One Less Nut

An editorial in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch on anti-feminist gadfly Phyllis Schlafly who died yesterday at 92, said that she was, among other things, a successful businesswoman.

But doesn't a successful businesswoman or businessman actually make money? Ha! Not Phyllis – she went to her grave proud of her oft-stated swank that she never had a paying job after she married – that she didn't need to – that the men in her life were willing to provide for her.

Which is great when you come from a perfect family with plenty of money (or at least as much as is needed to get by without worries) or even marry into such an arrangement. Or, as in Schlafly's case, both.

'Course, the fact is, not every family is perfect like Phyllis'. Some people – some WOMEN – have to WORK for a living. Not every woman is born with a silver spoon in her mouth, enabling her to run off on any crazed, half-cocked endeavor, political or otherwise, no matter how looney such endeavor appears to be. And the case of The Woman Who Said Housewives Should Stay in The House But Didn't Do So Herself was pretty looney. But it was really more than that – it was absolute hypocrisy.

And that was Phyllis Schlafly in a nut- (and I do mean "nut") shell – your classic far right, holier-than-thou hypocrite.

They hate gays until one springs up in the family.

They hate abortion until their 15-year-old daughter is raped.

They hate guns until a loved one is a victim of our too-loose gun laws.

Phyllis Schlafly most likely had plenty of hate in her, with most of it, obviously, reserved for women – that is, women besides herself.

Given that at the height of its potential power in the 1970s when the push for equal pay for both sexes could have taken root, it could be said today that Schlafly – who fought AGAINST this idea at the time – was instrumental in pushing the movement BACK four decades. Appropriate enough for the woman who thought that the best thing to happen to a woman during her lifetime was the invention of the clothes dryer; who once said, "by getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape;" and in a final act of insanity, jumped on the Trump bandwagon. Pretty pathetic. They'll bury her later this week, along with her antiquated ideas about women, work and American culture in general. In Phyllis Schlafly's world, Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly and the rest of ladies at Fox News would just have to take it.

A sad legacy left by a despicable human being.

Hope

Throughout every election year there seems to be a recurring outcry: "Is this the best we can do?" Now that both party conventions have been completed, that plea takes on a more official, albeit more ominous sheen for this election year of 2016. Except that this year, I'm confident in my answer of "NO – it's NOT the best we can do." 

Let me take you back to June 22^nd of this year – just a few weeks ago – to the Democrat party's sit-in/protest over gun control legislation (of the lack thereof) that took place in the U.S. House of Representatives. Agree with the maneuver or not, agree with the politics or not, we saw and heard a series of 5-minute spiels from one seemingly smart, honest, passionate, capable politician after another. And I'd be willing to bet that on the Republican side of the house, there are also plenty of smart, honest, passionate, capable politicians – with no name recognition and no money – certainly not for the kind of high-powered financial run that a presidential bid requires.

Which is why I give Bernie Sanders a lot of credit, despite my general disdain of him. Sanders didn't have the name or the money, but he had the balls. One might instinctively say the same thing about Trump, but the fact is that Trump HAD the money and the name – which makes it pretty easy to have the balls.

Maybe there's a chance we'll wake up from the current nightmare to find Martin O'Malley and Paul Ryan at the top of their respective ballots – a couple of decent guys who, despite their own requisite faults, represent the mainstream interest of their parties with sincerity and passion. But they – or some heretofore unknown – will have to wait until next time. For now, we're stuck – with Hillary and Trump.

The Real Donald Trump

Belieeeeeve me, as Donald Trump likes to say, when I tell you that I'm still struggling with getting my head around the idea of Trump as the Republican nominee. Not because he actually made it this far – in a nation of morons consumed by Reality TV, this was bound to happen eventually. But more so out of fear for the future – the ultimate threat that a Trump presidency brings to the world – that on any given day, in his turret-syndrome like state of mind, he could blurt out something that might piss off some nuke-abled foreign dictator enough to cause said dictator to commence to firing, as it were. Sure, it probably won't be Russia's Putin, given the love that has sprung up between the two, but in the realm of national security, nothing is a sure thing.

So who, in truth, is this Trump guy?  The crowning affirmation of Fox News' 20-year mantra of "hate, hate, hate?"

He's a guy who flits about in his own 757 who claims the problems of America seem to stem from the elite. Really. He said this. And he's probably right. And he's one of them.

He's a guy who fancies himself a rebel, yet, with his first political decision, did the most politically expedient thing of all in naming Mike Pence as his VP candidate.

He's a guy who, I believe, has come to think that, thanks to his psychotic delusions, he is truly indestructible as a human being as well as being untouchable politically.

He's a guy whose juvenile, blustery behavior was, I'd long thought, that of a simple buffoon. But over this summer of our discontent, I've come to realize he's truly a psychopath who has no business being near that Red Button, despite any perceived business acumen.

Oh, yeah … his business acumen …

Fact: He's lost more money than he's made in his life.

Fact: 90% of his businesses have failed.

Fact: His father gave him $1 million to play with when he turned 18. Currently he's worth just under $5 billion, putting his net gain to date at around 5,000%. Sounds pretty good, right? However, I started at 18 with about $1 (like most people, probably), and I can tell you that my total assets, while not in the seven-figure range, are worth more than $5,000. (Many others, too, I bet.) Which makes many of us better business people than Trump.

And, by the way, rumor has it that early on, his father set him up with a lawyer who knew how to manipulate the tax code and bankruptcy laws to favor Trump. (Yes, Donald, you're right – the system IS rigged – and you're the biggest benefactor.)

That's the real Donald Trump. And now the Republicans are stuck with him.

"Exterminate all the Brutes."

It's been a long and painful wait, but after seven years of trying, following a proclamation early in the Obama presidency that his singular duty as a U.S. Senator would be to block the new president at every turn, 70-year-old Mitch McConnell may get his way. McConnell's vow to and block Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court may just succeed – much to the detriment of our nation, our democracy and the Constitution itself.

Hard to believe, but not everyone is enamored with the inclusive, progressive leadership Obama has delivered – old dinosaurs like McConnell are more abundant than you may think. And the truth is that there are factions in this nation who would take us back to a time when women couldn't vote, blacks were slaves and we had prohibition. Hell, we've had three presidential candidates in this current campaign cycle who would, on Day 1, shred the Constitution and rule by the Bible – a fine book for day-to-day personal guidance and inspiration, but not (so far) The Law of The Land. Incidentally, one of those revisionists is still in the hunt for the White House. But more on that later. Right now, Mitch McConnell and the old-timers have another problem, which could derail his attempt to stymie Obama.

Earlier this year, as this unbelievably horrid campaign for president really began to take shape, I figured Ted Cruz for the True Nut; that Donald Trump was just a buffoon who wanted nothing more than to bury China, or even own it. Yeah, the trade deficit with Mexico bothers him, too, but the easy solution to that would be to just make the damn place the 51^st state and OWN all those "brown ones," as George H. W. Bush so infamously referred to them. In a Trump administration, the so-called "social" issues would just fade away. Abortion? Second Amendment? Immigration? To hell with that boring stuff – it's time to make a deal, baby! That's Trump – and I've been counting on him.

Not Cruz, of course – the social agenda is at the top of his list. It's been clear as long as we've known of Cruz that this freak has been hell-bent – much like his long-disposed cohorts, Huckabee and Santorum – to shred the U.S. Constitution, hold the Bible aloft as the Law of the Land and, in doing so, take us back to 16^th Century England. And I still believe Cruz would do that.

That said, Trump revealed himself yesterday to be something more of a concern than first anticipated. His latest rantings about abortion and women and doctors are frightening, and one comes to realize that it's more than China that Trump wants in his back pocket. It's the whole world. If he could flip a switch and eliminate everyone on the planet except for a few choice requisite Trumpettes, he would. It's now obvious that Trump wants to be an undisputable king, even if there's nothing left over which to reign.

As his rants have risen to a new level, though, it's become more and more obvious that Trump may well, indeed, be out his element. Of late, his verbal meanderings have reminded me of the passage from Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," at which point Marlow realizes that Kurtz "could not have been more irretrievably lost than he was at this very moment, when the foundations of our intimacy were being laid – to endure – to endure – even to the end – even beyond."

Ah, yes … the intimacy. It was a disillusioning moment for Marlow when he discovered just how far around the bend Kurtz had gone. And it must be equally so for Trump disciples. Have they reached the tipping point yet? Or perhaps, the boiling point? Who knows? It seems as if we've been in this place before, only to see the madman escape. But now? As I ponder Donald Trump's fate, I must say that I'm torn.

On one hand, Democrats need Trump to enter the convention in Cleveland this July with enough primary votes to already have the nomination locked down upon arrival, given that polls show Hillary Clinton wiping the floor with the poor slob come The General in November. But on the other hand, I feel a macabre sensation about the upcoming GOP convention; a strange anticipation to witness history, what with the real possibility of an open convention.

Of course it helps that it's not my party. My party has its own share of troubles, but certainly not like they had back in '68 when the streets of Chicago became a war zone. And maybe that's why I'm filled with such curious anticipation – because I missed it the first time and always wished I could have been there, but that never again would we as a country witness such chaos. Though this year, we may – in Cleveland.

And that will disappoint about half of Trump's followers who actually believe the crap that spews from his mouth about abortion and the Bible and immigration and guns. But the other half … ah, the other half! They're going to be tickled, right down to their Klan-monogrammed underwear. They don't care which country The Donald buries, as long as he buries SOMEBODY.

Either way – open convention or not – there's a good chance Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee, and perhaps even president. Sad as that seems, there's consolation knowing that under a Trump regime, the survival of our U.S. Constitution – and the concept of a Land of Laws – is much more assured than it would be in the hands of backwards bumpkins like Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell.