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About the GOP debacle, err, debate
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Everyone has a story about their worst date ever. Mine was when I was in the military, and although while on that date I met my next girlfriend (that is a story for another time), it ended bad – real bad.
While I could easily get two columns off of that one day, I will skip to the finish. In an attempt to demean and insult me in front of the other couple we were with, my date blurted out, “You may not have very much class, but when you take someone out who does, you can act like you have a little.”
Let me just say that I did nothing classless that day – she was the one full of lies, innuendo and false bravado.
What dredged that less-than-splendid day up from my feeble memory banks was the most recent Republican debate – or more maybe it should be referred to as the most recent Republican debacle. If there was ever a case of not having any class but needing to act otherwise, this was it.
Except for John Kasich, the three stooges on the stage are about as presidential as I am skinny. As if the screaming matches were not enough, the discourse devolved into hand size and the size of other appendages. And these three want to be the Commander-in-Chief of the best nation the world has ever known?
I have resisted the urge to write about these ridiculous slugfests because I was sure by the time the column would hit the page that Donald Trump would be out of the race. But no matter who he offends, Trump’s Teflon coat seems to be getting thicker.
Just look at who he has slammed: Muslims, Latinos, Blacks, journalists, scientists, war veterans, doctors, Iowans, Seventh-Day Adventists, Asians, immigrants, the disabled and his competitors. Did I leave anyone out?
While watching a documentary about Adolph Hitler, I was stunned at the similarities between him and Trump, the most significant being Hitler blaming German’s problems on the Jews and Trump blaming immigrants for the woes of America. Both promised to make their countries great again with Hitler wanting Jews to wear special IDs and Trump wanting to do the same for Muslims with both proposing mass deportations.
Trump has some of the same goals Hitler did: mass deportations, promises that were impossible to keep, a desire to change the constitution for selfish reasons, a threat of war after taking power. Both also had similarities: no government leadership experience, the ability to draw crowds that get larger as time goes on, despite the ever-more outlandish insults; narcissism on a grand level and bashing of the media for simply telling the truth.
I am not suggesting that Trump is stockpiling Zyklon B gas while gathering blueprints for gas chambers and incinerators. But is it not obscene that parallels can be drawn between the most evil man the world has ever known and the leading Republican presidential candidate? And I am not the only one drawing the parallels, either.
Everyone has litmus tests that they employ in their lives. My litmus test for president is simple: where would we be today if the candidate in question was in office in October, 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Could you imagine Trump, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in that situation? This world would be a nuclear wasteland today. Because it is not about brash bravado – intelligence is required too. And if the intellect of those three stooges were compressed into dynamite, they could not blow their noses.
So to take the diatribe my date spewed during the Jimmy Carter administration and change it a bit, if you do not have the class it takes to run this great nation, do not try to act like you have any. Just do the world a favor and go away, far, far away. We will all be better for it.