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March 28th, 2024

Insight

Trumping McCain

Ron Hart

By Ron Hart

Published July 22, 2015

Trumping McCain

Donald Trump, a heroic man who dodged serving in the Vietnam War on five deferments attributed to “bone spurs,” questioned Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero.

The two men then had a battle of egos, publicly calling each other names. It is sad. Usually white male Republicans argue this much only at a meeting of a gated community’s HOA over fines for bringing glass containers to the pool.

Donald Trump has extensive experience in ’Nam. He was there in 1989 to set up a sweatshop to make his flowered ties for Macy’s. A lot of good men were lost – due to terrible working conditions – but Trump soldiered on. Macy’s recently discontinued carrying Trump’s fashion line, and now men emulating his fashion sense will have to hunt or trap their own hairpieces.

Before the McCain mess, Trump’s life was threatened by drug kingpin “El Chapo,” who’s on the lam after escaping from a Mexican prison. He got out of prison through a $5 million tunnel or, as Democrats call it: A Pathway to Citizenship.

Like Bernie Sanders, Trump remains a disruptive sideshow in the presidential campaign run-up. What both candidates have tapped into is the resentment of American voters, who seem to be willing to give them both men some leeway to disrupt the political elite. Trump also has addressed the tough issues that politicians like to dodge.

The Donald’s problem is that he has his own businesses and is surrounded by sycophants telling him all day long that everything he does is great: “Yes, Mr. Trump, your hair looks great that way. I have never seen a more natural hue of orange hair since Pete Rose rocked that color in the 80s.”

When he leaves the gold-plated cocoon of Trump Tower, the reality of the political world besieges him. It’s a world where words have consequences, and the leftist media is lying in wait to interpret any nutty thing he says as indicative of the Republican Party as a whole. Trump’s thoughts, of course, are not.

He is becoming the Todd Akin of this election. Democrats like to scour 315 million Americans to find one Republican with odd views. Then they amplify those beliefs as if they are the views of the entire GOP. This well-worn path of the “drive-by” media serves the Democrats well. Trump is their “useful idiot.” Keep in mind, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., years ago said much the same thing Trump did about McCain.

So far, Trump feels he has sewn up the Hispanic vote with his Mexicans-are-rapists comments. Now he has done the same thing with the military veteran vote by disparaging McCain’s war hero status. He goes to Ames, Iowa, and belittles religion. Everyone knows you go to Iowa and profess to love two things: Jesus and ethanol. To be fair to Trump, it’s hard to believe in God when you think you are God.

Logically, Trump polls well with women. He has what women look for in a man his age: billions of dollars and a stress-induced red face that might indicate an impending heart attack.

He is also polling well in my home state of Tennessee. We have long been partial to a man in a coonskin cap.

Trump did come out against gay marriage, which makes sense. Any man with hair like that has not spent much time around male hairdressers. Trump believes marriage is between one rich man and his considerably younger wife of foreign origin, whom he rotates every eight years.

The flap over McCain comes after The Donald lost his Miss Universe pageant distribution deal with broadcasters for insensitive remarks about illegal immigration. He really doesn’t differ much from McCain with his pageant competition – McCain used much the same process to pick his running mate in 2008.

Trump is mucking up issues that other GOP contenders have to address. This could be the first circus act in history where the elephants have to clean up after the clowns.

The man is disliked by 57 percent of his party. He has donated more money to Democrats than to Republicans. Trump is only about Trump, and will likely bow out at some point, since he will not win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. But he might run as an Independent and be as disruptive as Ross Perot was in 1992. That would be just like Trump: leaving the Grand Old Party for a younger one.

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