The Fault Lies in Us

     A week or two ago I heard the gaseous plutocrat bitching about Ted Cruz's pandering to voters.  The shock Trump thinks we should feel that a man of some of the people like Cruz should resort to an unseemly practice all politicians at a high level do isn't affecting me, somehow.
     About the same time, the news organizations let it be known that Trump, accompanied by his wife, both having for the first time visited the 9/11 Memorial, donated 100,000 dollars to that institution.  What with the New York Primary soon approaching, could Trump's donation be regarded as pandering?  Like former Mayor Giuliani, Donald Trump enjoys mentioning 9/11 as much as he pretends to actually care about the troops.  His charity event raising money for wounded veterans (on the evening of the first Fox News debate he skipped) brought in approximately six million dollars from lots of well-intentioned people.  Three million dollars of that still remains invisible inside the Trump Foundation, which, judging from this instance, could be a money laundering operation.  Don't sue me, Donald.  I wrote, "could be."
     Soon after notice of Trump's 9/11 Memorial contribution, the Washington Post revealed that the majority of Trump's charitable donations take the form of golf outings and other such gifts in lieu of cash.  Journalists and cable news personalities have a hard time saying it, but I'll put it right here: the man is a fraud.  For example, there is no such thing, anymore, as Trump Steaks, yet he presented meat at a press conference as if it were his product, even though the label stated otherwise.  His deception was researched and seen through within twenty-four hours, but somehow his chronic, provable on a daily basis, lying, doesn't deter his supporters from thinking he's the cleverest primate running for president.  An orangutan with his own airplane is truly remarkable, but not a reason to put his shit in the Oval Office.
     His meat deception, though minor compared to most of his offenses against honesty, compassion, truth, decency, and common sense, revealed the pettiness of the man, along with a sense in this writer that America's expectations of its public figures has dropped drastically low, even from it lows in the last thirty years.  In 1986, Ronald Reagan lied, on television, to the American people, about U.S. involvement with the Contras seeking to topple the Nicaraguan government, a link that had been made illegal by Congress to maintain, but was actually functioning due to clandestine (approved by Reagan) activities of Oliver North, Richard Secord, John Poindexter and others.  A few months later, Reagan admitted his lie, also on television.  His lying face looked exactly like his truth-telling face.
     Trump lies as easily as he tells himself he's a handsome man.  Profoundly familiar with lying, Trump has taken to calling Ted Cruz "Lyin' Ted."  Smoother with language than Trump, Cruz also distorts the truth to suit himself (a human trait, actually), and is quite willing and able, like Trump, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and a host of politicians worldwide, to bullshit people to get what he wants.  Cruz, when he occupied the Senate floor for hour upon hour to fight the passing of Obamacare, read Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham to fill some time at about three in the morning to an empty Senate.
     To those in other countries who read this, realize that yes, America has some fucking ridiculous sons of bitches in its government.
     Ted Cruz, though, possesses something Donald Trump lacks, and may need more and more as summer, with its Republican Convention, approaches: competent organization.
     Trump's chaotic manner doesn't mesh well with the Republican Party's sense of rules and decorum.  This could be seen, starkly, in Trump's horrible performance in Colorado recently, when Cruz and his machine managed to bring all of that state's delegates to his side, leaving Donald and his mouthpieces whining about the anti-democratic process supposedly going on in Colorado, where, actually, the delegates there had decided last August to carry out their way of doing things, with rules written down and available for any candidate and candidate's staff to read, understand, and follow.
     Having lost Wisconsin, and now Colorado, Trump may have difficulty achieving the 1,237 delegate count needed to win the nomination.  This could make for a contested convention, a circumstance Trump has (in his typical irresponsible way) warned could generate "riots."  Given the violence at many of his rallies (a fellow at one just two days ago got assaulted by a Trump supporter), Trump's warning of riots could come true, and the brain powering his mouth would be the most responsible for that.
     For the last few days, every Trump-related story has him or his surrogates complaining about the delegate process, how it's rigged, which it isn't.  Cruz, to his credit, did the necessary work to secure Colorado's delegates for his cause, while Trump's people in that state submitted sloppy paperwork, misspelled a delegate's name, and then their billionaire spent days griping about the system's unfairness, but only because it didn't work for him alone.
     To Trump, as with Louis the Fourteenth, L'etat c'est moi.

                                                                               Vic Neptune