The truth or consequences of a Donald Trump presidency

Donald Trump / Same as he ever was: Boastful, volatile, misogynistic,
race-baiting, willfully and strategically ignorant, exploitative fear-monger.

While listening to NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday and perusing the Sunday New York Times, the recurring themes of rage, violence and chaos at Donald Trump's campaign rallies caught my attention – jumped out at me. At nearly every event during the past week, from North Carolina to Illinois to Ohio to Missouri, non-violent protesters have been violently beaten, shoved, kicked and verbally abused by Trump supporters. The abused are often blacks, women, gays, immigrants. The abusers are always white. Candidate – and bully-in-chief – Trump has encouraged his supporters to do his bidding by attacking protesters, then claiming that his and his supporters' First Amendment freedom of speech rights are being trampled upon. It should come as no coincidence that this kind of incendiary behavior isn't seen at rallies by any other candidate running for president, Republican or Democrat.

"There's been nobody injured at my rallies: zero, zero. You're making it sound like everybody's broken down and injured. Give me a break," said Trump over the weekend, appearing on CNN. I guess The Donald's selective memory doesn't take into consideration the young North Carolina protester who was sucker-punched in the face by a Trump supporter – the same Trump supporter who later said afterward that maybe he'd have to "kill him" next time.

"While we have witnessed many divisive campaigns and candidates before, we've never seen such a volatile, social regressive political crusade as Trump's in modern American politics," writes Lincoln Blades in Rolling Stone. "Trump is giving all these hateful people a voice. He's done damage to the country that cannot be undone be merely losing this election."

Throughout many cities in America – among them Fayetteville, N.C., Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City – people are not standing passively while demagogues like Trump encourage violence against dissenters and advocates for the U.S. to commit war crimes. The protesters are peacefully speaking out against Trump's hateful and divisive rhetoric and extremist politics. It is Trump whose vitriolic comments have set the tone of conflict for his vile campaign. It is Trump who must own up and take responsibility for his actions. "Trump's base is so damn scary because it's not so much made up of people with shared policy ideas – it's more of a battalion filled with angry, mostly white folks who've been hungry for emancipation from the supposed scourges of political correctness and diversity," added Blades in his Rolling Stone article, "What Happens to America If Trump Loses?"

"Everything about Trump's campaign can be explained in terms of substance abuse: He's addicted to attention, demanding regular fixes and going to ever greater lengths – in terms of reckless statements and provocative acts – to get them," wrote Frank Bruni in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times this week. "Imagine what that would mean for a Trump presidency. His agenda wouldn't be conservative, moderate, liberal or for that matter coherent. It would be self-affirming and self-aggrandizing: whatever it takes to remain the focus of everyone's gaze, the syllable tumbling from everyone's lips. Trump, Trump, Trump."

Trump, in the words of New York Times Op-Ed columnist Ross Douthat, "is cut from a very different cloth. He's an authoritarian, not an ideologue, and his antecedents aren't Goldwater or McGovern; they're figures like George Wallace and Huey Long, with a side of the fictional Buzz Windrip from Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. No modern political party has nominated a candidate like this; no serious political party ever should."

Nothing makes Trump more acceptable today than yesterday or last week – or six months ago, writes Kathleen Parker, who pens a twice-weekly political and culture column for the Washington Post. "He is still a boastful, volatile, misogynistic, race-baiting, willfully and strategically ignorant, exploitative fear-monger who is guided by profit over principle and whose hair-trigger temperament has the world on edge."

Day after day, Trump has proven time and time again that he isn't like any other candidate running for President of the United States. Instead, the loud, rich and famous Trump marches to his own drummer and plays by his own rules while pathologically spewing lies and untruths to suit himself. He's leading us down a dark, hateful road. That's not leadership folks. That's tyranny.

Dignity for the highest office in the land and decorum be damned, Trump – the ultimate narcissist – doesn't possess an empathetic bone in his body. And, it's become quite obvious that he's no student of public policy or constitutional law, either. As Douthat notes: "A man so transparently unfit for office should not be placed before the American people as a candidate for president under any kind of imprimatur save his own."

Talking points memo to Mr. Trump after watching him – unscripted – spew out poll numbers and other unfettered nuggets of bigotry during a Monday afternoon campaign stop in Tampa, Florida: 1. Stop saying you're going to make America great again. America never stopped being a great nation. And, under President Obama's vision and leadership, it's been done without the hate and feat-mongering your tone of voice and actions exemplify. 2. We aren't going to send ground troops into a war against ISIS. I don't think you're going to find any military advisors who would advocate this ill-thought out strategy. By the way, just who are your military advisors? 3. For goodness sake, we don't need to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border to divide us from them. None of the other candidates are advocating the building of a "beautiful wall" that you want to stiff Mexico for the bill. Forget about it, Mr. Trump. Our borders are fine just the way they are now. Walls are for isolationists, and the U.S is certainly not going to enter into a 21st-century cold war with the world and become an isolationist country.

Trump has proven time and again to be a divider and not a uniter. His brand of demagoguery is dividing the U.S. by race, ethnicity, religion, and gender, barriers that Americans have fought hard to overcome during the past 50 years of our nation's history. Funny thing how Trump's bigotry and hatred are not being condemned by the Republican National Committee or Republicans in Congress, or for that matter by former Republican leaders, Republican governors, Republican CEOs and Republicans on Wall Street, as former U.S. Secretary of Labor-turned-academician Robert Reich pointed out on his Facebook page over the weekend.

On Monday, on the eve of key presidential primaries in Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke out against Trump, saying: "There's a history of demagogues calling those they disagree with 'terrorists' and using that as justification for intimidation and violence – and that history is ugly and dangerous. There's also a history of people staying quiet for too long, hoping for the best but watching silently as the threat metastasizes. Donald Trump is a bigger, uglier threat every day that goes by, and it's time for decent people everywhere – Republication, Democrat, Independent – to say 'No More Donald.' There's no virtue in silence."

The bottom line is this: Fascism has no place in America and, yet, those who support Trump – primarily uneducated, lower class white Americans – appear to be completely blind to this. C'mon, you can do better than be trapped in a sleazy reality TV show. Don't believe any politician who constantly says "Believe me" or tries to sell you raw meat or wine with his name branded on it. Mr. Trump is a terrible choice for our country and, by extension, the world.

We are defined by the choices we make. God help us all.

A narcissist, a liar, and a robot, all in search of power

Donald Trump /
His response is always denial and attack.

A narcissist, a liar, and a robot walk into a Houston debate hall last Thursday night. They are joined by a couple of wallflowers who can barely get in a word edgewise. The evening turns messy and muddled. There's little restraint. Definitely, there's no civility, and no issue is ever really settled.

"When we think of a debate about public policy, we assume facts, arguments, and logic," Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Univerisity of California, Berkeley, and former U.S. Labor Secretary, wrote on his Facebook page the morning after the latest Republican debate. "But Donald Trump uses none. ... Trump demonstrated once again that he has a handful of slogans and potted remarks on every subject, which he repeats time and again, interspersed with blather about how wonderful he is. When questioned about anything personal – his tax returns or a civil lawsuit against him or whatever – his response is always denial and attack."

I agree with Dr. Reich's common-sense thoughts and support his opinion. Trump has become the antipolitician, a misogynist whose racist, bigoted, and xenophobic campaign has appealed to his party's base. Trump would think nothing of governing by clobbering everyone who disagrees with him. 

In "A Governing Cancer of Our Time," published Friday, New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks wrote: "Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a group of people who are against politics. These groups – best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the right – want to elect people who have no political experience. They want 'outsiders.' They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They're willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision-making if it helps them gain power."

Brooks continues: "Ultimately, they don't recognize other people. They suffer from a form of political narcissism, in which they don't accept the legitimacy of other interests and opinions. They don't recognize restraints. They want total victories for themselves and their doctrine."

And so you have it, thanks to Messrs. Trump, Cruz, and Rubio, Republican politicians have, in the words of Dr. Reich, "descended into the muck of bigotry, hatefulness, and lies. They're splitting America by race, ethnicity and religion." Further, they are making soaring promises and raising ridiculous expectations. They are all power hungry, yet each wants to deconstruct the U.S. government and isolate us from the outside world at large. Collectively, they love the sound of their own voices – mind you, each is void of any empathy – and those three voices are filled so full of hate and cynicism. To hear each of them during a debate or on the stump, the U.S. has gone to hell and been one big failure over the past seven-plus years under the Obama stewardship of the presidency. They are preaching fear instead of hope to the masses. Their bashing-style rhetoric makes coherent conversation impossible. During Thursday's Republican debate in Houston, candidates Kasich and Carson might as well not even shown up. Their voices were drowned out by the louder and more boisterous voices belonging to Trump, Cruz, and Rubio. Very soon, I wouldn't be surprised if Kasich and Carson become the latest to "suspend" their presidential campaigns.

Survival of the fittest? More like, it's survival of the loudest. All that's missing is Trump's boisterous "You're fired!" that he made famous on his own reality TV series "The Apprentice." Memo to Mr. Trump: This is not reality TV, this is real life. Thanks to demagogues like you, in the words of Dr. Reich, "the moral authority that America once had as a beacon of democracy and common sense is in jeopardy."

"Trump's style is bashing and pummeling," writes Brooks. "Everyone who opposes or disagrees with him is an idiot, a moron or a loser. The implied promise of his campaign is that he will come to Washington and bully his way through." 

Donald Trump /
Do we really want an authoritarian for president?

So, we should ask ourselves: Do we really want an authoritarian for president – a fascist in bespoke suits with a hairstyle that Vanity Fair once described as an "inanimate object that straddles his scalp like a dead, furry lobster" – who would think nothing of insulting world leaders by calling them idiots, morons or losers, and who loves to quote another fascist, Mussolini, because he loves to associate himself with great quotes? Or, for that matter, can either Cruz or Rubio – both very ineffective and unpopular legislators in the U.S. Senate, who lately have been notably absent from their Capitol Hill duties – be worthy of our vote or trusted to carry the "nuclear football" as commander in chief? I truly would be very scared – not to mention very, very much disappointed in my country – if any of the three leading Republican contenders is elected as our next president. It's important to remember that with opportunity comes responsibility.

Thank goodness, on the Democratic side Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, despite their perceived flaws, are discussing issues of substance and importance that really matter in our lives – health care and climate change, among them. Neither of them is an idiot, a moron or a loser – and I would be very comfortable, not to mention very much relieved, with either Hillary or Bernie as our next president. Both of them would be a worthy successor to Barack Obama.

Today's Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses will further define the Republican field. Or will it? God help us all.