Silly Season: Well, DUH!!!

Oh, good grief!!!  The Donald's strategy is working even better than he could hope for!  How he can keep a straight face through it all is nothing more nor less than an actual demonstration of his true political skills.

Let's look at the facts, boys and girls.  For the third time in succession, the focus during the most recent Republican {GOP it is most emphatically NOT any more} "debate" was on "how rotten The Donald Trump is," rather than what any other candidate might bring to the table.  Quite frankly, the others have brought absolutely nothing new into the proceedings - if they had, they sure as hell wouldn't be wasting so much time trying to lasso a veritable political comet now, would they?

The Donald not only knows this, he also shrewdly exploits the phenomenon to the point that the focus remains on HIM, and him alone.  All it takes is an "outrageous" remark, a "questionable" policy stance, or - heaven help us - a simple nugget of plain old common sense that flies right in the face of PC "conventional wisdom,"  and voila - the media and the rest of the candidates jump to the bait like starving Rottweilers, thus ensuring The Donald's spot in the epicenter of the news cycles is virtually continuous.  Chris Christie, whether you love or hate him, has borne my theory out within the last 36 hours or so.  He's hip to what's REALLY going down, hence his endorsement of DJT.

Then too, The Donald again demonstrates his true savvy by being deliberately vague about concrete policy planks.  Why?  Well for starters, it's way, way too early in the game to start laying the planks when the foundation is only perhaps a quarter finished.  And don't forget the fact that the rest of our global population - friend and foe alike - is deeply tuned in to, and closely monitoring our electoral process.  Tipping one's hand about domestic OR foreign policy too early on - whilst simultaneously being under the world's microscope - is a huge no-no.  In a perfect world {which ours is clearly not}, policies should only emerge after the contest has been decided, and even then full disclosure shouldn't be brought about until after our new President is sworn in, and has a Cabinet fully installed.  That silly old common sense thing again, kapish?

Now here's the kicker.  An astute observer would quickly realize that The Donald has business interests in roughly half or perhaps even two thirds of the continents - worldwide interests, in other words.  Ask yourself, would a sane individual do anything to even minutely jeopardize said global holdings?    This is the crux of "gambling" on a Trump Presidency - the bet is generally safe, but still risky nonetheless, thanks to myriad outside influences virtually every other candidate has totally ignored, so far.  DJT has been doing the Presidential do {albeit in the private and business arenas} for decades already.  As the late great Ronnie "Dutch" Raygun would have it, facts are stubborn things, indeed.  This piece of logical reasoning should by all rights virtually eliminate ones' trepidation about foreign policy under a Trump Administration, the way I see and understand things.

The other side of the political aisle?  Puh-lease!!!  The Hildebeast is THE textbook example of politics gone horribly awry - or positive proof of how well and truly broken the system is; and her fellow competitors do more to back that fact up, rather than trying to make the mother of all end-runs around the system as The Donald is doing.  Nope, as far as the Democrats are concerned, one and all are products of our broken system, and their collective and individual platforms are all geared to the status quo, if not accelerating our decline even more.  Their power derives purely from inside the Beltway, whilst The Donald's was built up completely outside the Beltway by himself using his own two hands - need I elaboorate?

And finally, it should be pointed out that in many ways DJT has already demonstrated his Presidential timbre.  He's a man's man {and a self-made one, to boot}; he's the "political outsider" many on both sides of the aisle have long been crying for; he gets things done with alacrity; his brutally frank and absolutely no bullshit mentality is quite simply the freshest air we've all been craving to breathe for far too long; and best of all, Donald John Trump has thoroughly trashed the notion of a career politician, by running his entire campaign out of his own wallet, thus reviving the wonderful concept the Forefathers designed of the citizen-statesman, ready to happily fulfil his end of the bargain, no-holds-barred.  What other Presidential candidate within the last hundred years or so has done as much?

For me, one thing's for certain.  DJT could quite possibly manifest his Executive power in a dictatorial / despotic fashion somewhere down the road, should he win, but I for one will never lose one wink of sleep worrying about the possibility, 'cos the system's already broken beyond repair, barring swift, drastic action.  If my man DJT wants to try on the tyrant shoes, far be it from me to stand in the way of progress - the system's still well and truly f*cked up, remember; anything DJT might do would still be a massive improvement over the shit we've all been enduring since 2009, IMHO.

And so it goes ~ peace in, garbage out, dig?  
More anon.

WHITEOUT!!!!

Okay, who's the bleedin' clockwork moron what just dumped THIRTEEN INCHES of "climate-shift" on my driveway then, eh???  Crazy-fooking-arse way to kick off the 2016 blogs here, I must say.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you - I had a total blast with my commutes to and from the j-o-b today, thanks to my trusty 4WD grunt-buggy.  Inbound, the snow was deep enough that "4 High" created nifty roostertails from all four wheels that shot a good 20 feet in the air as I trundled along.  Outbound, the snow was twice as deep, was beginning to mix with a thick layer of sleet, and was being blasted every which way by an aggressive 40-mph wind speed.  Visibility?  Measured in inches {if at all}, Boys and Girls.  B-L-I-Z-Z-A-R-D......

Well, fine.  I lived through 40-odd winters in St. Louis; a little Cornhusker Tempest would be a piece of cake, right?  So this time it was "4 Low," stay OFF the brakes altogether, and not more nor less than exactly 30 miles an hour {the optimum speed in 4 Low}.  Since it was just past dusk, my brand-new perscription sunglasses wouldn't be of much use;  I'd have to meet the teeth of the storm with all four of TR's head and fog lamps blazing away, period.  High-beams were useless in a furious maelstrom that featued snow and sleet falling both horizontally and straight UP on occasion - no way in hell could any type of glare penetrate such a wild-n-wooly curtain of frozen precip.

Whilst I'm dramatizing a bit for effect here, in the actual moment I was perfectly calm, and completely matter-of-fact about making my trip home 100% safe and stress free.  Didn't really have to worry about opposing traffic during the evening rush 'cos the only other vehicles I encountered in eight miles was a tandem of snowplows working the opposite lanes from mine - only their strobe beacons gave them away, their silhouettes otherwise greatly resembling the Pilsbury Doughboy on a skateboard!  The trip was a bit slow, yes, but otherwise was uneventful and still great fun, thanks to me trusty wheels.

Inclement weather driving skills aside, allow me to kill the proverbial two birds with a quick segue into Silly Season business.  I find myself somewhat bemused as to how completely all over the place virtually all the Presidential contenders are in the wake of the first preliminary held last night.  Nothing's been decided yet - the delegate count doesn't start to get heavy until the first or second week in March - but one can't swing a dead cat without encountering either armchair political spin-doctoring running amok, or gloom-and-doom resignation {with a heap of attending baggage to go along with it all}.  Both notions are simply asinine; a month before the conventions is when the real story will become clear.  It's been that way since Grover Cleveland ran, and likely will remain so far into the future, barring the radical revamping our political system so desperately needs.

LSS, I'll get excited exactly when I'm supposed to, and not one minute before.  Myself, I still like The Donald's chances overall, but I flatly refuse to plop the ol' heart on the sleeve and hope for the best, quite yet.  I will say, though, that the time between now and the Conventions is an excellend window to become well-informed through research, which is pretty much what I've been doing since last spring.  Forewarned is forearmed, dig?

And so it goes, Fellow Babies.  It's a wrap for now, but much more is still to come.  Fire up a colortini in our late Uncle Tom Snyder's honour, lay back, and ride the groove.

More shortly.