Eric The Blue

The Donald

I know hardly anyone raises an eyebrow when faced with the phrase "circus of American politics," perhaps partly because of the tacit notion that, yes, it's a little goofy, but, still, "circus" overstates the case.  If "circus" was inflated, we see now the danger, for with Donald Trump having shot to the top of the Republican field it's a challenge to find an appropriately hot cliche to describe the scene.  Before it was a "circus."  What is it now? 

And what kind of sorting activity occurs in the lizard mind of a Republican primary voter when The Donald assails Mexicans and then proceeds to impugn the war record of John McCain?

The front-runner also appears oddly obsessed with the intellectual qualifications of his antagonists.  He points out that McCain, in addition to allowing himself to be captured after being shot down over hostile territory, graduated last in his class at Annapolis.  Lindsey Graham, he says, is not very smart, either.  And Rick Perry's eyewear is an obvious attempt to look like something he isn't--namely, intelligent.  Somehow, Trump seems to have overlooked the fact that Scott Walker did not make it through college.

We are told that The Donald will flame out.  Probably this is true.  It's hard to imagine Iowa "values-voters" falling under his spell, even if they don't like Mexicans as much as he doesn't like Mexicans.  Here is Trump, speaking the language of faith to CNN:

"People are so shocked when they find out I am Protestant.  I am Presbyterian.  And I go to church and I love God and I love my church."

[Snip]

Trump said that while he hasn't asked God for forgiveness, he does participate in Holy Communion.

"When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed," he said.

His God, his church, and soldiers who weren't captured all kissed by Trumpean love.  The Mexicans, however, are another story.  It seems a long time ago when, having suffered their fourth defeat (or fifth, depending on how you count) in the last six presidential elections, a panel of earnest Republicans looked into the matter and concluded that the party had to make itself more attractive to the younger, browner people of the country.  And this is how they do it?  It seems likely that many  younger and browner voters took note of how long it took a pack of Republicans to condemn Trump for smearing Mexicans, compared to how long it took the same pack to condemn Trump for smearing  McCain. 

The Republicans have a problem.  The answer to the question "What should the party do?" (tone down the wild talk, make nice to growing demographic groups) is incompatible with the answer to the question "What should an ambitious Republican politician do?" (compete with all the other ambitious Republican candidates for the votes of the wackos who make a majority of the electorate in a Republican primary). 

That there are a zillion wackos is attested to by Trump's sudden assent in the polls soon as he started talking crazy.

New favorite Republican

For awhile, of course, it was Chuck Hagel, but he is out of public life and it's not easy finding a substitute among the roiling mass of Obama-hating, climate-change denying, evolution-disparaging Jesus-lovers who are persuaded we are living in the end times since the Radisson's housekeepers are earning $9 per hour and signing up for health insurance.  Moreover, the rules prohibit the anointment of some obscure outlier whose Republican bona fides might be disputed even by members of the reality-based community. 

But John Kasich qualifies.  He's a Republican, the popular governor of Ohio, and candidate for his party's nomination for president in 2016.  I'm sure he hasn't a chance: the characteristics that recommend him to me lock him out of the Republican clown car.  Topping the list of Kasich's apostasies is his relative friendliness toward Obamacare.  Ohio, not alone but almost among states with a Republican governor, opted in to the Medicaid expansion allowed by the Affordable Care Act.  One result has been that about a half million low-income Ohioans have gained access to health insurance, and Kasich hasn't been shy about defending his record:

Last year, he traveled to Southern California to appear on a panel at a conference sponsored by the Republican mega-donors Charles and David Koch. At one point, according to accounts provided by two sources present, Randy Kendrick, a major contributor and the wife of Ken Kendrick, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, rose to say she disagreed with Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid coverage, and questioned why he’d expressed the view it was what God wanted.

The governor’s response was fiery. “I don’t know about you, lady,” he said as he pointed at Kendrick, his voice rising. “But when I get to the pearly gates, I’m going to have an answer for what I’ve done for the poor.”

The exchange left many stunned. About 20 audience members walked out of the room, and two governors also on the panel, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, told Kasich they disagreed with him. The Ohio governor has not been invited back to a Koch seminar — opportunities for presidential aspirants to mingle with the party’s rich and powerful — in the months since.

As I say, he hasn't a chance.  My favorite detail in the above exchange concerns Kasich's deployment of "lady"--"I don't know about you, lady"--to address someone who no doubt is accustomed to being groveled.  It happens that Kasich's father was a mailman.  I know this because he made a big deal about it when he ran for president in 2000, and I remember wondering to myself whether the son of a day laborer might then have even more to recommend himself for high office. 

In a different context, however, it's quite enjoyable to contemplate a Republican from a modest background returning fire when the wife of the owner of the Diamondbacks expresses puzzlement about the efforts of someone who seems more serious about improving the lives of his constituents than toeing a line.

All-star break

The atoms of my brain are so arranged as to make me interested in baseball, one of the great good fortunes of my life, since for half the year it gives me something to look forward to almost every day.  Which is why I hate the all-star break.  Four days and only one game, a gaudy exhibition.  Up from just three when I was young.  There's nothing to do but meditate on the Twins. At 49-40, they have the second best record in the American League, and would be in the playoffs if the season were at its end.  Can't be good luck to dwell on that. 

I'll remember Saturday's late-afternoon matinee for awhile.  I was in bed, letting invading hordes of microorganisms have their way with me.  Happily, baseball doesn't lose a lot on the radio.  I lay there, hearing the game and then not hearing it, knowing I slept by the changing score.  Lots of runs.  When I think back on it now, the air conditioning clicking on and off is part of the phantasmagoria.  After about 3.5 hours, the Twins had won, and the post-game routine started up.  That lasts long enough so that you can fade in and out on it, too.  You could never have such a great time being sick if it weren't for baseball.

 

In the mailbox

The getting of money takes up so much of life that it seems a wonder I put so little thought into it years ago.  The result is that my job, according to a former colleague, "does not make for good conversation at cocktail parties," which as an understatement is on a level with "Donald Trump should keep a higher percentage of his thoughts unexpressed."  But at least I don't spend my work days figuring out how to squeeze money out of people who have sunk irretrievably into debt.  That's what the business and finance majors behind the mailing to the left do from 9 to 5. 

I get an offer like this at least two or three times a month.  The details are purposely hard to grasp, but the idea is pretty clearly to suck in desperate people and then, later, put the hook in them.  You can almost hear the MBAs in the conference room.  "How can we get 'em to put us on their payroll instead of the competition?  Is fifteen per cent too high?  Then 14.99.  Put in just enough of the unpleasantness to keep it legal."

I don't know why these guys should be the envy of classmates who read the alumni magazine while fellows selling loose cigarettes get beat up by the cops.

Great Scott!

Amanda made me accompany her today on the "Great Scott Bike Ride," a 50-mile trek around Scott County.  Boy, was that fun.  It must have been somewhere in the agonizing middle third when I came up on a couple of chubby girls.  By their looks, I determined that they should be behind me, and I passed.  They were chatting happily with one another.  Around a half hour later, there was a left turn, so I glanced back to see what might be right behind me.  There they were, the same two chubby girls, about forty yards back, still chatting happily. 

Anyway, the map above is the route, in case you are interested in the geography of my misery.  We began at the most northerly point, a park in Prior Lake, and proceeded counter-clockwise around the loop.  That's New Prague near the most southerly southeast corner. 

Sometimes, riding in a car, the phrase "pretty rolling countryside" will flit across my cerebral cortex.  When the "rolling" of "pretty rolling countryside" is turning your legs to diarrhea, the esthetic experience is significantly diminished.  I was as uncomfortable as a Republican presidential candidate asked whether he'd attend the same-sex wedding of a loved one.

Happy Independence Day!