It's worth training your eyes and ears on TV screens across the U.S. What you'll see and hear is that the world has been saved--not just the U.S., but the world, if you consider the jubiliation displayed in words and pictures from around the globe. Yes, it's all rooted in the early-April Wisconsin primary, where, apparently, Trump Mania stalled and the moment arrived for "Cruz" to cruise.
If there is such a thing as a perfect storm, mark my words, the message you'll hear everywhere is that the Wisconsin setback for Trump can be compared to the effects felt by the vulnerable when the eye of a perfect storm only brushes the coast and leaves everything intact.
I sit approximately 10,000 miles away from the American political scene, but the way things have been represented in the last three months, especially when Trump was on a roll, makes me feel that even the deaf could tell how opinion about him is being twisted and fear about him being spread. A virtual smoke screen hung over the voters has kept out every thought except one: "What if Trump Wins"?
Having witnessed at least six campaigns in the past, I must say that the 2016 Republican primary battle is the first in which all the conventional norms have been challenged. To most of us, it might seem that the GOP establishment is being shaken up, that the outsider is making it big and that ways of doing things which were well thought out and repeated for centuries are now falling apart. No doubt this is all true, but much more important is the fact that the GOP, by the way it has set out to crush Trump, is now prepared to simply give away the 2016 elections to the Democrats. I have a question: Is it fair to manipulate opinion, run marathon campaigns, and beat drums to get rid of a candidate like Trump, who has hidden nothing and whose big mouth has already spoken his heart out? I bet you can't come up with another candidate on either the GOP or Democratic side who has been so above-board in speaking about any of today's big issues.
By contrast, the turn of fortune for Cruz is all fabricated, a massive effort from all sides to rally behind the single cause of dumping Trump. The primary campaign, which started with 17 candidates from Jeb Bush to Rubio, soon had Trump far out in front, where he stayed until the "Establishment" kicked in. I have to ask: What makes Trump so lethal across the Republican board? Is his mental state not "stable" enough to handle a world power like America? Is he a fascist hiding behind the mask of a businessman? Is he saying what Americans really feel about themselves and the world around them, but which the norms of the day prevent them from expressing? Such questions are worth exploring. I'd like to consider them one by one.
Lets start with immigration--by which I mean illegal immigration. Trump says he will build a big wall, for which he is called an extremist. Agreed. But how could you have even the concept of illegal immigration into any state, if stopping or curbing any border crossings is immoral? And how could there not be illegal immigration when every country has defined, by contrast, its own procedures for legal immigration? Is it the words Trump uses on this subject that seem "out of the norm" when compared to the way more conventional politicians say things? Or is the entire context of his position on immigration misplaced? The counter to Trump's position would be to remove all control over U.S. borders and welcome everyone into the waiting arms of the great Statue of Liberty. As an opponent to Trump, this is what Cruz should stand for, but he won't. All he will do, being the well-tamed politician he is, is to not say how he will keep immigrants out, but simply do it.
Now, on to Xenophobia, or Islamophobia. Most Americans see them as the same. Trump has taken the most heat for the ban he proposed on Muslims. Here are the words he used to explain the ban:
""Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."
Those words came after the fatal shootings at San Bernardino. Now, what if one rewrites Trump's statement as follows?: "Trump for ban on all Muslims." That's what a major global network in effect did. Here is the evidence from CNN's official site:
Now, flip the coin and see what you get with the responsible,
tamed Cruz. Here he goes with his ideas:
"We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized."
Interpreted, this means: While many of us may have believed that peaceful conflict resolution, interfaith harmony, and peace building can be achieved through dialogue, we were all wrong. To keep radicalism at bay, we have to allow the police to settle the score. But wait! Is more thoughtful elaboration coming to the rescue?
In an interview on CNN, Cruz said: "That does not mean targeting Muslims. It means targeting radical Islamic terrorism." I'll let the reader decide how much practical difference that shift really represents.
On the subject of the threat from ISIS, Cruz's views are worth reflecting upon, though hardly worthy of headlines:
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