politics | Saying nothing in particular

Recently a number of bloggers I respect have started writing opinion pieces stating basically that Trump should not be blamed for the rise of the Neo Nazis and their ilk, as he is only a “symptom” of the problem and not the cause. They admit that he’s a despicable and vile human being but…

I don’t know about you, gentle readers, but those “buts” always get me. My first thought is always “Oh no, they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.” But then I realize those bloggers have shied away from political rhetoric in the past, perhaps not wanting to offend potential readers. Thus, when they do leap to his defense, they must add a caveat to their statements such as “he’s slime but he’s not filth.” Okay, he’s not filth but he’s also not a symptom.

A symptom is the dead canary in a coal mine, a high fever on a child, dark spots on rose leaves, or a sinister rattle under the hood. The cause is not yet known and must be acknowledged and then analyzed. Hate groups have been analyzed for a long time. We’re way past canaries.

I think of the president as a doctor hired to heal the country. It’s important for him to understand the country’s many open wounds but it’s equally important – if not more – to first, DO NO HARM.

If we think about the political parties as doctors proposing cures, if you were coming down with a cold in the ’70s, Dr. Democrat would prescribe bed rest, chicken soup and plenty of liquids. Generally he wouldn’t blame you for the excessive smoking, drinking and carousing all night long that brought on the cold. He would prescribe a cure. On the other hand, Dr. Republican would tell you that sickness was for weaklings and hospitals were for the dying. But, if you didn’t have insurance and got pneumonia, he’d work out a long-term payment plan for his bill. Both sides were different but not enough to confuse voters.

Fast forward to the Obama Era. If you’re coming down with a cold, Dr. Democrat would tell you to make healthy choices in your diet and exercise routines but if you did require medicine, he’d try to make sure it was affordable.

On the other hand, Dr. Republican would tell you that you’re at liberty to live however you want, and that admonishing you to live a healthy lifestyle (as Dr. Democrat has done) violates your Constitutional rights. If you did get pneumonia, Dr. Republican would demand your insurance card. And if you didn’t have one, he’d tell you that you shouldn’t be buying iPhones. But he’d also tell you to have more children because birth control is a sin.

By 2016 the intensive squabbling between the two doctors caused patients to look for other opinions and along came:

Doctor Feelgood: His cure was free healthcare for all, free higher education for all, and stricter controls on financial institutions.
Doctor ToughLove: His cure was to burn down all the institutions and go back to living in a log cabin. If you did get pneumonia, get a church to take care of you.
Doctor Greenie: The only patient he cared about was Planet Earth, because once she was diagnosed as terminal it really wouldn’t matter how healthy the humans of the world were.
Doctor Denier: You don’t really have a cold.

Good Grief!! It’s no wonder the country lost all confidence in doctors. So it’s no wonder that when a new doctor flew into rusty towns and villages on his magic carpet, and with all the right mojo, claimed he alone had the answers, they believed him because they’d seen him on that great altar of truth, reality television. They’d seen him in his golden tower, with his golden children and his barely clad exotic bride. Unlike other doctors, he didn’t warn them of the complications of the medicine he would prescribe if they hired him. No, there’d be no complications, there’d be no poisoned water to drink, there’d be no draft of their young sons for his wars to fight, and, best of all, political correctness would be a thing of the past.

From Disney’s The Princess and the Frog

And when he saw those cancer cells growing in his crowds, he violated that first rule of being a doctor: first DO NO HARM. Trump isn’t a symbol of anything. He’s the Voodoo Doctor.

*The images in this post are all from Bing Images.

When I first started blogging a couple of years ago, I vowed to stay away from three subjects: religion, politics and cats. So far I’ve stayed away from two of them.

Guess which promise I broke first?

Yup, you got it. Cats! Pretty Kitty claims I vowed not to write about all animals and that I broke my vow with one of my very first posts.

From my second blog post “Man Training 1.0”

Well, I am about to break another. I shouldn’t but after those two Republican debates I can’t help myself. American people what are you thinking? Those debates were broadcast all over the world and probably into outer space where this very afternoon the Federation of Planets is having their own debate: whether or not to send Captain Kirk back from the future.

“In order to save Planet Earth you expect me to go back to 2015 and beam aboard a stage full of politicians? What if they infect the Enterprise and take us back to the Middle Ages?”

And the feedback from the “man/woman/idiot” on the street was even more mind-numbing. For example, Megyn Kelly interviewed a woman on The Kelly Show who basically said: “I like Carly Fiorina because she’s a bulldog! She’ll take on Hilary Clinton and she’ll win!”

President Bulldog, er, Fiorina – are you ready for your breakfast of liberal over-easy?

Really? This isn’t a dog fight, lady, even though you might want it to be.

To the many people who say: “I support Donald Trump because he’s not afraid to speak his mind.”

I say, yes, and that’s the scary part. Do you really want him to call someone like Andrea Merkel a fat, stupid cow for negotiating with Russia which you know he’ll do because he doesn’t hold anything back, remember?