Hairwaves
Creative Commons Licensed Image "Donald Trump - Caricature" by Donkey Hotey. Some rights reserved.
A basic principle of modern American politics today is whenever Donald Trump falls behind in a poll, no matter how obscure or unrepresentative of anything, you can expect something zany or totally insane to come out of his mouth. It’s as if there is a direct link between his mouth and his hair, rather than his brain.
So when the latest poll from Iowa earlier this week showed Ted Cruz in the lead for the first time, I was crouching behind the armoire. What new thunderbolt would Trump launch that would further suck out whatever oxygen is left since he began his campaign to make America great again.
Cruz, God’s gift to the Republican Party by his own analysis, was promising, if elected, he would carpet bomb the desert, make the sands glow in the dark, and other tough war against terror strategies that would make Donald seem like a dove in appealing to the hawks. No, a fat city pigeon.
Sure enough, from his perch inside the belly of the aircraft carrier Yorktown, the latest hairwave dictated him to blast off his Ban the Muslims crusade. Forget Lexington and Concord, this was truly the shot heard around the world!
It wasn’t something reasonable, like his deterrent of shooting all the relatives of suspected terrorists. His advocacy of not allowing Muslims to enter the USA was a “prudent strategy,” as he called it, even if it violated the Constitution and all Americans values, such as they are these days.
It wasn’t the silly pipedream of a Mexican wall, which would keep out Megyn Kelly or other undesirables. It wasn’t like the time he called Iowa voters stupid. This was absolutely Trumpian! An immediate monster hit in the polls!
Instead of doubling down as usual, our next president –elect, according to the last 30 or 40 polls, pulled back. First, he said he only meant “a temporary” ban. Then one of his staff hairdressers must have told him this meant legal American citizens on hajj to Mecca would not be able to return to their homes, labs or other American jobs. He amended his remarks: Citizens, yes; tourists, terrorists, no.
In the ensuing uproar over the ban, Trump did not as usual courageously say the media was misquoting him and misinterpreting his policy. He meant to ban muslin sheets, not Muslim folks, who love him. Or whatever.
The latest Trump pronuncimento has led to differences of opinion in the party’s battalion of candidates and the party leadership. Such childish squabbling and bickering led the Wall Street Journal to call it “a brawl.” The race for the nomination had turned from the humorous vein to the jugular, a smoked-filled backroom drama worthy of the Old Vic.
If the next poll in Iowa show him still behind Cruz would Trump call for a ban on Republican candidates, the especially large numbers creating confusion in voters minds? Not all of them, of course, just the ones who were not supporting him, either overtly, or covertly, by keeping their mouths shut.
There are only two kinds of polls we have to fear:
- Those which project Trump the winner;
- Trump the loser.
Either one can ignite the synapses in his hair and lead him to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Should he win or lose next week’s poll in Iowa, his next idea for making us safer might be to eliminate the convention, filled with delegates in the pockets of the 15 other remaining candidates unfairly using corrupt Super PAC money to treat him unfairly by denying him the nomination rightfully his, based on the latest polls.
Those nefarious crooked establishment politicians will have their little meetings, seeking to make peace with the brawling factions, ironing out their difference of opinions, changing the rules at the last minute in Cleveland, all the machinations designed to cheat Trump unfairly, thwart the will of the angry white folks. Just because Trump as the nominee could destroy the party in the national election! How self-serving can you get?
Should he win or lose the next poll, Trump might see it as a mandate from the people, and propose to suspend the 2016 election, to make us safer.
While elections are nice, and are very profitable to the TV networks with all the attack ads, think of how clean and orderly it will be to vote by acclamation:
All in favor of Donald… raise their hands.
Motion carried.
Think of how much money can be saved, an economy-minded business candidate like Trump can argue for making America great again. Only 68% of the citizenry exercised their franchise in the last national election, anyway.
No longer needing to go to the polls to do their duty as citizens will reduce guilt feelings. We all can spend more time on Facebook, checking what our friends ate for lunch, and how angry they are about the same old politics, and thank the good God Mammon for Trump!
The number of “likes” for Trump could than be carefully counted and validate the election.
Judging by previous polls, all of these improvements in our antiquated political process will be hailed by the angry white men who get to vote in the polls. Whatever wild and crazy thing he says must be right. Why else would he be so popular in the polls?
There I go being silly again. Donald Trump would never espouse anything so totally ridiculous.
Still you can never go wrong underestimating the power of the hairwaves in the free world’s leading pollocracy.
NEXT: Trump Amending the Bill of Rights
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Marvin Kitman
December 11, 2015