Coronation of a clown

[Xavier_Onassis]

 From the GOP, the unconscionable coronation of a clown

He used to bark ‘You’re Fired!’ Now he’s halfway to the White House

Don’t cry for Cruz, who helped radicalize this Republican Party

Watch, post-convention, for party optics to polish Donald Trump’s image
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Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Thursday, July 21, 2016. Evan Vucci AP

By Fabiola Santiago

fsantiago@miamiherald.com

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The first time I contemplated a Donald Trump presidency, after he won the first debate on browbeating tactics and crass antics, I joked: He could be our first Chusma-in-Chief!

A chusma is what we in Miami call a vulgar person with no manners, no filters, no self-control.

It’s no longer a joke. The coronation of a gruff reality star whose demeanor fluctuates from clown to bully is now part of American history.

The brash New Yorker — who launched his candidacy with so much carelessness and offensive diatribe that pundits thought he was a Hillary Clinton plant — is, officially and irrevocably, the Republican nominee for president of the United States of America.
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Just saying those words feels like an offense against a country that has been for more than a century a respected world leader.

Just contemplating the would-be president’s claim to fame being the barking of “You’re Fired!” on a television show feels like a farce is playing out. This is the nation people turn to for wisdom and refuge in times of trouble, isn’t it? Hearing a triumphant Trump boast that he brings a one-man show of “law and order” to the model of due process, justice and freedom that has characterized the USA is frightening.

The tenor of his campaign served as warning that he was tapping into a sinister and powerful force. But how could one, in the age of information, anticipate that standards could fall low enough to render Trump electable by the party of Lincoln?

But this is not even Ronald Reagan’s GOP. This party belongs to people like Sen. Ted Cruz, runner up in the Republican primary. Don’t cry for Cruz, instigator of the extreme right-wing thought that brought us the Trump candidacy.

He may not endorse Trump, but Cruz and most of the GOP members of Congress laid the groundwork for this nomination and support its platform. They sowed the seeds of white supremacy and hatred of others that Trump harvested. They took their disrespect of a historic Democratic presidency way too far. And now, there’s not only a Trump candidate, but a GOP that looks exactly him.

For anyone with doubts, the Republican National Convention offered a smorgasbord of opportunities.

Legendary Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz’s racist rant portrayed immigrants as an “invasion.” He repeated the fallacy that they don’t want to speak English.

“I don’t want to become you!” he railed at a Republican National Coalition for Life lunch. “I don’t want to speak your language. I don’t want to celebrate your holidays. I sure as hell don’t want to cheer for your soccer team!”

That’s how thick the hatred runs: A sports hero doesn’t care how he smears his own legacy. His audience rewarded his bigotry with cheers and applause.

Congressman Steve King of Iowa reached deep into the well of ignorance for his contribution to the national display of prejudice.

Asked during an appearance on MSNBC if this might not be the last time whites control the platform and public face of the Republican Party, King used the moment to question the historical contributions of non-whites, which he dubbed a “subgroup.”

“Go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”

Incredulous, host Chris Hayes asked, “than white people?” King dug himself deeper: “Than Western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”

He obviously hasn’t taken a world history class, read a book, or paid attention on the Spaceship Earth ride at Disney’s Epcot. Or he’d have experienced at least a visual run through the history of humankind and learned, for starters, that the Egyptians invented papyrus and that Semitic peoples adapted Egyptian hieroglyphics to represent the sounds of their language.

A newly made-over Trump — cleaned up for general-audience consumption and cast this week as tough but understanding (he didn’t fire the Melania speech plagiarist), collegial (he let Cruz speak even though mean Cruz didn’t endorse him) — glowed a little less orange.

But I’m not laughing anymore.

After November, Miamians may have to bow our heads and whisper: Hail to the Chusma-in-Chief.

Fabiola Santiago: fsantiago@miamiherald.com, @fabiolasantiago

Fabiola Santiago is the Herald's resident Cuban woman columnist.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article91176207.html#storylink=cpy

[Plane]

This is the nation people turn to for wisdom and refuge in times of trouble, isn’t it?

Ah yes this should be framed!


Sure we are good when we can elect a Wilson a Roosevelt a Carter or a Reagan, but to try to maintain that Hillary Clinton will fill these shoes is entirely ridiculous.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Reagan was a fucking disaster. The S&Ls were wrecked because of his incompetence.

Hillary will be a much better leader than that old fart.

[Plane]

Reagan was a fucking disaster. The S&Ls were wrecked because of his incompetence.

Hillary will be a much better leader than that old fart.

A lot happened while Reagan was president.

Lets make him responsible for the S&L AND the USSR failing.

[Xavier_Onassis]

He had very little to do with the end of the USSR. That was due to the low price of oil and the fact that advanced technology was not possible in an oppressive society,
Reagan was simply able to fool most of the people most of the time. He was responsible for millions of people forced out of well paying jobs into jobs that paid less. He destroyed unions, wasted bazillions on  bad military maneuvers, like sending marines to Lebanon and invading Grenada, He turned the national forests overt to clear cutting lumber companies, prevented alternative energy from being developed and had more of his people convicted of corruption than any president.

Still, he was a better human being than Trump. Bur who isn't?

[Plane]

  He treated the military better than Carter , and used the military better than Carter.

     That is just bout the entire reason I didn't vote for Carter , even though I had a whole lot in common with Carter.

    Reagan had more to do with the dissolution of the USSR than he did with the collapse of the S&L .

      Taken as a whole few presidents have been nearly so successful and good for the country, few even hope to.


      If you would like to compare Reagan to Clinton , I am eager to compare that mountain to that molehill.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Sending Marines to Lebanon was not "using them better", unless you think that getting blown up is fulfilling their purpose.

Carter made one mistake. He believed Kissinger and admitted the Shah to the US without withdrawing the embassy people.

Reagan supported people who murdered nuns and the Archbishop in El Salvador. He turned Honduras into an ungovernable mess.

He supplied the Ayatollahs with weapons to suport goon squads in Central America./ He was a vile and corrupt fool.

He ignored Congress to finance the overthrow of democratically elected governments. Americans should bed ashamed of Reagan.

Reagan was a monumental fuckup, either evil or an useful accomplice to evil.

[Plane]

Not perfect nor free from mistakes .

But the soldiers were not starved for materials and the Navy was not thinking of sitting ducks.

Clinton would have been helpless in the wars he started if the military had been shrunk by Reagan as they were by Carter and Clinton.

[Plane]

Sending Marines to Lebanon was not "using them better", unless you think that getting blown up is fulfilling their purpose.

If you want to talk about the importance of Benghazi in the light of lessons learned in recent history , I would like to compare the competence of the Reagan administration which was surprised by this to the competence of the Obama administration which was again surprised by this.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Reagan paid no real price for his screwing up in Lebanon, there were no months and months of stupid hearings as there were about Benghazi. Before they buried the pieces of the dead Marines, Reagan had already invaded Grenada.

Reagan wrecked El Salvador and Honduras. Mara Salvatucha-13 was his legacy. Gangs in Central America happened as a direct result of Reagan's incompetence. The Civil Wars he funded caused huge numbers of people to flee Salvador and Honduras for the US, principally LA, where they got involved in gangs and then were deported, The gangs organized themselves in both countries.

Eliot Abrams was Reagan's head Prick.

[Plane]

Reagan paid no real price for his screwing up in Lebanon, there were no months and months of stupid hearings as there were about Benghazi.

When and who did Reagan try to scapegoat for these mistakes?

[Xavier_Onassis]

He simply claimed that it never happened in his memory.

I don't see your point.

There is nothing about Bengazi that is important in any way to this election. Only old White guys who would never vote for Hillary think it means something.

[Plane]

He simply claimed that it never happened in his memory.

I don't see your point.

There is nothing about Bengazi that is important in any way to this election. Only old White guys who would never vote for Hillary think it means something.

How do you have it both ways?

That Reagan is responsible but H.Clinton is not?

Not only was Clinton and the Obama administration inept in making the mistakes that caused the Benghazi massacre, worse than this she and he were eager to point at scapegoats.

[Xavier_Onassis]

300 Marines sent to guard an airport that did not need guarding getting killed is quantitatively worse than four embassy people ina country w=in which we actually needed an embassy. There is no comparison, and Reagan LOSES.