Farewell, Donald, We Hardly Knew Ye!

(Blogger's Note: This is the unedited version of my letter to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a once fairly decent, local newspaper.) (Another Blogger's Note: I had thoughts of deleting this post or, at least, changing the title, but now that it's late February of 2016 and the Donald is still the front runner. Mea culpa, I think it's a good reminder that we can all be wrong. Just a week or so ago, I watched some of the Republican debate before the South Carolina vote. Twenty minutes was my max. I will never understand how Trump supporters can listen to his incessant whining and bullying. My thought was that he'd finally jumped the shark, but, no, he won South Carolina. Incredible year. What we are watching is a monster created by years of ideologically-biased news coverage. His supporters, the great mis-informed mass, who facts cannot reach. It's a scary time. Who knows how it will turn out?)

     After reading the Star-Telegram's coverage of the Donald in Dallas, I admit to now being just in awe at Mr. Trump's oratorical skills. Forget that first Republican President's Gettysburg Address. Too old school. Too boring.

     Here's the Trumpman giving a summary of his platform: “We are going to have so many victories . . . and they are going to be great victories and we are going to have them all the time.”

      What do you think? His word choice just might make it to the third-grade level, of course, with absolutely no depth and no details. It's as if he designed his discourse especially for Fox News viewers.

     But, let me make this clear, I'm not against Donald Trump. As a liberal Democrat, I'm hoping, I'm praying he will be the Republican party nominee in 2016. Please, my Republican brethran, vote Trump.

      You will wake the sleeping giant of the Latino vote, and my side will win big. It'll be a great victory for a better, more inclusive America, and, to top it off, it'll make all the Trumpsters' heads spin. Literally.

 (As a bonus, here's, my response to an annoying, name-calling troll on the S-T website.)

    

     Let's see if I can break this down for you, buddy, and maybe do it without name-calling, which you might want to try doing because you only do name-calling when you don't have much of an argument.
     In 2004, 43 won because he won 44 percent of the Latino vote. Since then Republicans have not won such a high percentage of the Latino vote. That is an important reason the GOP did not win in 2008 and 2012. A CNN poll found that 82 percent of Hispanics view Trump unfavorably. 

     You may "think" that those who are truly informed (those extremely misinformed Fox "News" viewers, like yourself) back Trump, but that is wishful thinking. You cite no facts because you have none. Let me make this clear to you. Any of the Democratic candidates would beat Trump. The electoral college vote would be a landslide because the high number of Latinos in our most populated states. 

     It's not going to happen of course. Trump is already becoming yesterday's news. But hope springs eternal. Take care, and try using facts next time, buddy.

(And more . . .)

     To point out the obvious, again, you don't cite one single fact. Your method of argumentation is bullying, name-calling, and an inability to write anything coherent on the subject at hand. (A clue: the subject at hand is not Hillary, Benghazi, or CNN. It's whether Trump could garner enough of the Latino vote to win a national election.) 

     Obviously, he could not because of his high negatives. Trump's extreme xenophobia might excite the Republican base, but it makes him unelectable in a national election. The leaders of the Republican party already know this, so there is no way he will win the nomination. 

     Even though I wish he would win because, as I've already explained, Democrats would win such a big victory it would make Trump's supporters' heads spin. Quite literally, I hope. 
 

Stop the Pseudo-hysterics! Now!

      What has happened to us? Our forebears faced down real problems like the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism with more aplomb and true grit than we are now able to muster with hyperventilating cable news and the Internet besieging us with one pseudo-hysteria after another.

      Ebola? The annual flu season will kill many more of us than Ebola will. IS operatives sneaking across the Rio Grande endangering our very way of life? Your time would be much better spent worrying about real dangers to our way of life embodied in various privatization schemes and lack of public investment in infrastructure and education.

      Wake up, America, we're being played! The constant harping about Ebola in a country of almost 320 million when we have had a handful of cases – what is up with that?    
     And, let me say this, I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for people who play on others' fears. Many Republicans and most of Fox News, with the notable exception of Shep Smith, are guilty as charged. You want to be against everything Obama and the Democrats do? Fair enough. But this has to do with public health, and the constant politicizing and over-hyping do not help.

      The truth is we're living in an incredible time: the deficit is down, unemployment is dropping, and given the non-issue that gay marriage has become, we are more accepting and open-minded than people a generation ago would've dreamed possible.

      My advice: take an extended holiday from cable news bloviators and doomsayers. Maybe, the truly daring will even get out and have an actual, not digital, conversation with a fellow human being. One can only hope.