The Rise of Il Douche

	This November the American people will once again select our next leader. It is now apparent that we will be choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. We should choose a candidate that reflects the best qualities in ourselves and our great nation. We should expect that person to not only lead us but to inspire us.
Great leaders, on the other hand, appeal to our better angels, inspiring us to improve — intellectually, spiritually and, in many cases, physically. Great leaders serve as a touchstone for human potential. The really great ones are disciplined, curious, benevolent and merciful. And they motivate us by example to become more disciplined, curious, benevolent and merciful. Donald Trump is exactly none of these things. —Bob Cesca
I think Hillary will make a fine President but even setting my personal feelings aside, it would seem that the two candidates are nowhere near alike. Any rational person should be able to see that there is a HUGE, or as Trump would say YUGE, difference between the two candidates. Hillary is a policy wonk, a politician and someone with very specific ideas on what she would like to do as President. Trump is nothing but sound and fury tapping into blue-collar working class discontent. He has no workable ideas, no coherency and no maturity. He’s an opportunistic con artist who has been grifting the American people for quite some time as a celebrity.  In the end, you may not like Hillary Clinton but she’s the only grown up in the race. Still I find Trump’s popularity irksome.  Why exactly is Herr Drumpf1, aka Fuck Face Von Clownstick2, aka Il Douche, aka Donald Trump so popular with tens of millions of Americans? 1) Americans equate wealth with moral superiority. It’s a major failing on our part because in reality the majority of wealthy people a) inherited it so they simply won the birth lottery, b) they got lucky to be in the right place at the right time or knew the right people at the right time, or c) they shafted people left and right to make money. None of these types of wealthy people deserve our respect or our vote. The final and smallest group of wealthy people are those who worked their asses off and deserve every hard-earned penny. And that one fact still doesn’t make them a decent person. Trump is NOT in this last, small category and clearly he is not a decent person. 2) We forgive celebrities things we would never tolerate in our own personal lives. Because we secretly want to be as famous and wealthy as those celebrities. We want to be able to tell others exactly what we think of them like Trump does. They support him because they want to be him, with all his property, influence, freedom and string of model spouses who are essentially interchangeable Barbie Dolls.
	3) There is always a certain percentage of every group that hangs out around the bully. You know who I’m talking about, the hangers-on who root for the bully, the sycophants who pat the bully on the back and tell him what he wants to hear. Let’s just call them the Bully Entourage. Why would someone want to be in that group? Because they’re hoping they will be protected by his power. That the bullying will be directed outward at the others, people who they don’t like. They want Trump to bully the people they are blaming for all of the country’s problems because they don’t have the balls to stand up and do it themselves. It goes back to that idea that “He speaks for me, says what I want to say.”
And there is strength in numbers–in a mob with a bully to lead them, they feel powerful. And they are. The only problem with this kind of thinking is that the Bully doesn’t always just focus on “the others” — Bullies and mobs can be terribly fickle. Once the Bully has cowed “the Others” they often turn on those who are close to them because a Bully has to continue to bully to feed that deep empty hole in the center of their being. Look at the things that Trump has said about people who were once his friends. Look at the movies.  How well does the Bully treat his supposed friends? He treats them like servants. But let’s deal with reality instead. Let’s look at history. How many people supported Hitler who were then executed? Or Stalin? Or Mao or Pol Pot?  The list goes on and on and on.  They always end up eating their own eventually. Ultimately I don’t know what created Trump the narcissist. Was it overindulging parents? Who cares. I only care about the fact that this man could potentially end up in the Oval Office and millions of people actually think he is qualified. If Americans truly want a President who thinks and speaks like us, then they must think that any average American can be President (although one could argue that Trump’s behavior indicates he is below the average). Are Americans so arrogant as to think that the average American is qualified to be President? Every modern President has aged faster and dramatically while in the office before our very eyes, even the ones who took more vacations than any other President before or since3 , and there is a reason for it. It is one of the hardest jobs on the Planet.  In reality, they are NEVER on vacation.  The work hours about 14-16 on a typical, non-crisis filled day.  The stress and the responsibility are harrowing. We don’t need someone with the mindset of the average American in the White House.  The average American is cracking under the burdens of a 40 hour work week and a family. Americans work harder than most other people on the planet. And that still doesn’t compare to how much the President has to work. How the heck could he or she deal with the behemoth that our country has become.  Not only do we not need the average American, we also don’t need a bully.  We wield very big sticks and we need someone who knows when to use it and when not to. We need someone who won’t provoke our unstable enemies, of which there is no shortage. Do you want a hair-trigger man-baby wielding those big sticks and making childish comments about the size of an enemy’s penis?   We need someone who knows what the hell they are doing because our country and potentially even the entire world will be affected by what the next President does. It is arrogant and dangerous to think that Trump is up to the task.   “Pride goeth before the fall” has never rang so true.

NOTES:

1. Thank you John Oliver
2. Thank you Jon Stewart
3. G.W. Bush actually