What is Wrong with America that Trump Can Clinch the GOP Nomination?

With Ted Cruz dropping out, The Donald has essentially clinched the GOP nomination for the Presidency. Not bad for an on again and off again Republican. But what is wrong in America that some one like Trump can be a threat to taking the Presidency. Last year I wrote a piece that predicted Ted Cruz losing the GOP bid for the Presidency. As a total whack-job, theocrat, I knew Ted didn't stand a chance in a general election, and I sincerely thought he was encouraged to run to make ol' Jeb look more electable. But then the Donald happened. No one could have predicted Donald Trump.

I will not go into Trump's politics, nor his lack of public speaking skills (George Takei already pointed this out in the most perfect way). The reason I will refrain from this is because Trump's politics have nothing to do with his success. Yes. I just wrote that the politics of the GOP Presidential candidate's success is irrelevant. What has America come to? Well, it's a long story, one that began with the spouse of one other potential Presidential Candidate.

The Clinton Presidency was a soap opera. It was as entertaining since the first time Bill played his sax. Yes, there was scandal, but it was of a personal matter. It's not like he was selling illegal arms and getting away with it. However, the Clinton Presidency was the first neo-liberal Presidency whose economic guru was Alan Greenspan, who suckled at the tit of Ayn Rand and was a member of her cult, "the Collective." Thus began the purchase of America by corporate interests.  Furthermore, his policies opened the door for successor to rape the Middle Class in America, leading to the Great Recession.

When li'l Bush stole the Presidency in 2000 he began continuing Reagan-esque trickle down policies. He gave tax breaks for the rich, privatized (AKA segregated) schools along racial and class lines, and lied to the American people to start an illegal war. And that's not to mention the unethical, and un-American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. The Bush Administration continued the purchase of the American government by the corporate elite as the GOP rose to even greater power. With the marriage of the religious right to the political right now old hat, the Bush presidency led the country into a scientific back-slide. At the national level, climate change was denied, stem cell research suppressed, and creationism, now renamed "intelligent design," was allowed to be taught in schools along side evolution. These things became business as usual. Fortunately, Presidents have term limits, unfortunately, the next one was another neo-lib.

In 2008, Obama upset the DNC by sweeping Hillary Clinton out of the race, thus ending her first bid for the Presidency. He promised hope and change, and while the country hoped, his changes weren't spectacular, when they did occur. His first major change was to implement mandatory health care that was similar to what Hillary Clinton advocated during her husband's Presidency. The ACA, or Obamacare, passed, but not before the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies gutted the bill to the point that it was a mockery of its former self. In fact, States that did not expand Medicaid like they were supposed to have seen rate hikes and poor coverage for the very people the ACA was designed to protect. Added to this debacle, Obama expanded US military interests in the middle east which further destabilized the region. Also under Obama's watch, a corporation's religious belief trumps family planning, and corporations are now people who are allowed to vote with their wallets. Neo-liberalism looks less like liberalism, and more like old-fashioned conservatism.

The funny (or sad, per your perspective) part, is that the Party of Lincoln was hijacked twice in our little story. The first time was when the Moral Majority took controlling influence back in the 80s. This married Gilded-Age economics with religion. From a political point of view, this is brilliant because socioeconomic status is often an indicator (and much more so in the 80s than today) of a person's education. Poorer people tend to be more religious. Less educated people are less likely to question authorities they respect. Like preachers, church elders, priests, what have you. How else do you get an entire demographic to consistently vote against their own interests?

The second time the GOP was hijacked came not from the 1%, but from the product of their political tampering. A grassroots movement sprang up in Red State areas calling for a return to more Constitutional times. The Tea Party: poor conservatives convinced that it was the liberals that were destroying the country. You remember them, they were the ones chanting "Keep the Government out of my Medicare!" The Tea Party exists not to keep the GOP conservative, but to oppose Obama specifically.  Once the Republicans took control of the House and Senate they have stonewalled any left-leaning legislation introduced. This includes shutting down the Federal Government for not getting the 1% friendly tax breaks into the budget. Their obstructionism is so rampant, that the GOP controlled Senate is refusing to hold hearings on a Supreme Court vacancy.  They want to fill the seat, they just don't want Obama to do it. Before the 2016 election, this had become the state of US politics, the party in the Majority, refusing to work at the job they were hired for out of simple hatred for the other aisle, and the brown man in the White House. The only person Tea Partyers hate more than Obama is Hillary Clinton.

Enter the 2016 Presidential Election. When candidates announced their running in 2015, there were two political dynasties in the running. On the right you had Jeb Bush, son of Big Bush, and older brother to li'l Bush. Not even the GOP was having him. A dim-witted theocrat, Ted Cruz polled better than Jebbie. That's saying something. On the Left, you has Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and Secretary of State. Billing herself as the first woman President she stole the hearts of DNC hardliners. Of course, it helped that the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was helping Clinton by making it hard for other candidates to be heard (I'm being nice, she flat out tried to rig the election). Add in that in many of the states Clinton won, there have been severe election issues that smell like purposeful election fraud (funny how it always benefits Hillary). Unfortunately, due to half the states barring independents from voting, hard-line neo-libs in the DNC are giving Clinton a lead over her competition in the polls. But it is her competition, and The Donald, that are defining the Presidential race.

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are outsiders to the status quo. Clinton has many of the same employers donors as Republican candidates. Just like Bush, Kaish and Cruz, she is a whore to Wall Street too afraid to release her $200K-$400K speeches lest they be used against her during the campaign. The reason why those speeches are so important is because shucking Wall Street is so important. You see, the people are tired of business as usual. We know the game is rigged and we have two candidates that are not beholden to Wall Street. Sanders, like Clinton also works for his employers: the thousands of small donors, formally known as The People, who have financed over 99% of his campaign. Trump, on the other hand, is a Wall Street insider that may belong to the 1%, but he doesn't work for the 1%.  We have Sanders, who is grumpy, and Trump, who is crude. Trump the racist, and Sanders the activist. Two very different candidates, two very different people, two very different visions, but the most important thing is what they both share: Neither are under the thumb of the plutocracy. And THAT is why Trump is able to not only win the GOP nomination, but should Clinton win the DNC, have a good chance of becoming POTUS 45.

Either way, the next President will not be one of the usual crowd. It will be either a Social Democrat from the Bronx, or a sometimes Republican, sometimes Democrat from Queens. But the Witch from Chicago is out. The people are tired of the moneyed ruling elite ruining what was the most prosperous country in the world. The lives of the people are being sold to fatten the fat cats, and we are not going to take it any more.  The election of 2016 is a quiet revolution as The People are trying to use the system to get out Republic back. This is a test to see whether the American Experiment can survive our brush with the nouveau-Aristocracy that has arisen in America today. If not then in a generation or two the revolution may not be so quiet.

I think a little ditty from the 80s can sum up the attitudes of the oft ignored independent voters this election cycle:

The Ten Commandments and the Constitution

In honor of Arkansas’s decision to place the Decalogue at the state capitol, today I will look at whether or not our government is based on the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are as follows:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

To break this down, we will ask but a simple question: Are any of the commandments upheld in the US Constitution?

To answer this, the obvious solution is to go through the list and see where it applies to the Constitution.  As a reminder, the body of the Constitution sets up the how the government works, the only bit of law is an outline of preceding of treason. Since treason is not expressed in the Ten Commandments, we can disregard the bulk of the Constitution.  That leaves us with the Amendments which spell out individual rights.  We must limit ourselves to the first ten Amendments as the others were added after our founding fathers.

Ok, so Commandment 1: Only worship God (Yahweh).

Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

We can stop there.  The First Amendment directly invalidated the First Commandment.  Where God commands worship only for him, the Constitution says that the government neither force you to, or force you not to.

But I shall go on.

The second Commandment is also annulled by the First Amendment.  Again, you have the right to make a statue of Marduk out of your boogers and worship him as you please.

The third Commandment is to not take the Lord’s name in vain.  This is often interpreted in two ways.  One is to not blaspheme.  Again the First Amendment trumps the Commandment as blasphemy is protected speech.  The second interpretation of the third Commandment is to hold to your word, to keep your contracts.  Between individuals, there are no contract laws written in the Constitution, which would satisfy the name-in-vain Commandment.  However, there are limitations to what kinds of (essentially) contracts the States can make.  But Article I, Section 10 outlines prohibitions on contracts and treaties between states and with foreign powers without consent of Congress.*  I think we can safely say that keeping contracts are as much of secular life and be it between governments or individuals, it is better for the general assumption that one’s word will be true.  Otherwise, why bother with contracts?

The fourth Commandment is not mentioned in the Constitution at all.  In fact, most businesses are open seven days a week.  In fact, it is generally held that laws forcing businesses to close on a certain day, or limiting sales of certain goods on a certain day are thought to be a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition of promoting religion.

The fifth Commandment is not a matter of Constitutional law.  The closest thing to it are state laws that require not the child to honor the parents, but that the parents honor (provide for) the child.  A child can neglect a parent, and nothing happens legally.  But it is illegal for a parent to neglect a child.

The sixth through eighth Commandments are also not in the Constitution.  Homicide, and theft are defined by the states, not the federal government, except in rare cases.  But in any case, murder and theft are not in the Constitution.  Neither is adultery, which is legal everywhere.

The ninth Commandment prohibits perjury, libel, and slander.  Again, this is found in common law, not in the Constitution nor in any of the Amendments.  While it is found in common law, like murder and theft, all civilized countries have prohibitions against such things.

The tenth Commandment says not to covet your neighbor’s property.  Included in that property are slaves and wives.  Yes, slavery is in the Constitution, and before the 13th Amendment it allowed slavery, just like the teachings of the Abrahamic prophets.  But you could covet them as much as you wanted to!  In the Constitution thought crimes are not addressed, and to say coveting is evil is to create thought crime.  Fortunately, Amendments past the Tenth in the Constitution not only freed humans from slavery, but gave women the vote, recognizing them as no longer property of their husbands.

So before you vote on or petition for the Ten Commandments displayed on or in a government building, remember that not only is the Constitution written without them, but to adhere to them would be a step backwards for civilization.

So, what is the point of all of this?  If you want to put up the Decalogue on government property, it is the same as “respecting an establishment of religion”.  It is no different than a Muslim group wanting to post Sharia law, or Buddhists wanting to post the Eight Fold Path.  Want to post something in your town square?  Try the Ten Amendments, not the Ten Commandments!

*Thanks to Mike Wyner for pointing this out.