A Tale of Two Dirt Bags

 Creative Commons Licensed Image "Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump - Caricatures" by Donkey Hotey. Some rights reserved.

“You’ve already told us more than we ever wanted to know about the Republican candidate,” complained a prominent doctor and subscriber to the most fair and unbiased pro bono chronicle of the 2016 plague year, as he began his examination of the chronicler-in-chief. “He’s a dirt bag. We know that. When are you going to tell me something about the other candidate? She’s also a dirt bag.”

The doctor is right. My priorities seem to be out of whack. What’s wrong with me, anyway?

In terms of presidential elections, Trump’s candidacy is more than just a fenderbender on the electoral highway, an event making rubberneckers slow down to take a look. His candidacy is a car crash involving a school bus, a van filled with Evangelical Christians enroute to the casinos in Atlantic City, both of which were hit at a railroad crossing by a New Jersey Transit Express!

There hasn’t be an election like this since 1856. That was the final year of the so-called Know-Nothing Party, which is often confused with today’s Republican Party.

Originally, it was the American Party, the political action wing of the secret Order of the Star Spangled Banner. Folks called it the Know-Nothing party because all new members were instructed to say, when asked about the party goals and policies, they know nothing.

In 1856, the Know Nothings ran Millard Fillmore for president on an anti-immigrant and especially anti-Roman Catholic platform. He lost badly, winning one state (Maryland), before the party expired, as some are expecting the end of the Grand Old Party (GOP).

We no longer know the modern version of the Know Nothing’ party’s exact position on immigration. Candidate Trump seems to change his views from day to day, carrying on a debate about softening his hard line. Televising a debate featuring Trump vs. Trump would get big numbers.

But I can say this for certain. Trump is Sister Teresa compared to ye olde original Know Nothings. Not only did the Know-Nothing’s platform call for restrictions on immigration, but also the exclusion of foreign born from ever voting or holding public office, and for a 21 year residency requirement for citizenship.

But I digress.

There are those who think I never had a good word to say about the Republican candidate. Not true. He performed a public service by exposing a vein of truth. The Trumpistas really do hate Mexicans. They think that Mr. & Ms. Khan were duped by the Democrats. They would love a wall with Mexico, even if not built with the Mexican peso. They hate our allies and admire Putin. Sixty years ago they would have admired Stalin and not liked Ike. In addition to firmly believing the too big costly wasteful Federal government has UFOs hidden in Area 51!

Before I rectify the errors of the past, and start writing a more inclusive chronicle of this most bizarre election in our history, I want to make this perfectly clear:

I honestly believe our candidate is an insincere, dishonest charlatan.

Furthermore, I truly believe only an idiot would want him as commander-in-chief of the greatest military power in the world.

He is a nice guy
His family loves him
Trust me.
But I would never buy a used bridge from him.

And before I run out of space, I can’t leave the subject without mentioning the most admirable part of his character: His sunny optimism. He is confident, for example, that blacks will vote for him.

That’s because they like him.
It’s the truth.
They really love him, as he explains in the triplicate form of argument he has introduced to campaign rhetoric.

Even though polls show he has 1% favorably rating in some key swing states! But it’s a solid 1%.

His victory laps nowadays remind me of Radio Tokyo’s claiming a major victory in the South Pacific in World War II. “The ships reported sunk,” Adm. Bull Halsey of the U.S. Third Fleet once observed, “have been salvaged and are retiring towards the enemy.”

I better stop this encomium for the Republican candidate. I’ve helped him enough with all the exposure he has gotten from me not only in direct e-mail, but Facebook and Twitter. If he doesn’t find a spot for me in his cabinet, this will be one very disappointed armchair pundit.

We still don’t know whether Trump’s behavior in the campaign so far is due to substance abuse, mental illness or ignorance. Hopefully we will find out by Election Day. Nevertheless, it’s time to move on.

I want to thank the good doctor for reminding me. Next week we begin the second act of this crazy opera called Election 2016.

It stars Crooked Hillary. That’s her name on her U.S. passport and driver’s licenses, my sources tell me.

I can’t wait to hear what I have to say. But as one of her devoted supporters already told me at dinner last night, “ She may be a dirt bag. But she’s our dirt bag.”

NEXT: MORE HILLARY

--
Marvin Kitman
August 30, 2016