Gaffes, incompetence, and severe threats to national security

Good grief the list is long, the Trump campaign is almost comical at this moment in time. Whether Bob and Chez are correct that this is the short-fingered vulgarian's way of setting up a big comeback in the greatest reality show his incurious, lazy mind can dream up so the media will have a story for their "Trump rebound" narrative, or they really are the incompetent neophytes they look like is almost irrelevant. I hope beyond hope that it is the latter and the trend until election day really is American voters coming to their senses but if it isn't then we are in real danger. I speak of course about Russia.

American history has basically been the story of what happens when a nation is removed from serious outside threats from hostile nation-states. Our bloodiest war has been with ourselves and since The War of 1812 the U.S. has not been invaded by a major power. America has subjected other neighboring states to invasion, intimidation, or other interventions but the shoe has never really been on the other foot. Americans cannot understand, by and large, what it means to have your way of life threatened by a hostile power. Nuclear annihilation was a possibility but that is too big for anyone to really comprehend. The attacks of 9/11 gave us a glimpse into the reality other nations face and what could happen, but now that fifteen years have passed is not a living threat.

In a superpower with no real rivals, Hollywood has had to invent a North Korea that could invade the U.S. We are so far removed from imagining ourselves attacked, invaded, occupied, and actually losing our freedoms to a foreign power that Trump felt comfortable in acting as though his friend Vladimir Putin is a viable ally in his quest for the presidency. Whether calling for Russia to hack his opponent was just another childish bully taunt or Trump really is a captive or even willing vassal of Russian oligarchs and under orders from their president, the man is a menace and cannot be allowed near the oval office.

Jane Meyer wrote of the frustration many of us feel, while bloggers like me usually feel left out and powerless when watching events unfold after Trump made his plea to Russia to "find [Hillary's] emails" even sitting Democratic Senators were left wringing their hands in futility. Was this gaffe simply a "wild serve" that is either "so wild it was hard to tell if it was a mistake or a deliberate attempt to destabilize all of the accepted rules of the game". We mere citizens will probably never know. Even if American intelligence agencies actually find out the depth of collusion between Trump and Putin they are unlikely to tell us.

But now that the pandora's box of potential treason is open due to Trump's blab, no one can afford to ignore what this potential fascist dictator could do. I noticed several #NeverHillary types who have now thrown their hero under the bus refuse to admit even the possibility that Russian intelligence was behind the hack of DNC servers. They were far more interested in the content of the handful of emails that showed some staffers not warming up to Bernie Sanders, because, again they just couldn't drop their partisanship for the good of the country. The hacking isn't proven as yet, though the experts report that the possibility is very strong. The #Bernieorbust people were spoiled little children before, now that they side with Russia de facto in order to smear Hillary Clinton they have disqualified themselves from ever being taken seriously again. Ignoring such an attack on our sovereignty because you are too stupid to see past the three decade smear campaign against Secretary Clinton is a grave breach of ethics.

After this gaffe, the ties Paul Manafort of Trump's campaign has to Russia, the fact that Trump refuses to release his tax returns become not simply incompetence or the kind of bullying hypocritical behavior that says this candidate is above the law but evidence that the whole Trump campaign is an attempt to put a Russian puppet in the White House. What limit could there be to Trump's treachery? He would certainly bankrupt the federal government, waste military resources on futile adventures, open us to radical Islamic terrorism, and severely disrupt the economy. What else could a hostile power want? The open declaration of betraying allies? Oops, that box is checked too. Jane Meyer should interview Thomas Madden for more precedents of when an Empire of Trust begins to crack at its foundations. The ancient Romans may not have understood cyber warfare, but they definitely understood treason, political polarization, the threats that undermining alliances entailed, and how upstart populist demagogues can sweep the imaginations of the angry dispossessed masses into power.

The Bully in Chief

Let's be frank, Donald Trump is just another average Republican voter who happens to have property and wealth. He is ignorant, lazy, incurious, immature, paranoid and gullible, and thinks he is the most important thing in the universe. I don't know about you but I have met hundreds of these guys in my travels, combining the worst aspects of white supremacists with ignorant and superstitious peasants. They are quick to anger, irrational in action, and capable of believing anything as long as it confirms their biases. Trump was able to play King Dick among the bullies, beating down all challengers who tried straddling service to the economic elite with pandering to those same peasants by simply being who he is. He is one of them and that is why the peasants found him so attractive, therefore it is no wonder that Trump was the last one standing. But just as when rural folk come to the big city, now that Trump is in the general election it was inevitable that his bluster and hard-ass act would falter.

It only takes one trip to the big city for Joe Sixpack to realize that he is insignificant and the tough guy act does not work. An average redneck (just synonyms for peasant) may experience doubt and shame, then realize that he needs to tone it down and learn how things really work. Not Trump, first of all he was in the big city all of his life and has never butted up against reality. Never got his ass kicked figuratively or literally, never had to serve in the military (which also makes you a little fish in a big pond of other tough guys), or sacrifice anything. If a country boy tries to keep up the act in the big city the chances he gets killed, injured, or humiliated are pretty high. Now that Trump is not comfortably bullying everyone around him, he is experiencing doubts about his own power. Instead of shutting up and sitting down though, he is doubling down on the bullying and it has finally jumped the shark.

Which came first, calling on an even bigger bully to do the dirty work for him (Russian and her president/dictator Vladimir Putin), mocking and attacking Gold Star Parents, throwing a baby out of his rally, or claiming that the election is already rigged? It doesn't really matter, they are all symptoms of his recognition of limits to his power. In each instance, he or a surrogate did not admit a mistake or even just let the backfire go, they doubled down. You can read the work of psychologists that have written how everything Trump does is a dominance exercise, but anyone who has seen a bully work knows it when they see it. It drives him berserk when someone refuses to be scared, it will expose him as a fraud. Trump tried to be a bully with the Washington Post when he pulled their access, hoping the newspaper would roll over and beg for forgiveness but something interesting happened when they didn't. The Washington Post has simply kept writing about Trump unencumbered by the need to bend the knee or suck up to He, Trump. Consequently the Post's reporting on the race has become less sycophantic and that is a good thing.

Trump beat the other Republican contenders by threatening to blow their game. The Republican voters just want to beat on the poor, nonwhite, non-Christian, and non-conservative Americans. They want a bully who will do that, not cut taxes on the rich and make it easier for their boss to ship their jobs overseas. Which is what Republicans do, that is their nature, they just use the peasants to get into power. Trump dispensed with all the free market mythology, made his platform undisguised herrenvolk democracy, and was rewarded with the undying loyalty of every small town bully in America. Within the alienated, atomized bubble these bullies live in, anything is possible.

Luckily, outside that bubble people are starting to realize what a dope Trump really is. Beyond the hard core of bullies for Trump, enough people are questioning whether He, Trump really has their interests at heart or is just another con man trying to swindle them. To those of us paying attention it has always been an act performed by a reality TV star, the big lie confidence scam. But within that bubble the peasants eat up every word and believe that He, Trump will really kick ass on undocumented immigrants and ban Muslims, treat BLM like a terrorist group and bring their jobs back from China. The rest of us see a peasant, a rich one for sure, but still an incompetent buffoon. However dangerous his followers may be if organized, they will grow fewer in number with each passing day because peasants are not famous for their longevity.

We are likely to go through this ritual every four years now. There is simply not enough of a constituency for what the GOP is selling on the national stage and it will be increasingly hard to disguise the free market fundamentalism with wedge issues. It is also highly unlikely that, now that the bully lobby has had a taste of what fascism can do for them, the peasants will settle for lip service on their white supremacist issues from the likes of Scott Walker or Ted Cruz. The danger is that the next demagogue won't be as much of a peasant at Trump, or will be able to hire smart people to disguise it better.

In any case, Hillary Clinton and Democrats down the ticket have to run up the score. We need to turn out as many people to vote against Republicans as possible. Only by overwhelmingly defeating the small town bully peasants can we ever hope to make them get tired of politics to the point that they will only attack those few victims near them and leave us alone to fix their mess.