President Trump. Your Worst Fears Realized!

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:42 pm

I happened to be watching CNN Wednesday, December 6, when Dr. Ben Carson’s immediate past Campaign Manager, Barry Bennett, all but pronounced Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president.

Bennett is one of those bright guys who sell their consulting wares to the more conservative spectrum of the Republican Party. A Ballotpedia bio points out that In addition to Carson, Bennett has put his stamp on the campaigns of former Ohio Representative Rob Portman and his successor, Jean Schmidt. Bennett also has political ties with Mary Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney. The former Vice President has his own ties as a partner with Bennett in BKM Strategies, formed to “advance limited government and conservative principles around the country.”

Mary Cheney and Bennett formed the “Alliance for America’s Future.” AAF proceeded to run hundreds of ads supporting Brian Sandoval for Nevada governor. The alliance was not registered as a PAC. Therefore, no names when it came to donors. That questionable practice landed Bennett and company in a Nevada courtroom where AAF was subsequently forced to register. In further Cheney ties, Bennett founded a PAC for Cheney’s other daughter, Liz, who ran in 2014 for the senate from Wyoming. She dropped out for “family health reasons” before the election.

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In 2012, Bennett was a senior adviser for a sizable Rick Perry PAC.

So, the guy is always around the money and tip-toes on a narrow ethical line from time to time. But he knows his politics. He has the tip-toeing in common with the prime subject of his Wednesday CNN interview, Donald Trump. Trump not only tip-toes on the ethical line, he stomps on it; jumps up and down on it; rolls back and forth on it. He, himself, admits to intentionally lying for effect and manipulating his quartet of bankruptcies to exploit the law to his advantage.

Here was Bennett’s take on the Trump candidacy as expressed on CNN’s ‘New Day’ show: “Donald Trump is sitting there at above 30 percent in most polls, and unless something horrific or tragic comes along – which establishment Republicans have been waiting on for 10 months – he’s going to be our nominee and we need to start thinking about that.”

Suddenly, a guy with cred plants the Trump nomination right in our front yard. That lump on your neck you’ve been ignoring for months, turns out to be cancer. And no amount of chemo or radiation is going to cure it. Bennett is asking the electorate to think the unthinkable. When the caucus and primary dust has settled, Trump will be the last man standing. That’s what a deep insider is telling you.

Where to start? Like most people, I had heard of Donald Trump, an aging egoist with an odd roof of hair and an inherited head start on a real estate fortune. Weighted down with braggadocio, Trump wandered into a natural haven for him…television. He hosted a show called “The Apprentice.” He populated it with C and D-list celebrities, plus a pack of ambitious, mostly young people, and made the term “you’re fired” an integral part of his mean-spirited lexicon.

I watched when I could, and was mildly entertained, mostly that the “celebrities” careers had fallen that far. The show lasted a while, always to the Trump refrain of getting “HUGE” ratings, when in fact, it rarely carried the night of its broadcast and more often than not ended up last.

Being fired by Trump might have been the kindest move for the contestants. To hear him on the campaign trail, he opposes raising the minimum wage from the current obscenely low $7.25 per hour. It’s always interesting to listen to Latino and Hispanic workers laboring on his $200 million Washington DC hotel project. Many admit to entering the country illegally. Are they rapists, drug dealers and criminals if they crossed the Mexican border? Trump has loudly suggested most Mexicans coming to America fit that profile. If so, it doesn’t appear to bother Trump in the least when seeking out the cheapest labor he can find, promises to grow jobs for Americans, notwithstanding.

In addition to the generalized, erroneous and misguided trashing of Mexicans crossing the border, Trump has a six-page ‘policy paper’ on the self-deporting of the estimated 11 million undocumented residents in the U.S. As with virtually all of his jabberings on the campaign trail, there are few specifics of costs, reuniting families and eventual paths to citizenship.

Then there’s Trump’s bipartisan ‘birthing’ nonsense. CNN points out the irony of Trump being the son and grandson of immigrants, and his marriages to two immigrant wives.

Of course all the above were scrubbed lily white. Other colors, especially brown, don’t appear to be welcomed by Trump. That applies not only to Mexicans and Latinos, but Middle Easterners as well. Millions upon millions of words have been written about a plank of Trump’s platform that would block the entry to America to every last Muslim. Nothing to add here. Bigoted Trump supporters can’t separate terrorists from genuinely peaceful followers of Islam.

But, all’s well with Trump’s bible-banging “religious” fan base who are forever adjusting their interpretations of the good book to fit whatever translation they wish to ascribe to it. Trump supporters embrace glamorous with open arms, ‘First Lady’ (although a third wife), Melania, a model and naturalized citizen born in Slovenia. Youngest son, Barron, at nine-years-of age, softens the Trump image as well.

I’m guessing Trump’s nomination chances are 50/50 at best. It appears the far right is lusting for a redneck version of the Kennedy-era Camelot. And that’s what they think King Trump could bring to DC: A passel of blonds and a youthful energy (though Trump is pushing 70), big houses and money, money, money. Not your money, friends of the right. His policies will make sure you don’t have much.

One thing for sure, like Camelot, the politics would be 12th century.