When a political candidate has little of practical substance to offer, he can rely on racial and religious prejudices to make his message sparkle.  Donald Trump, German in origin--his grandfather's last name was Drumpf--took questions from voters in New Hampshire.  One very white man in the audience declared that President Obama is a Muslim, prompting no disagreement from Trump.  The white man also brought up the subject of ISIS training camps in the continental U.S.
     There are Americans who believe ISIS training camps exist here, and also those who believe Obama prays facing Mecca.  Trump, in 2012, spent a lot of his airtime questioning Obama's citizenship.  He put himself in the position of an INS official, determining birth certificate legitimacy. The pest of that year is now the king dick of 2015.
     His debate performance on September 16 was reduced in duration by ten other people who want to run the world, but will suck at it if they make it that far.  Placed once again in the center of the thin red line of would-be war chiefs, Trump failed to impress me as anything but an embodiment of America satirizing itself.  His usually reliable strength using unscripted verbal assaults slipped when Carly Fiorina was asked to comment about his past contemptuous dismissal of her appearance.  When she replied that women knew very well what he meant, Trump, the magnanimous gentleman, said, "She's a beautiful woman!"
     Did single women across the country sigh, disappointed that Trump is married?
     What stood out for me, suffering for you, the reader, as I endured the length of the debate and pomposities of the debaters, was the majority view--Rand Paul an exception--that the U.S. military must be stronger.  Fiorina, especially belligerent and specific with areas and fleets needing beefing up, made it seem as if the military has become anemic, when it fact it already is the strongest in the world, has been for decades.
     Dwight Eisenhower said in 1953 that every bomb we make takes bread from a child's mouth.  He was a Republican in the days when they had hearts.  He also knew war firsthand.  He had to make the launching time decision for D-Day, and many other real life and death decisions that the clowns standing before Reagan's Air Force One plane wouldn't have the slightest idea how to make with any competence or compassion.
     The time from now to November 2016 will pass quickly--time always does the older you get--but as we feel sicker and sicker of Trump, his face, his voice, his insistence that he's great when he isn't even admirable, his exploitation of stupidity and hatred as revealed by his his tacit assent of the New Hampshire white man's bigoted remarks, the other candidates will also become sickening when paid more attention by news media using pornographic techniques: supply images, tease adrenal glands, supply more images.

                                                                             Vic Neptune