John Kasich backed out of the presidential race, as did Ted Cruz, leaving an open lane for the man now called by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, "the presumptive Republican nominee," Donald John Trump, real estate tycoon, reality show veteran, and talking asshole.
     Since Bernie Sanders' chances of gaining the Democratic nomination are so negligible, we're dealing with a contest between two very unappealing candidates, both of whom have favorability ratings below fifty percent.  When more than half of the populace hates your guts and also the guts of your opponent, what does that say about the current level of relations between the two major American political parties and the people they're supposed to represent?  What does it say, but "Fuck you, America.  Take these two pieces of shit and choose.  You don't deserve palatable and decent human beings running your country."
     I've known for months that this would happen--Clinton versus Trump, New York versus New York, wealthy versus wealthy, celebrity versus celebrity.  Bernie Sanders' populist message, incorporated somewhat by Clinton for political reasons, has been successfully squashed by the Democratic establishment, even though Sanders won Indiana yesterday.  Sanders' appeal to youthful Americans, in sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton's lack of appeal to same, means very little to the craggy old bastards of the Democratic old guard.  Middle-aged and elderly Americans vote, while young people tend not to.  Democratic (and Republican) strategy aims at older citizens, while youth tends to be ignored.  Along came a white-haired progressive politician from Vermont, second least populated state, who showed that youth can get enthusiastic about politics.  Energy levels, since they were youthful, at Sanders rallies, tended to look far more enervating to the spirit than what was on display at Clinton rallies.  What we now have is an election looming in the fall with two participants nobody in their right minds would want as president.
     Bernie Sanders made young potential voters care about the political process.  If he has to back Clinton (to help send Trump back into the abyss from which he oozed), how many Bernie supporters will turn their enthusiasm to Hillary Clinton, who seems like some rich and emotionally frosty great aunt?
     I saw a short biographical piece on Clinton's personal aide, Huma Abedin, who's worked for Mrs. Clinton for twenty years, about half of the younger woman's life.  There was a telling shot of the two of them on the campaign trail, in some fast food place.  The image was taken by someone behind the counter, showing Clinton and Abedin looking up at the menu board in the kind of eating place the candidate and former First Lady is not used to patronizing.
     Clinton pointed up at something and said to Abedin, her words not heard, but her lips easily readable: "Now what is that?"
     Was she pointing at the word CHEESEBURGER?  Or MILK SHAKES?  I exaggerate, but this brief video clip revealed to me a rich, privileged woman, poised to become president, confused by words on a wall-spanning plastic fast food menu.  This is someone who doesn't understand the basics of fast food.  It could be she was pointing at something named strangely, but it doesn't take many exposures to fast food menus to get the idea of what's available.  Without audible words, and just a little part of a larger story about Huma Abedin, this clip reminded me of the elder George Bush's amazement at the existence of electronic price scanners in a store's checkout aisle.
     Donald Trump managed to show what he'll continue to be like as the weeks and months pass to November.  He saw the cover of the National Enquirer, a sensationalistic news rag (for those readers in other countries who may not know of it) and noticed a front page photo from 1963 showing Lee Harvey Oswald handing out Fair Play For Cuba Committee leaflets, a likely act showing Oswald to be an agent provocateur participating in an effort to discredit a pro-Castro organization of that time.  Nearby is another man that the Enquirer claims is Ted Cruz's father, Rafael.  Whoever he is, he also appears to be handing out the Fair Play leaflets.  Trump called in this "revelation" to Fox and Friends.     Steve Doocy, one of the hosts, had a smirk on his face while Trump went on about this, and co-host Brian Kilmeade's eyes shifted a few times.  These idiots have to listen to this godawful scoundrel on a regular basis, sit there while he says utterly insane things, and pretend like they're participating in a normal activity.
     I don't know about Rafael Cruz's past, I haven't researched his background.  Trump's grabbing on to this likely dubious report, though, shows how willing he is to attack the sacred cow of the official version of the JFK assassination.  Chris Matthews on MSNBC expressed his feeling of offense and how Trump has finally gone over the line.  The JFK assassination in official circles on news media and in politics is a simple matter of one killer, one dead victim, and collateral damage in the body of John Connally who sat in front of Kennedy.  For Trump to suggest that Rafael Cruz was in league with Oswald in killing JFK is the kind of slander that Trump himself would never tolerate without threatening a lawsuit.
     If Trump's suggestion that the JFK assassination was the result of a conspiracy is somehow "over the line," he will be in agreement with the majority of Americans on the matter of that event not being a case of just a single criminal (Oswald), but of being a more complicated thing, i.e. a conspiracy.  I don't regard Trump as a legitimate JFK assassination scholar.  I doubt that he's read as many books about it as I have.  He is, like an insect, a living entity that reacts to stimuli without necessarily delving deeply into the meaning of things, scholar-wise.  That Trump attacked John McCain, a former POW, for "getting captured," is a far worse breaking of boundaries than his suggestion that Oswald did not act alone in killing Kennedy (if he did kill Kennedy).  When Trump made that egregious remark against McCain, he attacked all POWs, past, present, and future.  It should've been enough, in this "troops"-supporting country, to get him scorned from the presidential race.  A man who avoided Vietnam service, attended a teenage military academy, and now thinks he has military smarts, taking the loathsome tack of putting down a man who spent years in a North Vietnamese prison, should not be taken seriously as a Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military.  Still, Trump survived that disgusting remark, and many more.  He said that Ted Cruz's father (a still living person) had something to do with the JFK assassination, but so what?  He's Trump.  He can say anything in a media landscape where words mean nothing.
     Notice that Cruz and Kasich, both of whom, like them or not, relied on the meanings of words (twisted or otherwise) to get their messages across, but had to finally recede away from the victor, who pounded them and his previous adversaries into irrelevance with blunt, forceful, meaningless statements.  To fight this devil, Hillary Clinton must engage, to some degree, with Trump's manner of achieving victory in 2016 America.  In other words: be the worst shit you can be.

                                                                              Vic Neptune