Process of elimination

Counting down the presidential candidates I won't endorse.

Like you care.

Batting next — Ted Cruz!

No way! Why? Cruz is smarmy and unctuous.

He is Joe McCarthy incarnate, swinging a cross like a cudgel, rooting out not Commies but whoever and whatever doesn't jibe with his brand of Christianity.

He's Trump but worse: Same strange ideas, same foaming foment of hatred and division. Except Cruz knows which levers to pull, he knows the codes. He knows which ears to whisper into.

Silver-tongued devil.

So if you're keeping score at home, no endorsement for Trump, none for Cruz.

Like I ever would.

Let's end the suspense: Not endorsing anyone in the Republican slate, even though Marco Rubio looks almost hinged in this crowd he hangs with.

Who's left? Stay tuned.

Face is familiar

I'm almost ready to endorse a candidate. Like you care.

To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, "Well, it ain't Donald Trump, that's for sure."

Remember, it all starts with some words …

Not enough black ink

Oh, how I wish this was a comic book!

Like the wonderful Watchmen, a grimly layered tale about costumed semi-superheroes who must adapt to a world that no longer tolerates them.

In it, Adrian Veidt, a former superhero who trumps Donald Trump in wealth and chutzpah, plots to unleash a horror so catastrophic that it fulfills his grand wish — the entire world abolishes divisions to unite and vanquish the horror.

I want Donald Trump to be that horror — a thing so devastating, so harmful, that people denounce their own ugliness and hate to turn against him and choose civil, reasonable leaders.

I want Trump to be what some pundits have proposed: So awful an impersonation of a human being that he'll drive followers away so that he can back out of the race, or drive voters to the Democratic ticket. I want him to be playing such a monumental prank on us all, if only to massage his giant ego, with the breezy gall of someone who has more money than God.

I want him to be a Democratic conspiracy, a trick deployed on the Republican Party, a massive inflated parody of itself, a hulking chicken having come home to roost.

But I'm afraid Donald Trump is real, and that he is in fact the runaway leader of the Republican ticket, and that he may win that party's nomination to the presidency.

And that makes me angry.

This cartoon, this little exercise with typing paper and Pilot®™ Razor Point pen, doesn't even begin to express my anger. I thought it would, but it's an ineffectual doodle.

I wanted to portray what makes me angriest: Joke or not, Trump has now made it OK for people to act out their hate. Like the bully he is, the demagogue he has become, he encourages followers to demean and demonize, even hurt those not like them. He cracks fear like a whip, pitting one group above another, and followers hear his whipcrack as permission to blame an entire group for the actions of a few, and to diminish them and compartmentalize them, and to act with violence against them.

Followers say many times Trump tells it like it is; Trump himself insults his critics and says they're just upset because he's not politically correct. Neither are right: Trump doesn't tell it like it is — he calculates to tell it like people want to hear, things on their hearts already, things written in fear and anger and blame. As if Trump saying it makes it true.

Trump is not being politically incorrect: He is insulting and humiliating and defaming, and stirring up others to do the same, under the strange off-color of authority he has built through the years, in the boorish, piggish televised persona we can't seem to get enough of.

At a Trump rally this week, a "Black Lives Matter" protester was detained by the crowd, one Trump follower flashing what looks like a Nazi salute, another shouting, "Burn that motherf----r alive!"

This is Trump's legacy. Joke or not, this is what he has wrought. Donny Demonseed has sown a dark harvest. Expect worse to come, unless we come to our senses. I'm trying to imagine him as president, the divided mess of a country he purports to make great again.

Um.

I'm really, really hoping I have overreacted. I really hope that months from now I'll look at this post and laugh at my usual hyperbole and misplaced anxiety.

We are a horribly imperfect country, a moving experiment so broken with hypocrisies and sufferings and broken promises upon broken promises — either forgotten or repackaged as patriotism and progress. But we are an experiment; we experiment with this counter-intuitive idea we can rise above our base fears and impulses, that we can, with vigilance and patience and hope for ourselves and one another, be a country that accommodates and accepts. A country that can still be better than itself.

Donald Trump will wreck that experiment, that long-held dream against all odds.

I still hope it's all a joke.

The joke on me is that Donald Trump makes some of the other Republican candidates —namely Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee and Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson (remember Ben Carson?) — who at least (for now) couch their demonization in old-school rhetoric, look almost statesmanlike.

Almost.

A love letter

The face that launched a thousand thousands
and thousands of spams!

Dec. 8, 2015

Donald Trump
1 Trump Tower
Trump Town, NJ USA 11111

Dear Mr. Trump,

Thank God for you, sir! Thank God!

We at Amalgamated Spammer Services, LLC, can't thank you enough for saving us. You are a savior, sir! But I'm not telling you anything new.

Truth was, the spam industry had been running on fumes. Email users were ignoring more and more of our emails as the years went on — and believe you me, we were sending more and more email! Just phenomenal, what we've been able to do! I guess users got burned one too many times clicking on one of our links; infested hard drives will do that.

But even as consumers wised up, we still had a vast empire of sheep yet to fleece, and our shears were going 24/7. It'd been fantastic for a long while. New and naive folks were clicking on the garage floor sealant ads, the window treatment stuff, the walk-in tubs, the prostate hoohah. Hell, we weren't even trying.

When that group resisted and shrank, we didn't worry. Plenty of ammo left, my friend, plenty of ammo, and still plenty of sheep. We threw the erectile dysfunction stuff at 'em; people even crashed their hard drives clicking on the oogy one with the illustration of the clogged penile blood vessel! "That ain't sexy!" We said around the office. "No one's gonna go for that!" But damned if it wasn't click-a-palooza! Cha-ching!

Then we shotgunned the cheaters' anonymous stuff, the meet-your-neighborhood-MILF stuff, the Russian fø*k buddies, and people still clicked because, you know, the sex thing. We told folks Obama was the devil incarnate. Click click click click click! Those were gravy days, my friend, I'm telling you. We thought it'd last forever.

By mid-winter last year, we could see that wasn't gonna happen. Not even the sex stuff. And people just weren't going for the brain pills "endorsed" by that Elon Musk fella, you know, the Tesla car guy. Fewer people seemed to care that Bill Gates' daughter became a genius by taking the very same pills.

It's like they got knowledge, or something, if I may be ironic.

The end was near, and after this Christmas season, after we had doubled up on the 700-lumen flashlight powerful enough to take down hijacked airplanes, and doubled down on the Star Shower®™ Laser Light thing (it's legit! I've got one in my yard, just turning the creche into some kind of weird holy disco!), we were going to pack it up. A couple thousand more pitches per account of "get your child a letter from Santa," and that was gonna be it.

Tie it in a bow. The end. Finito!

Then you came along!

Do you believe in miracles?! Yes!

You are the godsend to our industry. Correct that: You are the god of our industry!

That's not over the top, is it! Of course not: That's not possible with you!

You prove it every day, Mr. Trump God. I don't know how you do it, but you do it — every day, you say some interesting things (that's industry talk for any lie — any stupid, insane, vile, hurtful, outrageous, divisive notion), and people believe you. Fact, schmacts!

They not only believe you, they follow you! They want more! The more — interesting — you get, the more they want. I mean, ban all Muslims from getting into the country, like you called for yesterday?! Anyone else says it, he steps down the next day — from his job, from his campaign, from the planet. He disappears in shame.

Not you, though! No, not you! On the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, after Japanese-Americans were rounded up in our fear and sent to prison camps, you tell your people what they want to hear — fear Muslims now! That is rich and bold, because you know so well, people never really learn, and if they do, it's certainly not about history! Bunch of old stuff! Who needs it, am I right?

You tell your people Mexicans are rapists! You congratulate followers for roughing up a "Black Lives Matter" protester at one of your rallies! You denigrate women! You flail your arms and buck your teeth in imitation of a reporter with disabilities, for daring question your interesting assertion that thousands and thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the fall of the World Trade Center. And your followers roar, "More!"

Genius, sir! Pure genius! You are the Genius' Genius! You should bottle and sell whatever it is you got!

That's a joke, Mr. God. I know you're already bottling and selling it.

We're doing the same. Your followers are our people!

We are reviving the spam industry on your back. Every day, dozens and dozens of times a day (maybe we should do it thousands and thousands of times a day, in honor of your interesting assertion about the cheering Muslims) we're spamming everyone on the planet with your "Trump Economic Plan" or your "Trump American Plan" that says they can double or triple their income by clicking on the email.

We've got another one, the Trump Financial Plan (doesn't matter the name of the thing, as long as it incudes "Trump," but I'm not telling you something you don't know, am I right?!), that guarantees $7,000 to $8,000 income per month.

Did you really promise that? Wait — don't tell me. It really doesn't matter. People are gonna believe. They are gonna click like they've never clicked before.

We slap a news network logo on it, coupla magazine logos (they're so easy to get off the Internet) and plaster your picture on it. Same picture each time, the one I attached at the top of the letter. Some in the office say it's not very flattering, but I say, "It's the Donald, being Donald."

It looks like you're really sticking it to someone in that photo, like you're condemning another minority. Atta boy, Mr. Trump!

People love it, and they love you! Thank God for you again!

The gang here at Amalgamated Spammers Services has dropped almost all our usual spam product lines and just wanna post the Trump Economic Plan ads. They don't wanna run the "Date Exotic Asian Women Now" emails any more, not even the "Buy a Yacht" ones (though we may wanna slap your photo on those and revive that line; we've got a lot of "yachts" to move, if you know what I mean. Now that I think of it, those 700-lumen terrorist-destroying flashlights could use the Trump treatment too).

All they want is Trump Trump Trump! We revamped the whole "genius pill" line by putting your pic and a network logo on it, too. Forget Gates and that Elon Musk! Coupla losers! It's Trump all the way.

We're trying to keep a level head about all this, but it's hard to keep from dreaming where the spam industry can go once you become President! Every spam will be Trump! The sheep won't be able to get enough! We could be the leading industry in this country you're making great again — optimum profit by the minimum investment of lies (interesting statements, I mean) to foment fear and confusion.

Needless to say we're pulling for you, Mr. Trump! You're our boy.

Just had an idea! That finger thing, where it looks like you're sticking it to some loser in the photo were using in our spam? Have you ever thought about making it into a salute? You know, you raise your finger, and all your followers — every patriotic spam-loving American — raise their fingers in response.

I understand a salute like that went over big in Germany and Italy, back in the day.

Keep doing what you do!

Yours,

s/Adolf Mussolini, Chairman
Amalgamated Spammer Services, LLC

Influence peddler

Five hundred hashmarks, it turns out, takes a very long time to make.

This is blog post No. 500.

High time, then, to examine how I've done in changing the world from my little virtual outpost these last five years.

Not all of these posts have been phoned in. Not even most. Oh, they comprise so much navel gazing, of course, but almost always in thoughtful consideration of the fuzz therein. Occasionally I have looked beyond myself, out into the crazy beautiful stinking tragic foregone world, rolled this blog into a megaphone and used it to shout at the world: Hey, fix that!

And how did that turn out?

Let us review: I, in chronological order:

• Got Jerry Brown elected governor. That has turned out rather well, especially considering the Schwarzenator he replaced. Third time being the charm, Brown is the older crank caretaker who doesn't really care what you or I think. He loves high-speed rail despite the cost, wants to build tunnels shoveling precious water to Southern California with greater ease, and could possibly be on the new Bay Bridge when its corroded cables snap in a massive CG effect gone real, but other than that, a nice change of pace. The guy who'd rather live in an unfurnished apartment his first time around now will move into the old haunted governor's mansion in which he was raised, remodeled with oodles of high-end restaurant-style kitchen appliances, but we'll give him his due.
  
• Stopped our sycophantic Yankee adoration of the British royal family. We only pay attention to Queen Elizabeth and her kith and kin now when one of them has a baby. Or gets engaged. Or married. Or breaks off the engagement. Or divorces. Or says something inappropriate. Or breathes.
  
  Of course, I showed the world how to make money off it all.
  
• Exposed the great wine fraud. It all comes from one source, and "winemakers" use the power of suggestion to get you to believe different "wine" "varieties" taste different from others. Again, you're welcome.
  
• Ended war in our time.
  
• Sustained the Occupy Wall Street movement by sheer force of will, and reduced the owners of our money to the petty government-sponsored thieves that they are. Our political landscape is forever changed. You're welcome, once more.
  
• Gave veterans and public education all the resources they need.
  
• Finally saw the light and heard the screams, and stopped war in Syria. ("Ending war in our time" still results in stubborn little skirmishes, like spot fires). Oh, and turned the tide for equality in marriage. Apathy is over!
  
  Though — funny thing! — war was harder to end than I had given it credit. But I finally made our leaders tell the truth. President Obama thanked me for making it so, which was nice.
  
• Changed Scouting policy to include Scouts who are gay.
  
  All attempts at facetious self-deprecation aside, I feel like I was on the "right side of history" on this subject, or at least in the right place at the right time. It's one of the few issues for which I can speak from the heart, about which I know more than a little.
  
  Of course, I don't really expect to move anyone's thinking on anything I write here, just to turn my own thoughts to concrete. Part of me — the ego part — couldn't help but wonder if I could, somehow, compel someone to see another side of an issue. Maybe that's why I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote — and wrote — on the matter.
  
• Stole Christmas. And good riddance!
  
• Ended gun violence … stopped the unbelievable tragedy … before it could get any worse … mopped up the blood … so much blood … really, a lot of blood. But now it's mopped up. All is well.
  
• Made government transparent. And not just that thing President Obama did, where he said his government is transparent when he meant, no, it is not. Now our overseers are exposed to daylight.
  
• Shortly after, brought peace and common sense to our government.
  
• Sorted out our official religion, the National Football League. Now we play nice.
  
• Set our minds free.
  
• Ended drought in California. Taught homeowners the error of their false bounty.
  
• Trumped presidential aspirations, for the good of the country.

It stands to reason all this saving the world stuff can be overwhelming to process, which is why I peppered the blog with bits about swimming and Giants baseball and paid doodles.

Now, if you'll excuse me, time to work on No. 501. But really, what problem could possibly be left to solve?

That is, except for determining if this counts as a blog post.

Pander-Ama™

All you need to know about presidential politics is that Arnold Schwarzenegger will take over from Donald Trump as host of Celebrity Apprentice.

It's the only way any of this makes sense.

Schwarzenegger became governor of California, I firmly believe, on the novelty vote: "Yeah, sure, what the hell? It's not like state government does anything anyway. Let's put the Terminator in office! I might finally vote this time!"

So we installed Schwarzenegger and watched him chew up yet another role — larger than life, narcissistic, hedonistic, every-man-wants-to-be-him-and-every-woman-wants-to-be-with-him, AhhhNohd!!

Or some such.

He made his political move at the right time, propelled on a movement to recall the sitting governor who epitomized all that is boring and perfunctory and defacto defunct about government, including his name: Gray Davis.

Enter Schwarzenegger from stage left, in such a raucous coronation that his handlers were already talking about tweaking the Constitution so the Austrian Oak could soon become the American president.

Schwarzenegger tilted the ship nearly overboard the other way instead. Jerry Brown came back to clean up the mess, including the cigar ash that got everywhere. Arnold's wife, Maria Shriver, got a divorce after everyone including her learned Arnold had fathered a child from an out-of-wedlock affair. The deposed, disgraced star fell and fell into that deserved pit of shame: A multi-picture deal in which he gets to play a caricature of his caricature, and now the Celebrity Apprentice gig.

That'll teach him.

It's the same for Trump, I gotta believe. I gotta believe that all his so-called supporters are just yanking our chain, seeing how far this frat prank can go, seeing if this buffoon can actually cover all the bases — base, debased, off base, baseless — on his way to the White House. Doesn't matter anyway, what's the worst he can do?! Let's vote!

Teflon®™ Reagan had nothing on this guy. The stupider, more insulting, more juvenile, the more outright outrageous Trump gets — and he tops himself daily — the more his poll numbers seem to rise. The more he trumpets his catch-all platform of "We're gonna look into it, and a lot more other things, believe me!" the more attention he gets.

The more attention the news media give him, rather. The media follow the money and open their troughs to catch it, and spill the slop on us. They don't particularly care whether he's racist or xenophobic, they just point the camera and the money comes pouring in.
 
It's why I, the casual victim of social media, know that Bristol Palin is upset that President Obama invited to the White House a 14-year-old Texas kid was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. Why does the media care — and why would we? — what Bristol Palin has to say about the matter, except the media give her attention because she's the daughter of Sarah Palin? Cha-ching!

It can't possibly be what the pundits said last week, that the public is so disappointed and disenfranchised by the status quo that they're reacting in anger. (I heard this three times from three pundits last week, with eerie similarity, making me question their independence of thought.)

And Trump is their answer?! Donald Trump?! Who is nothing like the average American? Who's the poster boy for the 1%? Whose empire is a house of cards? The Donald Trump who led the campaign to insist Obama was not born in the United States? That's who we want to change the world with?

Are we on Candid Camera?

The other Republicans envy Trump and gnash their teeth and rend their garments about him, which is appropriate biblical language given the theocracies that a third of them propose for us as president. They should embrace Trump instead, for making them look almost normal.

Even Ben Carson, who said this weekend on Meet the Press, "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that." He looks sane alongside Trump.

The conservative media have tried so desperately to describe what Carson could possibly have meant, that he was referring to radical Muslims; Carson himself tried to help by saying he could support a Muslim who pledged loyalty to the Constitution. I'll let you think about the stupidity of these comments, about the ironic fallout of someone saying "I would not advocate that we put a black/woman/Jew in charge of this nation," and say Carson is a brilliant joke.

Maybe I'm too hasty. Maybe I should remember that, as usual with campaigns, most of these candidates will fall away, and quickly. Promising theocrat and union buster Scott Walker dropped out this week, following theocrat and government buster Rick Perry.

We will have expended too much envy on these trivial pursuits, as usual.

I'll know sanity is restored when we resume our war on Christmas and Trump takes back his leather seat on Celebrity Apprentice. So Schwarzenegger can run.