Mitt Romney did well in a New Hampshire poll, showing up Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and the others--an impressive feat for a figuratively dead candidate.
     Why Mitt?  Could it be that his worst statements of 2012 weren't as bad as the current GOP office seekers' best?  Romney's "forty-seven percent" comments, dismissing nearly half of American voters as not worth cultivating, showed him to be a wealthy elitist; in that way he seemed a typical rich man beholden to one-tenth of one percent interests.  Mitt Romney lacked mystery.  His mind did not come off as the rotting cheese filling the braincase of Ben Carson, or the cluster bomb occupying Trump's skull.
     Trump's profile went underneath news media coverage of the Paris attack by ISIS.  He may have spent a few days wondering how to break back into the attention he needs to survive as a political candidate, entertainer, and megalomaniac.
     At a rally on Monday, three days after the Paris tragedy, Trump did two things that put him back where he's convinced he belongs.  A black activist entered the rally with a "Black Lives Matter" sign and shouted true invective at the great orange man.  Trump stopped talking and saw the source of the disturbance.  The activist, surrounded by angry (white) Trump supporters, was subdued, kicked, and taken from the room, while Trump encouraged the violence by saying repeatedly, "Get him outta here!  Get him outta here!"
     Cameras on the floor showed the activist on the ground receiving blows, reminiscent of Brownshirt activity against Jews in the 1930s.  Some surrounding Trump-supporter faces showed pure hate sculpted into anger, encouraged by their master at the podium, a man who, claiming to be worthy of the name leader, failed to even attempt what Mick Jagger attempted to do at Altamont when that singer urged Hell's Angels motorcyclists to stop fighting in an engagement that resulted in a death.  Mick Jagger, unlike Trump, is civilized.
     In Trump's world, dissent is unwelcome.  He is right, and everyone else is not as right as he is.  Would he like to be a dictator?
     At the same event, Trump claimed that on 9/11 he saw "thousands" of Muslims in Jersey City cheering as the Twin Towers fell.  There is no videotape of this occurring; the Jersey City Police Department issued a statement saying that it didn't happen.  News programs did show images of Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks, but that's far from Jersey.  Trump has had two days to retract this lie, but hasn't.  His chief adviser appeared on CNN today, offering the argument, "Can you prove that it didn't happen?"
     Can you prove that I didn't see an elf stealing bread from my kitchen last night?
     Trump has entered dangerous territory and doesn't seem to care.  He's allowing his supporters to physically abuse people expressing their First Amendment rights.  He's a liar.  He commands the attention of American news networks even as he utters one falsehood after another, mixed with vague and unchallenged statements.  He's anti-intellectual.  He harkens back to a time when America was "great," and he'll make it "great again."  He uses the reactive mindsets of supporters, telling them what they want to hear.  He's turning into a fascist right before our eyes.  The separation between his rhetoric and good old fashioned American prejudices against minorities and Muslims is a very thin membrane dividing celebrity Donald from someone destined to kill people and visit wrath on innocents, all the while pretending to be "a nice guy."
     The GOP better figure out whether or not they want such a shepherd of humanity's basest instincts to represent them in a presidential run.  Even obtuse, boring old Mitt would be preferable as president.

                                                                             Vic Neptune