The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

>

The Donald held another massive rally, this timedrawing 6,000 fanatics in Atlanta last night, and it was disturbed by a protestor who allegedly "turned off the lights" during Trump's diatribe.

Realizing that Georgia's infrastructure leaves much to be desired, this event was held at the World Congress Center, not some college gymnasium. It would take some effort and coordination to hack into the lighting system at this massive complex. And if you saw the protester, he looked exactly like the stereotypical long-haired, middle-aged, hippie. If I were of a cynical nature, I would say the entire event was part of Ringmaser Trump's stage show. A bit of theatrics to further incite the zealots who follow him like crack-addicted zombies.

Once the illumination was restored, Trump then railed against the light. Completely unironically.

"'Oh, I like that much better,' Trump told the crowd inside Georgia World Congress Center. 'Those lights were brutal. Are they coming from the dishonest press?'

"According to NBC News, a protester had pulled a cable, turning them off. But when they came back on, the brash billionaire demanded that they remain off.

"'Don't turn the lights on!' Trump said. 'No, get those lights off. Off! Turn them off, they're too bright. Turn them off!'

"The real estate mogul tried to turn the situation with the lights into a teachable moment.

"'We save on electricity, right? And because the lights don't work, I won't pay the rent -- so, better lighting, and we don't pay the rent. That's the way we have to negotiate for our country ... the lights go off, it's better. We say we want the lights. Oh, it's terrible, we take a big deduction off the rent because the lights are off, but it's actually better. It's the kind of sick thinking we really need for our country.'

"Trump's rant came a day after his 10-point victory in the South Carolina primary -- a bludgeoning that led former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of Trump's favorite targets, to bow out of the race."

Speaking of being in the dark, GOP leadership is still head-scratching about Trump's unprecedented success. Although they have surpassed the head- scratching stage and advanced to hair-tearing and are rapidly approaching garment-rending. Frank Rich put it this way:

"After Donald Trump's victory in South Carolina, the GOP Establishment is left with what some political reporters have called 'an urgent decision: Either destroy Mr. Trump or embrace him.' At this point, which is the bigger challenge?

"Far and away the Establishment's bigger challenge is to destroy Trump. In the aftermath of South Carolina, that seems less likely than ever, and the magical thinking of the stop-Trump forces reeks of desperation.

"The conventional wisdom about taking him down can be found, as usual, in the Times Upshot column, which has segued from its early predictions of Trump's rapid demise to the scenario by which he will be vanquished by Marco Rubio. Under its theory of the case, as outlined after the South Carolina results came in, 'it is hard to overstate how important Mr. Bush's departure is to Mr. Rubio' because Bush's exit will bring 'a flood of endorsements and donations' to Rubio. And better still, Trump will soon lose his advantage of running against a divided Republican field. Really?

"If we've learned anything from the Trump ascendancy -- and to some extent from the Bernie Sanders movement -- it's that in 2016 neither endorsements nor big-donor money mean what they once did. Trump has had neither of these assets, and Bush had both, and we see how that turned out. Jeb's 'shock and awe' political campaign was no more successful at vanquishing his adversaries in a presidential election than his brother's 'shock and awe' bombing campaign succeeded in pacifying Iraq. Why would a new deployment of big-name endorsements and big-ticket donations work better for Rubio than Jeb

"The conviction in some quarters that Rubio can somehow overcome all this and save the GOP from Trump remains a mystery to me. On paper, it's easy to see why Rubio is the only contender with a real shot at beating Trump: The numbers show that he draws his support from a wider swath of the party than Cruz and the other non-Trumps do. But that's only on paper. As Trump might say, winning requires actual winning."