A sad cult with limited purpose or power

I remember fun times at many company holiday parties once the karaoke started. You know, free entertainment in some bar with fellow workers singing along to recorded music tracks. It always reminded me of Andy Warhol’s comment about a person’s 15 minutes of fame, except with karaoke it’s more like three of four minutes. By the way, the name is a mash up of two Japanese words that mean “empty orchestra.” The mixture of alcohol and one who cannot sing often provides karaoke humor, along with a good dose of embarrassment.

One night during the celebration of another successful year at my company, a well-respected co-worker stood up to sing his favorite song. The microphone was loud and the music track was perfect, but the man’s singing was shit. It was a totally embarrassing performance for both the guy and the audience. It was like an old guy hitting a line drive at the company picnic and having a heart attack on his way to first base. That might be a good time for someone to say, “Okay, this is over.”

So, let’s say that one weekend Jesus Christ is booked at the Florida state fairgrounds and the next weekend the devil himself, you know, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, that Satan guy appears there. Who would draw the biggest crowd? Most people would probably say Jesus, but why wouldn’t the devil also get a large crowd? Donald John Trump just proved that he could draw a great horde to a free event on a hot rainy night in Sarasota, Florida.

In the Sarasota Herald Tribune, this letter to the editor really summed it up nicely, “Let’s put Donald Trump’s Sarasota rally in perspective. Maybe one-tenth of 1% of the area showed up, including out-of-towners. These rallies are fool’s gold for Trump. Perhaps most telling is the fact that no protesters bothered to show up (perhaps out of fear). Trump has turned into Mr. Irrelevant!”

That same Herald Tribune summed up the rally with these five takeaways. 1. Trump base remains committed, 2. (Florida Governor & Trump sycophant) DeSantis not mentioned, 3. ‘Stolen election’ narrative continues, 4. Criminal investigation is a ‘witch hunt,’ 5. Trump tap-dance of political kingmaker is a focus. Let’s dig a little deeper.

Trump is being manipulated by people around him. They are filling his head with dreams of returning to office in 2024, or worse, being “reinstated” next month after some amazing revelation comes out of the fake Arizona ballot audit. Insiders say the firm Cyber Ninjas haven’t found any fraud, but they don’t know how to end their farce. They are simply stealing money from the Maricopa County Republicans. Once August comes and goes, Donald Trump’s followers will feel like the loyal fans of those doomsday predictors who end up being totally wrong about the world ending and leaving their disappointed fans in the dirt.

The airplane that flew over the event on Saturday night towing an electronic LOSER PALOOZA sign had it right. This is the tour of the loser needing the instant gratification of a crowd of people who are just as desperate and disillusioned as he is. This broke-dick politician will continue to wring money from these lambs, but he’s not Jesus and he certainly isn’t the devil. If he were the Prince of Darkness, he would still be president. In today’s world the devil usually wins.

When someone talks for 90 minutes repeating their old, tired material, it’s not a meaningful speech. It’s just a show, a circus clown holding court in the city that Ringling Brothers once called home. The man with the painted face tells his lies and cheap jokes then walks away feeling better about himself but in reality he is an empty, sad loser.

A news story said Governor Ron DeSantis asked the Trump camp to postpone the Sarasota rally out of respect for the families of the Surfside building collapse. The Donald refused to move the date and that created enough tension between the two men that Trump never mentioned DeSantis in his rambling speech. There is one other factor that needs to be mentioned here. The result of a straw-poll taken with young Christian voters a few weeks ago showed DeSantis getting more votes than Trump as a possible presidential candidate for 2024 — Oops!

Trump has painted himself into a corner with his “stolen election” crap and he can’t seem to end it. There’s no elegant way to escape the disdain of Republican moderates and there is also a new problem on the rise. Trump keeps talking about his new criminal jeopardy as part of the same out to get me harangue about the greatest witch hunt in the history of America and it’s those leftist, radical, Democrat socialists who want to make me look bad. It’s revealing that Trump and his too-talkative sons never deny what was done. Instead, they attempt to normalize criminal behavior of the family and close associates. Biden won’t be giving the Trump boys a pardon, so it might be best for them to shut up and put together a strong defense strategy, or the phrase “lock ‘em up” just might hit home.

Trump’s playing the “king maker” role just might backfire on the party and on him. First, when the Republicans primary a politician with a new pro-Trump face, they have no idea who will be running on the Democratic ticket. It could be there will be two new faces in play, and the Democrat might seem like a more reasonable choice for the people of that district or state. Next, when you add sycophants to the party you end up with folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene with lower appeal to party moderates. Over time, those big mouth Trumpers show exactly how ill-equipped they are to hold an office. Once a district has a strong Democrat in office, it’s awfully hard to get them out. As each district becomes more Hispanic or African American, the chance of a Republican comeback go down each year. It will take more than extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression for Republicans to keep power.

The media keeps Trump front and center. They know he’s a polarized actor who’s great for the ratings. People who love him tune in and scores of people who hate him also tune in. But the saddest part is that no one in Trumplandia has the nerve to tell him he lost, and he needs to go home and build a library for that one book he owns. You know, the one with Hitler’s speeches.

The only purpose of the cult is to incite Republicans who think a crowd equals lots of voters, and to make Trump feel good. The real number of those who would pick Trump over any competent Republican is about 25%. People like Florida’s Matt Gaetz, Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert are positioned to the right of Donald Trump. As we learn more about their criminal investigations, conspiracy theories and radical white supremacy beliefs and right-wing endorsement of violence against members of Congress they will be repositioned as too racist or radical to be in Congress. They were there during the insurrection and now try to say it didn’t happen. Maybe they are simply too stupid to be in Congress? Hey, did they stand in the rain waiting for Trump? Well, no, so maybe they aren’t totally stupid.

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