Tag Archives: GOP

The GOP’s moral rot is the problem, not Trump & Co.

VIEW FROM THE RIGHT

by Jennifer Rubin

WASHINGTON – The key insight from a week of gobsmacking revelations is not that the Russia scandal may finally have an underlying crime but that, as The New York Times’ David Brooks suggests, “over the past few generations the Trump family built an enveloping culture that is beyond good and evil.” (Remember when the media collectively oohed and ahhed that, “Say what you will about Donald Trump, but his kids are great!” Add that to the heap of inane media narratives that helped normalize Trump to the voters.)

We now see that, sure enough, the Trump legal team (the fastest-growing segment of the economy) has trouble restraining its clients, explaining away initial, false explanations and preventing self-incriminating statements. (The biggest trouble, of course, is that the president lied that this is all “fake news” and arguably committed obstruction of justice to hide his campaign team’s misdeeds.)

We have always had in our political culture narcissists, ideologues and flimflammers, but it took the 21st-century GOP to put one in the White House.

Let me suggest the real problem is not the Trump family, but the GOP.

To paraphrase Brooks, “It takes generations to hammer ethical considerations out of a [party’s] mind and to replace them entirely with the ruthless logic of winning and losing.” Again, to borrow from Brooks, beyond partisanship the GOP evidences “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code.”

Let’s dispense with the “Democrats are just as bad” defense.

First, I don’t much care; we collectively face a party in charge of virtually the entire federal government and the vast majority of statehouses and governorships. It’s that party’s inner moral rot that must concern us for now.

Second, it’s simply not true, and saying so reveals the origin of the problem — a “woe is me” sense of victimhood that grossly exaggerates the opposition’s ills and in turn justifies its own egregious political judgments and rhetoric. If the GOP had not become unhinged about the Clintons, would it have rationalized Trump as the lesser of two evils? Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.

Indeed, for decades now, demonization — of gays, immigrants, Democrats, the media, feminists, etc. — has been the animating spirit behind much of the right.

Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.

It has distorted its assessment of reality, giving us anti-immigrant hysteria, promulgating disrespect for the law (how many “respectable” conservatives suggested disregarding the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage?), elevating Fox News hosts’ blatantly false propaganda as the counterweight to liberal media bias and preventing serious policy debate.

For seven years, the party vilified Obamacare without an accurate assessment of its faults and feasible alternative plans. “Obama bad” or “Clinton bad” became the only credo — leaving the party, as Brooks said of the Trump clan, with “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code” — and no coherent policies for governing.

We have always had in our political culture narcissists, ideologues and flimflammers, but it took the 21st-century GOP to put one in the White House.

It took elected leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and the Republican National Committee (not to mention its donors and activists) to wave off Trump’s racists attacks on a federal judge, blatant lies about everything from 9/11 to his own involvement in birtherism, replete evidence of disloyalty to America (i.e. Trump’s “Russia first” policies), misogyny, Islamophobia, ongoing potential violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause (along with a mass of conflicts of interests), firing of an FBI director, and now, evidence that the campaign was willing to enlist a foreign power to defeat Clinton in the presidential election.

Out of its collective sense of victimhood came the GOP’s disdain for not just intellectuals but also intellectualism, science, Economics 101, history and constitutional fidelity.

If the Trump children became slaves to money and to their father’s unbridled ego, then the GOP became slaves to its own demons and false narratives.

A party that has to deny climate change and insist “illegal” immigrants are creating a crime wave — because that is what “conservatives” must believe, since liberals do not — is a party that will deny Trump’s complicity in gross misconduct.

It’s a party as unfit to govern as Trump is unfit to occupy the White House. It’s not by accident that Trump chose to inhabit the party that has defined itself in opposition to reality and to any “external moral truth or ethical code.” §

Jennifer Rubin is a Washington Post columnist, writing from a conservative perspective. Follow NJ.com Opinion on Twitter@NJ_Opinion. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. This article is displayed with permission from NJ.com

TRUMP THE PRIME PUSSY MONGER

comment-pussy-grabber

by Dell Franklin

As a rule, America men, with their avid appetite for pussy, idolize a successful pussy monger, and certainly the Donald fills that role, especially since he is a celebrity, or in his own words a “star,” and let’s face it, the stars get all the prime pussy in America, and possibly everywhere else.

As boys, all we could talk about was pussy, and it was everywhere to entice and torment us. We accumulated playing cards of naked women, and Playboy Magazine centerfolds, and hid them in places mothers could not find so we could worship the kind of gorgeous pussy the Donald claims he can paw and grope with impunity because he’s a star, a born star bred by his parents to be a star and quickly shooting to star status by becoming a self-publicized real estate tycoon fucking over anybody in his way, another trait to be idolized by American males.

Well, it used to be that the real stars in our realm copped the prime pussy, like say, movie stars, rock stars, like Mick Jagger and Tom Jones, and famous cocks-men like Marlon Brando and Warren Beatty and Richard Burton and Clark Gable and Errol Flynn, these Adonises playing romantic roles and getting to make out with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe….

The Dynamic Donald has an endorser in perhaps the greatest quarterback ever to play pro football, Tom Brady, who refused to go to the White House when the Patriots won the Super Bowl, a snub of our first black president, and perhaps an overture to his fellow conqueror of prime pussy, Donald Trump, to run for our nation’s highest office and lead the world.

Yeah, Brady married a world-famous supermodel, and they have beautiful children, and live in a modern castle, and he’s kind of an arrogant snotty asshole, but good lord, there is no evidence this deservedly heralded jock engages in the kind of so-called locker room boasting of the Donald, who claims that he can “paw up and grope prime pussy” anytime he wants because he’s a star.

Brady and most professional athletes, rock stars and movie idols, do not have to engage in this kind of talk or action because the pussy paws THEM up, waits for them like vultures in hotel lobbies and entertainment venues to throw themselves at these most beautiful of male hides. Meanwhile, the bloated, scowling Donald, with his mane of fluorescent straw and corpulent torso and sagging neck, foists his repulsive self upon prime pussy because he believes they, like everybody and everything else, owe him. He’s America’s foremost “taker,” rampaging through our prime pussy and institutions and laws like Attila the Hun.

To Donald and his ilk go the spoils of victory in America, where the rich and famous are transported in personal limos and jets, eat the most sumptuous gourmet food and sip uber-expensive bottles of wine, own castles here and there, and, most important, have an unwritten license to fuck the best pussy they can grab.

Looking back, as a kid, it was all about pussy—who and how much one could get—but there were always barriers as we grew up. As the gals became more accessible, you had to talk to them, charm and impress them, convince them you were witty and sexy and manly and important with your life and plans, and maybe you could get them drunk to further break down the barriers, but it was always up to them if they wanted to share their pussy with you, and maybe their hearts, and the game went on and on in our great organ-hounding grab-bags known as bars and pubs and nightclubs, but it was a wonderful, joyous though sometimes disappointing game, to be played among those desiring a kind of gratification with one another that goes beyond pussy mongering, beyond the groping and pawing by an entitled and feral criminal who essentially pays for his pussy like a rich vulture whose real satisfaction must be of conquest rather than the joy of having a delightful woman of substance and character sincerely wanting you for you. §

Dell Franklin once was blamed by a reader for the demise of the print version of The Rogue Voice because, she said, “He’s a pervert.” We know without a doubt she’s wrong, she has no proof, and is probably part of some vast right-wing conspiracy to discredit him.

Trump: America’s love of bullies

We have turned to Donald Trump, a born bully totally lacking in soul or humanity for anybody but his own flock.

We have turned to Donald Trump, a born bully totally lacking in soul or humanity for anybody but his own flock.

by Dell Franklin

The wild throng of Hillary haters at the Republican presidential convention is wildly reminiscent of the packed houses and stadiums where Adolph Hitler spewed inflammatory demagoguery and scapegoating that turned an entire nation against Jews and people who were not white or purely German and led to the saddest, most demonic era in the history of the world.

“Heil Hitler! Jail Hillary!” Same thing.

The faces of what appears a 98 percent white crowd are clenched and inflamed with hatred, prime prey for a messianic bully to lead them to the promised land, which was their once-white country where “niggers and ‘spics and queers” had no voice or chance to get ahead, and knew their place if they wanted a few crumbs to survive on. They were all, like Native Americans, victims of the bullying white race with its fanatic religion and rage to control and dominate.

Whites, with capitalism, supposedly a partner of “democracy,” and the desire to amass fortunes, build personal castles, gouge out territory, and plunder the environment, could subjugate and keep the minority masses down. Capitalism and greedy whites trampled democracy, and so what we have today is the disgraceful, absurd and embarrassing Republican convention to show the world just what a bunch of failures and petulant whiners we are—a reflection of our system.

To salvage this mess of a country, which has actually thrived after George W. Bush single-handedly imperiled it, we have turned to Donald Trump, a born bully totally lacking in soul or humanity for anybody but his own flock.

***

There are three ways of dealing with bullies, and you learn this at a pretty early age. First, you can knuckle under and join the bully as a cowardly sycophant and indulge in some bullying of your own. Second, you can go out of your way to avoid the bully so you never have to be confronted by him and be exposed as a coward. Third, if he is bigger and older and stronger and crueler than you, find a way to beat the living hell out of him.

Because the Republican primary was supposed to be about issues, policy and civility, the 15 sycophants running against Trump had no idea of how to deal with his incessant bullying and demeaning of their persons, and one by one they crumpled in disgrace, powerless in their political correctness not to walk over and bitch slap or knock him on his ass.

I’m positive if any one of these weasels, and especially the newest sycophant, Chris Christie, would have punched him, he would have garnered more than 2 percent of the vote. None of them had anything to lose, even the biggest pussy, Jeb Bush.

***

Congratulations to the GOP for scouring the country to dig up a handful of angry bible-spouting black pastors and police captains to spout over-the-top vitriol, these so-called speakers evidently culled from our black populace to show us that the Republican Party cares about them, especially after rolling back voting rights in every black stronghold. What the GOP haters are really saying behind their backs is—“you fuckers had your chance with your Muslim nigger Obama, now we’re taking over! Because white is right!”

***

I’m sure Latinos and black folks were impressed with the roll out of the preppie Trump clan, scrubbed and polished and so shiny they resembled something hoisted out of a wax museum, talking about how great America is, and how great its been to them, and, like their Dad, inheritors of millions, sent to the most prestigious schools, the sons, who have never served in the military, taking on trophy wives like dad, the daughter looking like a trophy wife, all bragging about how wonderful their father is and how he loves America and wants to help the citizens he’s been fleecing and conning for decades.

***

Mike Pence, who reminds us of one of those guys who was a professional politician in junior high and kept working at it by being religious and conservative and careful and proper and bland, and landed the vice presidential slot, is perfect for Trump—he’s smaller and looks tiny beside Trump, and he’s got that helmet of white nary-hair-out-place hair compared to Donald’s billowy mane, and he is so utterly dull and ordinary and conforming that Donald kissed him for his fawning mediocrity, recognizing immediately the perfect toady for a bully.

***

Lining up behind Trump are especially nasty and mean-spirited fellow bullies like Christie, Giuliani, and snide Newt Gingrich, all salivating to run Trump’s show, like a lingering disease that will not go away. I’m sure the cowardly chickenhawks who started the Iraqi war are licking their chops, as well as some military brass always spoiling to flex their muscles and in the name of American greatness sending troops from the under-classes into battle while we sport ribbons and praise their courage.

Yeh, the Republican Party is the white bully party, the tough guys, the law-and-order, war-mongering, super-patriotic, gun-toting bible-beaters, the screeching, hating, anti-abortion-obsessed women, and they’ve got their man, the perfect bully to line up behind and flex their dwindling power as sad, sad human beings floundering around in the greatest so-called country in the world, the greatest country ever.

***

Congratulations to Cleveland for turning their city into a police state so as not to expose us as a racist nation.

***

Since Donald Trump has threatened NATO and promised to undue our nuclear pact with Iran, I guess it is natural he and his tribes feel it doesn’t matter that most of the civilized Western world thinks we’ve lost our minds and have become downright stupid and dangerous.

***

If this country elects Trump as president, we will deserve everything we get, especially when those who clamored for his success riot to impeach him within a year into his first term—when they realize Trump is no more than a corporate entity taking what it feels is its due as the superior race. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., and will punch out any bully who wants to Make America White Again. Visit his website: dellfranklin.com

Old rumpled Bernie v. King Donald

Differences between earning one’s way and growing up with privilege

by Dell Franklin

Bernie worked at some shitty jobs and became involved in civil rights. He was probably not good at shitty jobs, not with his mind on social causes and politics.

Bernie worked at some shitty jobs and became involved in civil rights. He was probably not good at shitty jobs, not with his mind on social causes and politics.

Bernie, child of immigrants, is one of those old hippies who really believed in the cause and eschewed the future white picket fence, the Mercedes, the plush suburb that inevitably proved too irresistible to fellow marchers who were in it to avoid the war, find good drugs, and get laid. Bernie is a true believer, a crusader who early on felt the tug of compassion for the struggling, miserable underclasses and the unfairness of their plights.

The Donald was born into wealth and power and liked it. He came up the hard way, educated at Wharton business school and his father donating him a paltry million to start his own real estate business. The Donald knew early on who to browbeat and who to patronize and schmooze and who to more or less legally bribe (red baiter Roy Cohen) to get things done and make his billions. The Donald believed in greed and embraced the life of glitter and luxury.

The Donald was born into wealth and power and liked it.

The Donald was born into wealth and power and liked it.

Bernie worked at some shitty jobs and became involved in civil rights. He was probably not good at shitty jobs, not with his mind on social causes and politics. He did not fit the sleek image of an Ivy League charmer or smoothie, this rumpled balding figure with a deep Brooklyn accent, an abrasive finger pointer and exclaimer, out to charm no one but dead set on change and getting things done.

The Donald was this sort of handsome ladies man with the flowing hair never out of place and as carefully tended to as a plant in the White House Rose Garden. He accumulated friends in high places and feathered their nests and bankrolled tall buildings with high rents and acquired his own jet plane and married a statuesque model with high cheekbones.

Bernie kept running for office and kept losing and finally became mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in a 10-point victory and served two terms, built affordable housing, revitalized the infrastructure, started women’s programs and, despite looking like a ragamuffin, gained the confidence of the state’s voters as a politician of the people.

The Donald erected and opened casinos in Atlantic City that were all the rage and had everybody cashing in until the economy fell apart and he watched them go bust, scuttled out of the city while the city went broke and was left holding the bag, people out of work, the boardwalk dead, the Donald managing a bankruptcy that had him coming out smelling like a rose.

Bernie, a divorcee, married a portly cheerful Irish lady who worked as a bank teller and supermarket cashier and eventual community organizer with the same interests and crusades as he, and won himself a seat in Congress where he continued to vociferously push his causes.

Donald got divorced and married another statuesque model with high cheekbones and nurtured his sons in the business and on the side became the star of a reality show where he sat on a throne like a king and either pointed thumbs down or up when choosing what greed obsessed, fawning acolyte he would hire in his own business. His abrupt, arbitrary, ruthless treatment of losers and mild praise of winners soared in popularity and he became such a celebrity he hinted of running for president.

Bernie got elected to the Senate and voted against tax cuts and the war in Iraq while continuing to push for his causes as an independent/socialist in the manner of his idol, Eugene Debs. Or perhaps Upton Sinclair.

The Donald got divorced again and married another statuesque model with high cheek bones and, meanwhile, became so rich and powerful and popular that he saw fit to continue the rumor of his running for president and started the rumor that America’s first black president, Barack Obama, was some sort of Kenyan not born in the United States and was not really an American, nor much of a Christian, which leant to nearly half of all fellow Republicans believing Obama was a dreaded, hated Muslim.

Bernie finally got fed up with the asininity of the Congress and Senate and decided to run for president and unleashed his rage at Wall Street, the One Percent, Goldman Sachs, the rigged economy, homelessness, our foolish wars, and vowed to do something about them, threatening to take down investment bank swindlers who destroyed the economy as well as the nest eggs of the middle-and-lower classes while the government bailed them out and kept them rich and afloat and, most humiliating, out of jail.

The Donald announced his candidacy for president and soon accumulated a massive throng of howling, scowling, fat white mooks who, like Donald, wanted to “take their country back!” The Donald promised to build a wall to keep criminal, terrorist Mexicans out and make the poor Mexicans pay for it, deport millions of other illegal immigrant Mexicans, not allow a single Muslim to immigrate into the country, whether they’re terrorists or not, bomb ISIS into powder, and steal Iraq’s oil so as to salvage something after our occupation of that country, trick China out of what we owe them because they tricked us into debt because our leaders “are stupid,” and make so much money for so many wonderful people that those howling scowling fat white wonderful mooks will be wallowing in cash just like the Donald as they compose an eerie chant, “USA! USA! USA…!”

Bernie vows to start a revolution to stop the rigged economy of the One Percent more or less driving economic inequality in America lower than it’s been since the Great Depression, and he has kept his promise of taking nothing from the big investment banks and Super PACs but instead inspired millions of true believers to donate to his cause an average of $27 per person to bankroll his candidacy, and now he, like Donald, is a strong contender for President of the United States in the Democratic Party.

The Donald, king of a financial empire, bankrolls his own candidacy, boasting of achieving the ultimate American dream by possessing billions and billions…and is the frontrunner for President of the United States in the Republican Party.

Poor old rumpled Bernie possesses a tad over $500,000, has no plane, and it’s difficult imagine him owning a car, or what kind of car, or even driving a car. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur, and posts dispatches of life in a small coastal town. His work, which includes a lifestyle as a cab driver, bartender, and sports nut, can be viewed at dellfranklin.com, where this comment first appeared.

Takeaways From the Iowa Caucuses In Headlines And Slogans You Might Have Missed In Mainstream Reports

(With Links to All The Real News You Need If You Weren’t Watching Democracy In Action)

by Jason Vest

COMMENT.TED CRUZIowa Voters To Trump: You’re Not Exactly Fired, But We Really Like The Cruz And Rubio Apprentices

GOP Establishment Hopes Trump’s Public Mulling About ‘Buying a Farm‘ Indicates Subconscious Death Wish

Trump Now Claims He Mixed Up Fox News Women Who Might Pose Threat To His Campaign; Really Meant To Try To Bully Palin Into Submission

Trump: Expectations of Decisive Iowa Win, and With It Actual Explosion of Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol’s Heads, Dashed;  Republicans and Democrats Alike Rue Lack of Latter, Start Plotting on How to Go Dave Brat On Editors They Both Hate

Cruz Gracious In Defeating Iowa Ethanol Lobby: Says Corn Has Its Place

Rubio To Jeb: My Neocons Are Better Than Your Neocons

Rubio To Christie: My Establishment Hedge Fund Donors Are Better Than Your Establishment Hedge Fund Donors

Cruz To Rubio And Christie: I Don’t Know If It’s More Amazing That My Establishment Hedge Fund Donors Are Better Than Both Y’All’s, Or That I Get Their Money AND Get To Be An “Anti-Establishment Candidate”

Rubio: My Strong Third-Place Finish Is So Much Easier to Understand Than My Three Houses

Sanders to Clinton: Triangulate This

Clinton: Of the 1%, Winning by .3%

Clinton’s Future: Looking Like Rahm Emmanuel’s Present?

Sanders: To The Concord Station

Sanders To Channel Upton Sinclair:  I, President: A True Story of the Future shortly forthcoming; likely sequel I, Candidate for President; and How I Got Licked Scheduled for 2017 Release

Cruz: God, Goldwater, and Goldman Sachs

Jeb’s Hail-Mary Schiavo Ad Only Latest Reflection of Bush Campaign Being Brain-Dead And On Life-Support

Carson: Craps Pants In Debates and In Iowa; Flees to Bush and Rubio’s Dirty State To Rinse Stains

Jesus to Carson: You Remind Me Of Another Time I Had To Deliver Some Bad News About Contest Prospects

O’Malley: Being In This One Percent Blows

Christie: Eating It In Iowa, Saving Room for New Hampshire

Santorum: Living Up To The Name In Shitty Numbers, Gets Flushed

Huckabee: I (Heart) Duggars

Fiorina: Like Hewlett-Packard When She Ran It: On The Cutting Edge Of Marginality

Paul: Dude, Where’s My Utopian Voter Bloc?

Paul: Iowa Shrugged

Kasich: Apparently Having Been an Ax-Wielding Budget Zealot in the Reagan and Gingrich Revolutions and Current Governor of Ohio Only Gets You Two Bits and a Cup of Coffee in Iowa

Gilmore: Less Than Zero. §

Jason Vest agrees with H.L. Mencken that it’s almost impossible to make a career in politics without embracing the ignoble and vulgar.

 

The witch doctor—unmasked

COMMENT.WITCHDOCTOR

The real and very famous Dr. Ben Carson is indeed a witch doctor in the political stratosphere, full of ridiculous economic and foreign policy nostrums and voodoo.

by Dell Franklin

For a while it seemed the witch doctor possessed a suit of armor even the clever and pugnacious Donald Trump could not dent, much less pierce—he was a famously successful black man with a great American come-up-from-the-bootstraps story as well as blessed by the Lord and in the mold of ultra-conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the exact kind of black man George H.W. Bush and the GOP brain trust loved to shove up the asses of politically correct white liberal Democrats.

The witch doctor did not use street lingo even if he was from the mean streets of Detroit and never uttered “y’all, or “you all.” The witch doctor carefully refrained from insulting his whiter-than-white competition and realized if he raised his voice or engaged in salty invective he would lapse into the stereotype of the white man’s version of the angry “uppity nigger.” The witch doctor was not an amen-shouting, gospel-singing, rocking-in-the-aisles Jesus-chanting Baptist but instead a deeply religious strangely serene Seventh Day Adventist who didn’t believe in evolution or climate change and claimed when he was at his lowest as a street psychopath he met God and found his path to being a world-famous neurosurgeon. The witch doctor was sweetly mellow and exuded a calm patience and tolerance toward his inquisitors when they tried to pigeon-hole him on his views, which he wriggled out of with some unusual circular double-talk that made absolutely no sense but was so coated in sugar that even his absurd flat tax or tithing and comparison of Obamacare to slavery was given a free ride.

The Donald searched for an opening to wound the great witch doctor as he gained ground on him and passed him in the polls after the Donald smugly conceded he was a “nice guy” when he was ahead. None of the candidates knew how to puncture the now front-running witch doctor as he continued his slew of sweetness to the evangelicals who would vote for a person capable of destroying the planet with either war or the denial of climate change as long as he promised to eliminate Planned Parenthood and believed in the rapture.

But the Donald played his cards just right, waiting for the dreaded, hated and despicable media to nail the witch doctor, and when they did, on exaggerations and myth-making of his personal history, the Donald, who also despises the dreaded, hated and despicable media and makes no secret of it, pounced, making a mockery of the witch doctor alluding to his own words of characterizing himself—the witch doctor—as a “psychopath” as a young kid in the ghetto. Ahh, the Donald instantly went after the witch doctor like a shark in a feeding frenzy.

As soon as the media began finding lies in his great story of “Gifted Hands,” the witch doctor began whining and blaming and turned into a petulant aggrieved wounded black man who now had to absorb far more media abuse than the dreaded, hated and despicable Obama ever had to absorb, boohoo. In fact, the witch doctor had to, in his own words, absorb more scrutiny and “vicious lies” than anybody in the history of the country, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, or anybody else who ever ran for high office in America!

The witch doctor is being persecuted because he is so perfect and genuine that the dreaded, hated, despicable media, along with the cruel incompetent Democrats, cannot stand it. They are “desperate” to take him down because they are terrified he will defeat them. During a press conference where his honesty was questioned, the witch doctor’s calm and pleasant and always sweet demeanor became animated and his eyes turned stony as he lashed out at his inquisitors, waving his arms around, adhering to the last bastion for politicians caught in double-talk or outright deception—blame the media!

***

The witch doctor is indeed a DOCTOR! Doctors in this country are exalted, placed on pedestals as the last saviors between sickness, pain and death. We worship them. We go to them hat in hand in our ignorance of our latest maladies in shrieking fear they will maim or kill us, and doctors make it all better and we want to hug them out of appreciation and gratefulness.

Doctors do not accept anybody taking them to task. They are in charge. They tell nurses and lab techs and anybody in their paths what to do and show up only to operate or diagnose, and very briefly consult. They are our gods, and if they’re good enough to heal us, well, like the witch doctor, they’re good enough to run the country.

But like all control freaks and egomaniacs, the witch doctor was not satisfied with his accomplishments and needed to embellish them further so nobody could ever question his greatness, his rightfulness, and when they did, he was outraged. As the inquisition from the dreaded, hateful, despicable media increased in its frenzy, the more grumpily the witch doctor whined and double-talked and denied; and the more angrily he condemned the media the more outraged his deluded evangelical tribe became and the more money they poured into his coffers.

The real and very famous Dr. Ben Carson is indeed a witch doctor in the political stratosphere, full of ridiculous economic and foreign policy nostrums and voodoo unfit for anybody outside of his deluded evangelical tribe to swallow. When it comes right down to it, he is the low-key evangelist mesmerizing his flock with the identical bullshit that has bamboozled those who want to believe for eons, the same evangelists who eventually get caught with prostitutes of either sex or the greedy feathering of their own nests with profligate spending on luxurious mansions, and profess their great contrition in tearful humility as their patient wives hang on and the disappointed flocks hang on too, believing the Lord forgives, and of course he does, just like he will the witch doctor when the country finds out what a complete fraud he is. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur. He’s the author of The Ball Player’s Son, a memoir about his father, Murray Franklin, and the early days of big league baseball. Visit his website: dellfranklin.com

Trump’s blighted white men

TRUMP.BLIGHTED.JARRATEEby Talmadge Jarratee

Donald Trump’s blighted white men, spawn of the “greatest generation,” who endured our worst economic Depression and World War II, are the prime pawns in his quest for the presidency. Trump’s blighted white men are the most spoiled, petulant and fortunate generation in American history, the inheritors of free education, an awesome safety net, powerful unions, opportunity for employment in both blue- and white-collar industries, and the overall advantage of being white instead of black so that they were guaranteed automatic employment. Trump’s blighted white men are vigorously on board with his insane and cruel attacks on Mexican immigrants. Trump’s blighted white men, who would in most cases deny with vehemence that they are racists, fulminate against a black president named Obama because he wants to allow “a bunch of undocumented Mexicans” in the country and tax the rich “so unemployed lazy niggers can live on welfare,” even if these white men in almost all cases have everything they ever wanted and need nothing more because they lived in an era where everything fell into their hands.

Trump’s blighted white men are the most spoiled, petulant and fortunate generation in American history.

Many of Trump’s blighted white men, and perhaps the most vitriolic, are those fat flabby red-faced golfers in ball caps and white mustaches who congregate at gyms or coffee shops to vent the poison built up in their craws because of Obama and complain that the government is the enemy, as declared by Ronald Reagan, their idol. The government provided this crew with just about everything the New Deal and the Great Society created, only to turn on it after they became flush. The trouble with Trump’s blighted white men is that they have it so good and are so bored in retirement that they need something to bitch about, something to feel persecuted about, something to hate, especially those who grew up in an era where everybody on their side of the tracks was white, and the blacks and browns lived across those tracks in another world they did not know or want to know and feared as they would aliens in the same xenophobic way they now do immigrants.

These days, Trump’s blighted white men claim the country has been taken away from them, which means that from the beginning they felt the country was strictly theirs, belonging only to white people who controlled the government and the money and tossed crumbs to minorities. Suddenly, today, Trump’s blighted white men are surrounded by blacks, Mexicans, Central Americans, Asians of every stripe, Indians, and mixes of all these nationalities, and it is all confusing and depressing to see their once powerful populace shrivel as the dreaded Muslims and immigrant criminals close in on them and scare the shit out of them to the point they might in the future need armed security in their neighborhoods or at their gated communities, not to mention their arsenals of guns.

Truth is, Trump’s blighted white men, who claim THEY are the great American work ethic and symbols of the great American dream and responsible for making this the greatest, godliest country in the world, are recipients of huge pensions and inheritances and a culture that enabled them to reap great rewards while not working half as hard as their parents and ancestors or any of the hated and dreaded immigrants, and especially the Mexicans, who work so hard and are so hungry that the blighted white men, whose children and grandchildren spend most of their time either talking on cell phones or fidgeting with ipads and seem to accept minorities, homosexuals, transsexuals, same sex marriage, abortion and immigrants, have become perplexed and apoplectic.

Truth is, Trump’s blighted white men are either the most uninformed or stupid people in the country, so much so they are prime prey for demagogues who usually prey on the poor and desperate but in this case have the greatest scapegoat in the American history of demagogues—Barack Obama. Trump’s blighted white men are in a frenzy over Obama, even if the country and their finances were in shambles because of the boob they voted for, George Bush, and are now flush again and out of danger and the country is much better off as they express their hatred of government and the man responsible for bailing their asses out.

I am 72 and grew up with this lot. They all seemed so content and happy with their cars and girls and trendy clothing and jobs at the local diner or department store or Disneyland, in my case. Who would have thought such a cheerful, care-free generation of young males would turn into this intolerant, up-tight, stingy, glum, mean-spirited legion of malcontents. One of my best friends, fellow jock who taught high school English and coached baseball in Orange County, has had a falling out with all his fellow coaches and golfing partners and career-long friends, all Republicans. He told me a story of visiting an old football friend in a small town in Wyoming, where he refused to bring up guns and abortion and the government, just so they could get along and talk old times.

“We were driving along, and this guy, he’s the mayor, and he sees a rabbit on the side of the road, he pulls over, jumps out, shoots and kills the rabbit, just leaves it there, jumps back in his truck and says, ‘that’s for fucking Obama, the motherfucker ain’t taking away MY guns.”

Almost all of Trump’s blighted White men, who will end up following him to hell, deserve the hell he just might produce, and are leaving a legacy they ought to be ashamed of. §

Talmadge Jarratee writes about politics and occasional sketches of San Francisco and, because of his views, may soon be homeless. For more on Talmadge, visit dellfranklin.com