WWDD: What Would Donald Do?

The refugees are coming (or not)! The refugees are coming (or not)!

The Paul Revere-like cry thunders a warning across New England. Warn the troops, lock up your wives and daughters, form neighbourhood committees to make sure they live somewhere else. Still the alarm rings out in the midnight ride of Donald Trump, "danger, danger Will Robinson!" Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party...because Lord knows the party isn't going to come to the aid of any man or woman, child even, be they poor, middle class, minority, Non-Christian (that includes Episcopalian), or - God forbid - alien ('foreign' is too PC a word to use, too humanizing).

But the real question to ask Don and the chorus of little mini-Dons piled knee-deep about him is this: if New York City was bombed into rubble, if there was no electricity, no banking system, no police or courts to enforce property rights, if a third of Donald's family had been executed, if he he could not buy food and an armed gang took over his house (a Tower, one imagines) - if one of his children (I won't name drop) was shot dead in front of him, or raped, or if he himself went four days without food, well, what are the odds he'd be headed to the Canadian border desperate to be let in?

I know, Don is a Republican, so in such a situation he would walk right up to the head bad guy, punch him in the nose, and end the whole war. But Don is probably banking on never having to find out. And he may be right. Probably someone who is rich enough can move his money out of a war-ravaged America, invest in munitions, hire an army of body guards, and safely sit perched like Snoopy pretending to be a vulture looking down on the carrion below and feeling himself master of it all. But it's easy to think, sitting in a wealthy city, in a peaceful country, on TV, everyone's darling, that the way things are now is the way things will always be. That civilizations don't fall, or change, that once a superpower always a superpower. Don't tell him that Spain was once the richest country in the world and now is not, or that Britain once owned parts of France. He can't be told that borders change, economies rise and fall, power shifts from country to country, that no-one, no country, stays on top forever. Rome didn't, Spain didn't, England didn't, the US won't. Soon, later, now?

What would you do if Syria was happening in the U.S? If you had young children, no access to your money, no house, if you were being bombed and shot at, if there looked like there would be no end, if your choice was between a dictator who was trying to kill you or terrorists who would execute you? Would emigration start looking good to you? Would Donald seek refugee status somewhere where he could be safe with his money and his family? Can you really see him picking up a shotgun and fighting in the front lines hopelessly against all comers?

Mexico might start looking pretty good (but would they let you past the wall?) Or would he have hightailed it to Switzerland long before things got that bad? Perhaps buy safe passage for himself and his family from the terrorists. What if his daughter was held for ransom? Would he pay it? If he were held for ransom, would he want his family to pay it - Donald tied up in a cave for three years, hungry, isolated, beaten regularly - so, What Would Donald Do?

I know, American Exceptionalism means that if an American does it, it must be exceptional. What would be fascism in another country is patriotic in America. What would be terrorism if ISIS did it is just a routine drone strike if the U.S does it The Muslim religion is ancient and out of date and pre-modern and anti-women; the two-thousand year old texts from Christianity are the basis of the constitution and we must kill and die for them, even if it means women aren't allowed to be priests or grow old or be a size to large (or be paid as much as a man). Jesus would never let global warming end civilization. We already know how the world ends - The Rapture - so don't worry about nuclear war, or rising temperatures, or famine, or pollution, or extinction of species. Between the two of them, God and Donald got it all covered.

Who Came First, Stupid Leaders or Stupid Voters?

Two things stand out about Donald Trump (peace be upon him). One, that he is popular (at least among Republicans) and two, that he us an asshole. Now it's one thing to be an asshole in private life, and another to be one in public life. Trump is wealthy, popular, famous, powerful and successful, so his being ignorant and hateful gives permission to the public to be those things, freely, openly, publicly, proudly. Where would all the little Trumpettes be if they had to choose between rational, calm, intelligent, non-pig-like candidates? Probably they would stay home. Or they'd vote for Lyndon LaRouche (is he dead? This could be his moment).

But when the worst of human character traits becomes the best a nation can offer itself one has to wonder; are the hateful among the leaders giving permission for the hateful among the voters to come forward, or do the hateful among the public allow hate-filled candidates to emerge as legitimate. Which came first, the bowel or the rectum? (There is probably a biological, evolutionary answer to that question but we are talking politics so there's no room for science, is there?). Maybe it started with Fox News making bigotry and stupidity and hate/fear/lunacy mainstream (and, eventually, one assumes, profitable). Maybe all that really bad ideas in the world need is just time, and they will become legitimate.

If everyone you see on TV is stupid, stupid ideas become regular, everyday, ordinary, perfectly reasonable ones. If everyone on TV says we need war with Iran, then war seems like a legitimate, reasonable, mainstream option to be considered. Maybe we should, in fact, nuke a non-nuclear country...to prevent them from getting nukes like we have and are prepared to use against them. Maybe the President is a Kenyan. Or a Muslim, or a Nazi, or Stalinist, or an alien life form from Mars disguised as a human bent on taking over the earth and enslaving us all. If people in the public eye talk about it in serious tones on newscasts and in public (and televised) forums, there must be some legitimacy to it. If a United States Senator doesn't know if Obama is really Christian, how can I know? Maybe he isn't.

Look at the TV, look at the candidates, I always knew you couldn't trust them foreigners and this proves it. Donald came right out and said it, and he's a star. I was right all along, Mexicans are rapists, Muslims can't be Americans, and Americans are the greatest people in the universe. They wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.