Is SS Trump Bound on a Shipwreck?

It does seem the Republican Party has gotten itself finally into that contraption Nigerians call a one chance bus. What the GOP feared most, seeing Donald Trump as the enemy within, is no longer news except that the privileged class in Washington has shamefully accepted that the party of Abraham Lincoln, was not only hijacked by an outsider but a modern day Fuhrer in wait6ing, who is about to plunge the party into a deep blue sea. “Republicans waiting for the long-promised presidential pivot seemed like characters in a (Samuel) Beckett play, trapped in Trump’s theater of the absurd”, write Time’s Alex Altman, Philip Elliot and Zeke Miller.82AleAlex Altman @aaltman8

Donald Trump is no doubt a real Republican nightmare.

He is not just the captain of a ship in a turbulent sea, he is daring the sea in a potential wreck, dancing to the bopeep of a drunken captain: ”Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum.” He is more like a suicide bomber who wants to die with his victims. Many a Republican saw this coming and jumped over to the Democratic ship being steered by Hillary Clinton.

Just towards the end of last week, top GOP leaders started wondering if SS Trump was being navigated in the right direction. President Barack Obama had warned the RNC leadership to renounce Trump openly and stop his endorsement but they would not listen, preferring the culture of doublespeak, sparing the rod to spoil the child. Trump does not give a hoot how his conquered territory feels, sometimes asking them to shut up and they had actually shut their mouths up many times, the same people that made America ‘ungovernable’ for Obama.

The list of the nominee’s gaffes on his way to power is better imagined. He says what he wants to say and twists it to suit his purpose or that of his fanatical supremacists. Nigerian politicians seem to be angels when compared with Trump in denying their statements backed with a tape recorder. Paul Ryan was the first to speak out and earned a minus from the boss. RNC chairman Reince Priebus for the second time in a row, spoke out. It turned out he too, like Mr Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, has been cleaning the dirty laundry for this man quietly without complaint until it became public knowledge. Chris Christie whose backyard is on fire plus being disgraced out of context in the choice of a running mate, has taken a back seat in his bad pr job for Trump. After the man messed up himself with the Gold Star family- Khazir Khan and his wife Ghazala following their appearance at the DNC convention, Christie quietly rebuked Trump, following the footsteps of one of his aides Maria Comella, who saw the nominee as an unserious candidate, pledging to vote for Clinton. Now it is Rudolph William Louis “Rudy” Giuliani, former mayor of New York, who engaged CNN’s Chris Cuomo on New Day in a verbal war, angry that the American media was ganging up against his candidate and seeing no evil in Clinton. Giuliani gets support from Newt Gingrich who has advised the candidate, if only he can become a little bit less unacceptable to Clinton in the weeks ahead, he would have won the trophy.

Sadly, it gets worse by the day. Just last week Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, lamented his chances and those of well over 10 GOP candidates were at stake. What the party is likely to do in the remaining days to the election, GOP desperate candidates advised Chairman Priebus and McConnell, is to deploy its resources campaigning down the line for its candidates heading for Congress.

Trump’s delusion of grandeur as a POTUS in waiting was fueled by his successes in the run up to the Republican nomination, defeating 16 others just like Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyson in their great days of knocking out punches, waiting for the opponent to get up and receive the real deadly punch just in case. In Trump’s case his deadly knock-out punch is coming from Clinton whose over 30 years of association with the Democrats have earned her a combination of both the Ali and Tyson punch, with a double digit lead rising by the day.

Trump is swallowing the bitter pill of reality, of an illusive dream to the White House with Ivana as Secretary of Commerce. When asked if Trump was mentally sound, Gingrich replied: “I mean, he is at least as reliable as Andrew Jackson, who was one of the most decisive presidents in American history,” Gingrich should be worried that his contract with America pact which helped the Republicans grab the House from the Democrats after four decades, is about to collapse because of an obsolete post-world war cry of making America great again.

The candidate’s new swan song is that the election would be rigged, what the President described as a very ridiculous proposition. Said Obama: “I never heard of somebody complaining about being cheated before the game is over,”

Unfortunately, many Republicans now believe no matter what you have to say of Hillary, there is no basis for comparison between the two candidates. Hillary may be as unpopular as Trump before the electorate regarding her extremely careless handling of State Department email servers, the Benghazi crisis and her inability to create a demarcation between the Clinton Foundation and her office as Secretary of State. Yet she stands shoulder high in matters of statecraft and carriage.

Now Trump is on the retreat since he does not want to be taken as a prisoner of war (POW) like John McCain. He wants to go back to the Trump Tower to expand his empire with his new found greatness. Hear him: “If at the end of 90 days, I’ve fallen short because I’m somewhat politically correct even though I’m supposed to be the smart one and even though I’m supposed to have a lot of good ideas, it’s OK. I go back to a very good way of life.”

Nothing better summarises the dilemma of the Republican Party and its guardian angels as the stand of the students of the Harvard Republican Club (HRC) on the candidacy of Trump: the excerpts: “In every presidential election since 1888, the members and Executive Board of the Harvard Republican Club have gathered to discuss, debate, and eventually endorse the standard-bearer of our party. But for the first time in 128 years, we, the oldest College Republicans chapter in the nation, will not be endorsing the Republican nominee.

Donald Trump holds views that are antithetical to our values not only as Republicans, but as Americans. The rhetoric he espouses –from racist slander to misogynistic taunts– is not consistent with our conservative principles, and his repeated mocking of the disabled and belittling of the sacrifices made by prisoners of war, Gold Star families, and Purple Heart recipients is not only bad politics, but absurdly cruel.

“Trump’s global outlook, steeped in isolationism, is considerably out-of-step with the traditional Republican stance as well.
“Perhaps most importantly, however, Donald Trump simply does not possess the temperament and character necessary to lead the United States through an increasingly perilous world.

“He hopes to divide us by race, by class, and by religion, instilling enough fear and anxiety to propel himself to the White House. He is looking to to pit neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, American against American. We will not stand for this vitriolic rhetoric that is poisoning our country and our children.

“We call on our party’s elected leaders to renounce their support of Donald Trump, and urge our fellow College Republicans to join us in condemning and withholding their endorsement from this dangerous man. The conservative movement in America should not and will not go quietly into the night.”