Monday, February 8, 2016

Dealing with yet another yuuuuge win!

Like a few other folks, I've been caught up in the political train wreck that has been playing out the last few months as establishment politicians and a trio of outsiders on the right have offered up a dandy circus of promises and insults filled with xenophobic, misogynistic and racist taunts and tirades.

Their supporters say they're simply telling it like it is, political correctness be damned!

So taking a few ideas from a playbook that was last used successfully in Germany in the 1930s, a few of the candidates and their handlers seemed to quickly understand that the best political strategy in this brave new world is to make stuff up. In political and practical terms that means lying. To make it all believable, simply keep repeating the lie as often and as loudly as possible.

That's what the guy with the orange hair and yuuuge ego did for months, yakking away with the attention span of a toddler. He spent his time in front of yuuuuge crowds, making absurd promises -- Mexico is going to pay to build a wall to keep out all the murderers and rapists they're sending our way -- and tossing out meaningless rhetoric that he was the best, the brightest, the richest, smartest and most likable candidate hanging out near the fringes of the Grand Old Party! 

Oh, and he made sure to mention at every opportunity that he was a winner, a yuuuuge winner; winning all the polls with big numbers, winning really, really big.

Spoiler alert! The Donald didn't win in Iowa. He lost really, really big. In fact, he just managed to hold onto the second spot and, ironically, was beaten by the one person, Ted Cruz, who is loathed even more then Trump by establishment Republicans and members of the rank and file falling anywhere at all to the left of Attila the Hun.

Predictably, Trump managed to spin his second-place finish into yet another yuuuuge win, telling just about anyone willing to listen that beating out eight, 10, 12 or so other candidates was a mighty accomplishment. In fact, it was a decent showing, except for the fact he had been promising and expecting nothing less then total victory.

Which brings us to New Hampshire, the first state to hold a presidential primary this election season. Trump is leading in the polls and made it clear in last Saturday's GOP debate that he -- and all of us --  will win; win and win and win until we're tired of winning.

Given such high hopes, filled with bombast and hot air, I fear he's probably right, at least for himself and his legion of supporters. He's likely going to walk away with the most votes on Tuesday. Which means the rest of us will be walking away from New Hampshire, at least metaphorically, with a mighty headache and a yuuuuge case of  indigestion.

Stay tuned!