The blame game

                It’s easy to dislike and even ridicule the businessman-turned-politician whose name rhymes with dump (as in, take a…) and I admit I do dislike him.

                I dislike him for his ludicrous ‘birther’ campaign, for his baseless claims to superiority in all endeavors, for ridiculing a reporter for his disabilities, for his attitudes toward women, for “…my African-American…,” for cheer-leading the thugs who attend his rallies, then cringing behind his security folks when someone tries to return the favor.  His abject failure to present a single fully formed and intelligently expressed idea for making ‘America great again’ is laughable. His ‘…bleeding from…” comment displays not only his hatred of women but his incredibly bad taste.

                This guy’s ascendant candidacy is making us a laughing stock the world over. Serious people of good will can only view it as a failure of this country to make good on the promise of representative democracy.

                He represents everything I dislike about big-money politics. And he exposes the atrocious state of political reporting these days as reporters and pundits who prefer sensationalism over sober reflection and blather over insightful commentary grant him the most extensive free coverage since Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface.

                He is a buffoon, a bully and a bigot. But because he’s also a billionaire, he can buy a platform and as long as what he says is sufficiently outrageous, what passes for the press these days will continue to guarantee him as much publicity as he desires.  He has nothing real to say, which explains why so many of his pronouncements take place through a platform that limits comments to 140 characters.

                It’s fair to say I am not a big fan of this overblown nincompoop.

                It is also fair to say I don’t blame him for his fame or even for his standing in the primaries.

                I don’t blame him for the same reason I don’t blame a neighbor’s dog for crapping on my lawn. Crapping is a central skill for dogs and understanding appropriate social context or cultural rules of civility is not.

                This guy does what he is inclined to do, based on an upbringing and business climate that has encouraged him to believe that his way is by definition the right way.

                I don’t blame him and if he’s elected to the highest office in the land, I still won’t blame him.

                Should that happen, I blame us.