I was scrolling around on Facebook tonight, keeping up with my social responsibilities as a public figure, and went over to the FB site of my author friend Robert McLane, a former combat Marine officer in Vietnam. Robert's sure nuff got a sense of humor, and yet he touches on some disturbing stuff. I have no idea where this dude is, or who. It doesn't matter. My friend has given him his 15 seconds of fame by association with Donald Trump.
He sure loves tassels. I see at least a Vietnam Service and Vietnam Campaign ribbon there. I'm sure this must be some dude at a Gay Pride Parade, or in some foolish movie, not remotely associated with Trump. I'm taking his probably-doesn't-have-a-clue insult to veterans pretty lightly after a lifetime of watching various degrees of stealing valor, particularly by civilians who denigrate individual veterans and veterans in general on behalf of their political agendas.
Trump, of course, is just monstrously stringing everybody along. He hasn't got the slightest intention of being President of the United States. Not even a man of his galactic-sized ego wants a job that pays $465,000 a year, not even what an average Division One head football coach makes, and less than twice the MLB minimum player contract, with at least a million headaches, and far, far too many employees to fire.
Trump is no more than a very rich real estate man cum entertainer. He has no deep game (unless it's quietly buying up Havana's top end, using his tawdry "political campaign" scam as a cover).
The vein that Donald Trump has hit, for the moment at least, in the American public is least-common-denominator post-modern venality. And he is being celebrated by a press that wallows in infomercialist venality.Some of the more serious news heads say tut tut, but let's face it, Trump as political entertainer crusading for, uh, whatever, SELLS.
Trump can't possibly be President. No utter non-diplomat can be US President. He knows that; everybody knows that.
And eventually, not when he retires from the campaign, but a year or two later, he'll tell us all that he really enjoyed it and thank everybody for playing along. Especially the mass media, because they will have made pretty good money from his game while it lasted. One way or another, Donald Trump is calculating how to make a maximum profit for what undoubtedly be a year or less of "serious" campaigning.
And eventually, not when he retires from the campaign, but a year or two later, he'll tell us all that he really enjoyed it and thank everybody for playing along. Especially the mass media, because they will have made pretty good money from his game while it lasted. One way or another, Donald Trump is calculating how to make a maximum profit for what undoubtedly be a year or less of "serious" campaigning.
I CAN conceive that inner Republican strategists may actually be thinking that no matter what real damage he does to the public discourse, and to people's already low esteem of politicians, Trump should be allowed to bash and blunder on so that the eventual candidate who emerges from the Republican Klown Kar will look reasonable next to people's perception of The Donald.
They're wrong, of course. Looking reasonable next to a Donald Trump is not going to win any Republicans a presidential election. More importantly, though, the damage (in which American citizens steeped in and overwhelmed by the venality of the mainstream media and the internet blogosphere alike, gleefully take part, but rarely acquiesce to) is enduring, while Donald Trump is no less an evanescent political phenomenon than Sarah Palin.
