirts in China going to “bring back jobs?”
How is the man who has been in bankruptcy four times, who has put dozens of small businesses under by reneging on contracts, who thought it prudent to purchase the New Jersey Generals, and who dodged the Vietnam Draft four times… how is that man going to “win?”
And just who, exactly, are we going to “take our country back” from?
Plus, you don’t send a crook in to fix a crooked system.
Since our other presidential option is a woman who got her start in politics by being married to a President, I now feel as though I’ve been transported to a noxious blend of Argentina by way of Italy. Like Cristina Kirchner and Silvio Berlusconi had a love child and named it “America 2016.”
I don’t have a Chevy, and it’s dry in Colorado, but if I did, you know what?
I’d drive it to the levy, and that levy would make the Serengeti look downright lush by comparison.
What a sad day for this country.