I can’t believe how “feckless” the GOP has been against Donald Trump. Lindsey Graham famously asked, “…how am I losing to these people”? Jeb Bush with his $100 million war chest spent millions in an attempt to best Donald Trump. Scott Walker who is well protected by the GOP Establishment’s Republican Guard was incompetent going up against Donald Trump.
How could the GOP be so ineffective? One factor is the GOP’’s 40 year campaign of lying about how the Government has been the enemy of all citizens. This strategy makes the GOP the purveyor of all things bad about America and a home to those who resist acknowledging anything good about this great nation. Republicans are in a constant state of belief that the government is against them and that the country has seen its better days.
Forty years is a long time to sustain such deceit and with the rise of Donald Trump, it doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon. Many of the loudest critics of our government are republicans who have been serving in some of the highest positions of government for well over 10 years. The prohibition on speaking positively about our government is the most stifling aspect of the GOP strategy. It reached fever pitch in the last 7 years. Negativity rules the day and over time it has become more and more venomous which leads us to the current crop of GOP candidates with their doomsday prognostications, childish insults, and smears about this great nation.
Marco Rubio, a young, up and coming politician who in a perfect world should have been able to run for president espousing a solid record of accomplishments achieved in his young career. However, Rubio is a product of that GOP strategy with tenets such as “hate the government” and “do absolutely nothing that could remotely support the Obama administration no matter the consequences”. Marco Rubio believed that being negative would get him elected because the GOP base loves sticking it to Barack Obama and it rewards any candidate for doing so. Rubio entered the presidential race with very few political accomplishments and one who barely showed up for the job he was elected to do. However, he met all of the GOP requirements for being elected, a negative message and visible hatred for Barack Obama. No one could curse the dark better than Marco Rubio. At least that’s what he thought until running into Donald Trump.
John Kasich wants us to believe that he is the positive candidate, the one who shines a light in the midst of all of the GOP chaos, however, look at his record as governor. You can’t be positive if you are attempting to rob everyday workers of their ability to bargain for the best possible returns on the time and effort they provide an employer. You can’t be positive if you desire to take away individual rights guaranteed by law because some group feels the behavior is wrong and even in some cases reprehensible. You can’t be positive when you enable one group to gain advantage by stifling or even outright suppressing the rights of others.
The GOP candidates messages can never be about what is good or how their visions would sustain what’s good and even improve upon it. They can never speak about what currently makes America great because that would involve giving credit to the Obama Administration and that is a mortal sin in GOP politics. This is the reason we have a campaign with the slogan, “Make America Great Again” when in fact America is one of the greatest nations on the face of the Earth. That same says loves to preach about how the U.S. is being flooded with immigrants. In whose reality does a flood of immigrants head to a country that is not great? This can only happen in the make-believe world of the GOP. So the GOP candidates including Kasich with his faux-positive message must campaign on increasing negativity which has gotten us to childish taunts, lies, denial, and schoolyard bullying.
How do you fight this? How do you fight a GOP strategy that has delivered Donald Trump? Quite Easily. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Root Cause Analysis can easily determine that the root cause of failures to contain and defeat Donald Trump is that all of his opponents have foolishly taken him seriously. The media willingly aids and abets by projecting him as being serious. They never challenge the seriousness or the truthfulness of any of the cockamamie that freely flows from Donald Trump’s mouth. By not challenging Donald Trump they are subtlety lending credence to what he says and over time it becomes credible no matter how foolish or ignorant it is.
A example of this is the ill prepared Chris Christie who had the unmitigated gall to comment during a debate that all of the GOP candidates were engaged in problem solving discussions, something you would never see on the Democratic. Christie made this comment even though Donald Trump had been uttering pure nonsense and adding nothing of consequence to the discussion. Christie didn’t understand the danger of treating the childish inputs offered by Trump as serious. He held firm to the GOP rules of engagement, every third sentence say something horrible about Barack Obama and never say anything ill of another republican. This destroyed Christie’s candidacy. He was eventually forced to descend into the depths of ignorance with Trump where no one can beat Donald Trump.
So what is the answer? The weapon to beat Donald Trump is simply laughter. Yes laughter. Whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth and boasts of something he clearly doesn’t have an understanding of, laugh. Laugh like the attendees at the recent AIPAC convention did when he boasted of having studied the Iran nuclear deal harder than anyone else (even though much of that deal is classified) (you should be laughing right now). Laugh when Donald Trump says that he knows more about that deal than anyone else. Laugh!
Why does laughter work? Because Donald Trump’s behavior is indicative of a pathological narcissist and there is nothing more aggravating or upsetting to a pathological narcissist than having someone not take him or what he does or says seriously. A pathological narcissist becomes quite agitated and immediately starts down a road of adaptive lying, rationalization, and justification when questioned or laughed at. Look at how he behaved when he was laughed at during the AIPAC convention and how agitated he became when Barack Obama roasted his foolishness at the White House Correspondence Dinner.
Descending into the depths of the crap cesspool where Donald Trump plays and where only he wins was and continues to be the wrong strategy to defeat him. At the start, had the GOP candidates treated Trump with a good dose of laughter during the debates, they would have had him tied in knots by now. It’s a mystery that everyone calls Donald Trump’s candidacy a clown show but at the same time they are willing to take the clown seriously. Sort of like saying Trump is a con man yet I will support him if he becomes the nominee.
Donald Trump’s candidacy is different. It is clear he does not know how this government operates. He especially doesn’t understand the differences between a business model and a government model. His supporters like to say they back him because he is a businessman and that he would bring that expertise to the Federal Government. Donald Trump and his supporters seem to be grossly ignorant of the fact that the Federal Government has spent millions of dollars transforming into a cost effective, efficient, and responsive enterprise. This effort started in 1996 with the passage of the Clinger-Cohen Act and Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 13011.
Trump’s opponents should have fought him with an asymmetric campaign that involved things like packing the debates and his campaign speeches with operatives who would break out in laughter whenever he boasted or said something ridiculous. If they had done this Donald Trump would have come unglued on that stage. It would have been a thing of beauty. Bush, Walker, Perry, and several others would still be in the race today. Instead they took Donald Trump seriously and now look at them. Cruz and Kasich still have a chance if they deploy the nuclear option of laughter but they will need to hurry and will also need help from the media.
In its role the media needs to get off of its lazy ass and challenge the foolishness of this pathological narcissist. Here are a few things it can do to help because the GOP candidates have their hands tied and some of the suggestions involve positive speech.
When Donald Trump says our country is not respected around the world anymore and that Barack Obama is kicked around by foreign leaders, first they need to laugh at that foolish statement and then proceed to mention facts like: Across 40 countries polled, a median of 65% say they have confidence in Obama to do the right thing in world affairs and only 27% lack confidence. It wouldn't hurt to let Trump know that the Europeans love Obama! Then say to Trump, if Barack Obama is such a feckless leader and not respected, then why the hell did 5 of the world’s strongest and influential countries including Russia and Iran, allow him to lead them in the Iran Nuclear Deal negotiations? Strong nations don’t allow feckless wimps to lead them. (Queue the laughter).
Next when Donald Trump talks about the Iran deal and how he knows more about it than anyone else. Queue the laughter. Rolling on the floor laughter. Whoever is speaking to Trump should inform him that much of the Iran deal is classified and that he does not have the necessary security clearance level to access this information nor does he have a “need to know”, therefore he can’t possibly know more than anyone else. To prove he doesn’t know much about the Iran deal, Donald Trump spouts off that we gave Iran $150 billion and that they are going to use it to fund terrorism around the world. Queue the laughter! First of all we didn’t give Iran $150 billion dollars. We lifted the embargo on Iranian financial assets allowing them to access in the neighborhood of $55 billion of frozen currency. Queue the rolling on the floor laughter. It is clear Donald Trump knows very little about that deal beyond soundbites he has heard in the media. Queue the laughter.
As for using the once embargoed funds for terrorism around the world, well, someone in the media should tell Donald Trump that since gaining access to those financial assets Iran has inked deals with Italy worth over $18 billion, signed 20 trade and construction agreements with France along with an agreement to supply 114 Airbus aircraft to Iran’s flagship carrier. Iran has signed 17 deals with China worth over $600 billion over the next 10 years for goods and services. Iran is seeking to renovate its national fleet by purchasing 80 to 90 aircraft yearly until the fleet is replenished at an estimated cost of $20 billion. They hope to purchase an equal number of aircraft from Airbus and Boeing however there are continuing problems that might hamper Boeing’s participation. At this point whoever is interviewing Donald Trump should ask him how much money is left for the poor terrorist? If you add up just the few commitments listed above it seems like Iran has run out of money already and is well on the road to becoming a “debtor” nation. Queue the laughter.
If Donald Trump really wants to make “America Great Again” he could do this. Boeing was once the largest supplier of civilian aircraft to Iran before the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. As a part of making America great again Donald Trump should commit to ensuring that Boeing once again becomes the leading supplier of civilian aircraft to Iran by removing any continuing obstacles and helping Boeing battle Airbus for shares of the aircraft provisioning market. But of course this would mean that he would have to say that Obama was right in dealing with Iran and GOP doctrine does not allow that. Queue the laughter.
Donald Trump likes to say that he is going to build a wall to keep out Foreign Nationals. This is intensified for Muslims by adding the stipulation that we ban all Muslims until we know what the hell we are doing. Well interestingly enough at the last debate he back-tracked on which Foreign Nationals his wall would block. It turns out that only Foreign Nationals coming to perform manual labor will be totally blocked while a little tiny door will be built in the wall to allow “high tech” Foreign Nationals to come in to support work efforts in Silicon Valley. What Donald Trump and his supporters are ignorant of is that a vast number of those high tech Foreign Nationals are Muslim, the very class of people he wants to ban from entering the country. Someone should suggest that Donald Trump tour areas of the Bay Area and Los Angeles where he would find entire mini-cities that completely mimic foreign countries. Queue the laughter.
Donald Trump likes to say that he knows how to solve problems and that is why he is going to be elected president. ROTFL If he is such a great problem solver, why didn’t he flow that knowledge down to his subordinates running his casinos and help them avoid bankrupting those businesses. After all, I’m sure that graduating from Trump Academy is a requirement for working at any Trump company. ROTFL
There are so many examples of where America is great and where Donald Trump should be laughed at, but I think the point is made. Now we must see if the GOP continueS to take what he says seriously and whether the media will for once start challenging him with facts. Chris Matthews will interview Donald Trump this week. Let’s see if Chris interviews him as a fan or as a serious investigative journalist bent on ferreting out what we need to know about this man seeking to run our government. That is a tall order for the media because many of those we rely on to bring us decision-quality information are themselves pathological narcissist. We will have to wait and see. If during that interview the audience hasn’t laughed at Donald Trump at least three times during the first 10 minutes then you can turn it off. We will know that Matthews care more about viewers, clicks, selling books, and continual access to Donald Trump than gleaning decision-quality information.
From the beginning the media was the first to stick its head up Donald Trump. The vultures smelled ratings and were eager and willing to treat Trump as a serious candidate. There have been times when some media outlets have cut-away from important news simply to show an empty podium awaiting the next volley of Trump’s childish insults. When someone in the media asks, “how did we devolve to where we are today”, just roll your eyes and move on. Or when the media says that Donald Trump is a “Teflon candidate”, just remember, it is the media that has been projecting Trump as a serious candidate.
We must all remember that Donald Trump is a pathological narcissist. When Trump talks about suffering or for that matter any of the GOP candidates, remember, none of these people have suffered. Especially in the past 8 years and especially in a nation where the laws and rules favor the elite and those in power. This is why they always have to make up some story about some distant relative many moons ago coming to this country and working day and night to get a foothold in this society and economy. The only one of those candidates with a legitimate story of struggle was Ben Carson whose great-great grandfather came to this country as a slave with no rights, where he and his descendants were treated as mules for two hundred years, set free without any of the resources and protections afforded the ancestors of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich. But it is against GOP rules for an African-American to speak about struggles even when he has to listen to the struggles of others.
Let’s get serious. Donald Trump is dangerous, especially for the average American. Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that his run for president is personal and has nothing to do with “making an already great nation” great again. However, average Americans are enamored by him and willing to surrender their votes to help him satisfy his ego. These same average Americans so easily forfeited their rights to effective bargaining power in the workplace by trusting the elites who ended up siding with employers. Now they are trusting a “billionaire” to address their grievances, again. Trump is no average Joe yet he has brilliantly packaged himself as such and the average American is falling for it.
Donald Trump is a vacuous candidate at best with hollow policy proposals and as such the wolves are stalking. The few policy proposals that he has are Trojan horses ripe for exploitation. The wolves will use a vacuous president like Donald Trump to their personal advantage and we will all end up paying the price. We must all awaken from this evangelical trance that keeps us thinking that everything is going to hell in a hand-basket and for once focus on the good of this great nation.