Losing The Donald

I suppose that there are many like me rejoicing that the road to the White House has just been closed to Donald Trump.  Even Canadians care about US politics.  We really have very little choice, Gentle Reader.  When Uncle Sam farts it's our bathroom that ends up stinking.  Canada is a mouse living next door to the American elephant.  Like it or not, everything that goes on in that great, grotesque home of the brave and land of the free does and should concern us.

Now that Trump has come in second in the Iowa Primaries we can also snicker at the poetic justice.  He has lost to Ted Cruz, a man with a Latino background.  It is a shame that his roots are Cuban instead of Mexican, given the Donald's vicious and vituperative public comments about Mexican immigrants, but it's close enough given that he has a Spanish surname.

I have heard things from and about Trump that really chill the blood.  As well as declaring that he would build a wall on the Mexican border to keep everyone out and forcefully repatriating all illegal Mexican immigrants, he has declared war on every innocent Islamic American.  He has threatened not only to throw them all out of the country, nor has he merely threatened to block all Muslims from entering the US.  He has gone so far as to advocate the systematic slaughter of all the innocent family members of every accused Islamic terrorist living in the United States of America.

Sound familiar, Gentle Reader?

Did you also know that according to one of his ex-wives, the Donald's favourite bedtime reading material included the speeches of Adolf Hitler?  Now I suppose we would want to consider the source.  How objective could an angry and bitter ex-spouse possibly be?  Which is to say if she is indeed angry and bitter.  And even if she is, what of it?  She might well be telling the truth and judging from what I have heard of the bloated billionaire's speeches she likely is.

It is such a shame, if not surprising, that the US does not recognize the International Criminal Court in the Hague.  It would have been very gratifying to see Trump arrested and shipped there to face charges of advocating for crimes against humanity, maybe do a few years hard time for it.  It is also tragic that his large support base appears to be made up of ethically challenged losers who have lost or never had a moral compass.  It is also telling that this support base is largely made up of uneducated white older men.  Such is education in America.  This is what happens when the world's largest and most powerful alleged democracy also has the most glaring social and economic inequality in the developed world.  With post-secondary education being accessible only to those who can afford it, and with the demand of the arts and humanities fields shrinking to the interests and demands of corporate capitalism is it any wonder that the elephant to the south offers up so generous a support base to this incredibly arrogant wealthy and bloated ignoramus?

But isn't this also the natural fallout to be expected from a society so founded on the principles, not of justice and liberty but greed and selfishness?  It might well be argued that since Trump has somehow "earned" all his billions, shouldn't the rest of us just shut up about it and let him enjoy his suffocating largesse?  Well, okay, this kind of thinking easily flies in a country where money is god. that glorifies narcissism and selfishness and completely ignores the importance of community and sharing.

Whoops!  Gentle Reader, methinks I am beginning to sound like a communist!  Perhaps we have been called worse things by nicer people?

It would be very interesting to see what would result if the advertising industry were effectively muzzled and that our children were effectively trained and influenced from the cradle to be generous, kind and caring; and that they were raised and mentored to effectively balance their own personal advancement and success with the wellbeing of the greater good.  If we could completely forget that moronic axiom, "If you're so smart, then why aren't you rich."  In case you must know, darling, I am among the very poor who live in Canada, earning well under twenty thousand a year, yet I have a higher than average IQ, so high as to place me in the top two percentile.  If we are to integrate IQ with emotional intelligence then perhaps we will also be more likely to encounter a much broader and more generous understanding of what it is to be rich: rich in kindness, rich in truth, rich in good works, rich in love, rich in joy, rich in peace...

And by the way, this isn't to suggest that Ted Cruz would do that much better in the White House than Donald Trump.  He might perhaps be a little less dangerous but really, one is to the right of Genghis Kahn, the other is just to the left of Attila the Hun.  If I were an American I would, obviously, be voting Democrat.