There's an anguished piece by Timothy Egan in The New York Times about the similarity between Donald Trump, the current front-runner Republican presidential candidate, and Italy's sybaritic prime minister Sylvio Berusconi. If you can overlook shades of their toupees, you will find that they are ducks of the same feather.
Both have embarrassed their nations with vulgarity and stupidity. Yet the public cannot seem to have enough of them. Everyday brings fresh evidence that this duo should be fired immediately and sent into exile in a remote, inhospitable island to plant turnips and practice stand-up comedy on each other. But they march on, feeding on the insatiable desire of a certain section of the public looking for their daily fix of outrageous behavior and buffoonery.
Try to digest this fact: 47 percent of Republican voters believe that President Obama was not born in the United States. That's today's statistics, not last year's or the year before. If you are about to throw up, don't blame it on a bad hair day.
The Birther department is expanding, the newest addition to the faculty being that paragon of propriety, Mr. Charlie Sheen. If this were a big joke, like the one Joaquin Phoenix pulled on the David Letterman show, we could laugh a little and return to our daily grind, but it is not. It is a serious trend suggesting that the nation hasn't really advanced 150 years after the civil war.
Since publicity hounds seem to be ruling the republic, we may see more outrageous 'movements' coming our way. The thing to do would be to hold firm and not despair. On their own, these movements are likely to die a fast and natural death as people finally awake to reason and common sense and reject their architects as idiots and charlatans.
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