Earlier tonight the Republican presidential candidates assembled on a stage in a Las Vegas casino owned by Sheldon Adelson, a man who in 2012 so believed wholeheartedly in the suitability of cynical fuck Newt Gingrich as president that he spent millions of dollars on that ridiculous lost cause, overwhelmed eventually by Mitt Romney's backers, another batch of money-wasting fools.
     The main debate was preceded by the "kids' table" debate, featuring four sad-looking candidates who will not be president: Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, and Rick Santorum.
     Rick Santorum?  He's running for president?  When I saw him talking about something it occurred to me that I didn't even know he was a contender.  I knew about Pataki and the other two, but hearing Santorum talk about terrorism and war made him seem like a caller phoning a right wing radio program.
     The main debate on CNN was presented as if we were watching a trailer for a Rocky film blended with hype for the Independence Day sequel.  These candidates, and their lunacy, increasingly blend our world's reality with the fictions of meddling minds subjectively projecting their contents into the public mind, conning many into believing in ideas with no basis in fact.  Donald Trump's power fantasies of mass deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, culturally-based surveillance of Muslims, of muscular and punishing warfare, advocacy of torture and the banning of all Muslims from entering the U.S., make him the loudest and most extreme voice among his colleagues seeking the Oval Office.  The others, though, in their stridency and enthusiasm for sometimes inhuman solutions (like eliminating the Affordable Care Act, thus sticking it to millions of formerly uninsured poor and lower middle class Americans saved by Obama's best accomplishment), sound like baby Trumps, willing to fuck over millions here and abroad for the sake of satisfying the powerful interests and individuals who seek to place their marionettes in the White House.
     The parts of the main debate I saw had Trump, when he did get to speak, often insulting the other candidates, ripping into Jeb Bush at one point after the latter criticized his proposals, making fairly reasonable comments about a dangerous piece of shit standing a few feet away.  As Trump predictably dismissed and denigrated Bush, I felt a little sorry for Florida's former governor, a rare emotion for me in the case of a Bush family member.  He's got lots of money behind him, but he doesn't have a chance against the upstart Trump, who bullies Bush even after having bullied him relentlessly in past months.  Trump does kick a man when he's down.
     He also reignites petty differences.  It should serve as an example of what kind of president he would be when we consider his resurgent enmity toward Megyn Kelly of Fox News.  Recall that Trump resented her question about his attitudes towards women at a debate last August.  He tweeted ridiculous, silly, and insulting things about Kelly, suggesting she was menstruating at the time of the debate.  Kelly held her tongue, proving herself capable of something Trump has none of: dignity.
     In the past few days, Kelly on her weeknight program misquoted Trump's latest poll number as fifteen, when it was actually twenty-seven.  Trump (I imagine him tweeting while sitting on his favorite toilet in Trump Tower) went after Kelly--"She said it's fifteen!"  An emotionally disturbed child might voice similar complaints.  He went on in his tweets, attacking Kelly and CNN, too, hoping that in the debate, "...they treat me fairly."  This kind of petulant tweet-speak appeals only, I suspect, to Trump's unthinking followers, who grow increasingly angry toward their Fuhrer's detractors.  Someone holding up a Black Lives Matter sign and shouting protests at a recent Trump rally was escorted out amid vicious cries and a shout of "Sieg heil" from someone.  The Brownshirt-like activity at these gatherings seems to be escalating, while in America at large, the fulfillment of Trump's hate rhetoric against Muslims can be seen in the fire bombing of a San Bernardino mosque, of vandalism against mosques and Islamic centers elsewhere in this country, and threats against individual Muslims.  Those who think this isn't serious and reminiscent of a northern European country in the early 1930s need to take their heads out of their asses.
     Trump, a voice fomenting this intolerance, blithely gets away with it--condemned by critics in the news media, yes, but still not treated as a growing threat to peace here and abroad.  He and his fellow Republicans running for president, all of them with varying degrees of hard-on for power at the expense of the disenfranchised, look like a row of dolts pointing guns at America's, and the world's, head, all believing they're doing good works.
     Not that I believe in the Devil, but the Devil is a clever son of a bitch.

                                                                           Vic Neptune