Donald Trump & the Vengeance Election

A guy I used to work with asked me a couple of weeks ago what I had against Donald Trump.  “C’mon, Bill, get with the program,” he urged.  My problem isn’t Trump.  It’s so many of his loyalists who can find no blemishes with their candidate.  Many are vicious in attacking his remaining opponents in the Republican Party.  Had Trump never announced would these same people be on the Ted Cruz bandwagon?  Instead they smear Cruz and defend the attacks by citing Michael Savage or some other madman with a microphone (I’ve got one of those but not nearly as large as Savage’s and Trump claims his is the biggest).

Cruz wasn’t my first choice.  The others all dropped out and nobody knows who any of the candidates in the Libertarian or Constitution parties are and I don’t need to hear about Gary Johnson.  Being a former Governor of New Mexico doesn’t create the charisma a movement needs.  Sorry, folks, but he’s not a serious option in 2016.

Trump oozes charisma.  At least for some.  The latest attempts from the left to provoke a fight are being blamed on the candidate.  This morning Bernie Sanders was on ABC’s This Week and denied he helped organize Friday’s protest in Chicago, although.  I didn’t hear anyone demanding Bernie denounce the angry leftist crowd.  Trump didn’t seek any endorsements from the Ku Klux Klan but media still spent one week insisting he denounce a mostly defunct organization.

Saturday night President Obama again blamed white America for the latest troubles.  While he didn’t say anything about bitter people clinging to God and guns he did disparage tens of millions of his countrymen.  The President railed against their opposition to illegal immigrants and Syrian Muslim refugees.  He’s telling more than half of America watching jobs and a future slip away that breaking laws to come to the United States isn’t serious.  As he has no respect for the law why should anyone respect him?  He also continues in his refusal to address public concerns about domestic terrorism.  His view, and it’s shared by fellow travelers in media and his party, is periodic terrorist attacks are acceptable losses.  Unless the terrorists are poor and white.

If there’s any fear at the moment among the establishment it’s the fear of Trump.  He threatens the devious schemes of the party of amnesty, abortion and anarchy.  He also threatens the Republicans who’ve quietly colluded with the Triple A Party because GOP leaders found it personally profitable.  The establishment on the right is no less frightened of Trump leading a revolution.

A great many of my friends and acquaintances have been aboard the Trump Train since last summer.  Why didn’t I buy a ticket?  Because even if Trump is serious in his pledge to Make America Great Again he’ll learn the meaning of obstruction and inertia when he gets to Washington.  He’ll have few media and political allies and if this weekend is any indication his life will always be in danger.  The battles in the street will intensify and then Trump will find he has few options but to call in the troops.  Will they come?  If they do come to whom will they owe allegiance?  Will the military ride to the rescue and then find once order is imposed it likes the feel of the new role?

When I was in college I watched a TV movie about the Roman effort to dislodge Jews from the redoubt at Masada.  When the Roman officers struggled in playing their own version of King-of-the-Mountain the legionnaires would then repeatedly shout the victor’s name.  “Silva!  Silva!  Silva!” they roared as Peter O’Toole’s character won the day.  Saturday morning I watched a Trump rally from Dayton, Ohio.  “Trump!  Trump!  Trump!”

This isn’t the Angry Election.  It’s the Vengeance Election.