Cheap Salty Taste

It has felt like a long junk food binge with the news cycle being what it has been the last few months.  I spend more time than I should reading about the rantings of an idiot.  Then I read about what other people have to say about this idiot.  He says something horrible, his fans roar, people are aghast.  This leaves a cheap salty taste in my mouth that stimulates me to look for more.  I scour different news sources for another Chicken McNugget.  What’s he going to feed me today?

We’re all consumed by this unhealthy frenzy.   I sense the hardening of our national consciousness clogged with the accretion of so much Trump crud.  I know Trump crud isn’t healthy.  But Trump crud sates my need to know he won’t win.  The feeding frenzy was initiated in earnest when, after the Republican convention, polls suggested he was at parity with Clinton and had just as good a chance of becoming president.  The republic was issued a challenge.  Our body of government would either be strong enough to withstand a tyrant or it wouldn't.  His daily exertions with the bellows, conjuring flame upon all that is descent, this is a call to action.  And this should keep the republic healthy.  This is what it was designed for.  But I want to watch to be sure he is engulfed by his own conflagration and we properly defeat this tyranny. 

Two months later, much fatter, much less intellectually healthy, it appears clear that Trump, barring something dramatically unforeseen, will not have a chance to win the election.  And now it appears clearer than ever with his latest campaign shake up, that this will be just fine for DJT.  This, and us, are merely a springboard for new heights of self-promotion that he will now orchestrate.  This article by Neal Gabler in the New York Times has stuck with me.  I think its’ powers of explanation, are rather remarkable.  Trump, in much the same way that he approaches casinos and towers, used the edifice of the Republican Party to promote himself.  Later, on November 5^th, he will dispose of the thing he ruined, and break ground on a new project.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/opinion/campaign-stops/to-trump-even-losing-is-winning.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

As Gabler suggested, Trump’s motivation in running, was not to lead, nor to legislate, but rather simply to promote himself.  He has succeeded wildly.  And he will likely spin up an entirely new media production enterprise to promote his birther-like tantrums against Clinton, and whomever else he chooses, for as long as it keeps him in the news.  The idiot’s voice, the voice of course, unbridled mendacity, will have a loud and lasting prominence in the village square.  This is a self-perpetuating cycle, a strong dose of preservatives for his solipsistic pseudo agenda, ensuring a long, staple shelf life of a personhood we should not be bothered with consuming.