Does history repeat itself?
The Native American Party, founded in 1845 and more commonly known as the Know Nothing Party, opposed immigration of Catholic German and Irish immigrants. Whence the "Know Nothing" name? For the sake of secrecy, when a member was asked about the party's activities, he was instructed to reply, "I know nothing." The party vanished from the American political scene in 1860.
Some 156 years later, has the Republican Party become today's "Know Nothing" party? Trump supporters apparently favor the Donald's proposal to erect a wall along the Mexican border to be financed by Mexico - although more Mexicans are now leaving the US than arriving. On the other hand, supporters of Trump have not been instructed to say "I know nothing" to preserve the Republican Party's secrets. In fact, they truly "know nothing."
In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Chickens, Home to Roost," Maureen Dowd today tells us that watching the Trump campaign is "wicked fun":
"Watching him morph into a pol in real time and wriggle away from the junior-varsity G.O.P. chuckleheads trying to tackle him is hypnotic.
. . . .
It’s delicious watching the neocon men who tricked the country and gulled the naïve W. into the Iraq invasion go ballistic trying to stop the Gotham con man.
. . . .
After watching Hillary Clinton, for whom campaigning is a nuisance, and Barack Obama, who disdains politics, it’s fun to see someone having fun. Like Bill Clinton, Trump talks and talks to crowds. They feed his narcissism, and in turn, he creates an intimacy even in an arena that leaves both sides awash in pleasure."
Although Dowd proceeds to acknowledge Trump's downside (e.g., "His mocking of a Times reporter with a disability was grotesque"), how is it possible to enjoy watching a man with a severe narcissistic personality disorder come so close to resting his little fingers on the launch buttons of America's nuclear arsenal?
It serves Bill Kristol right? Sorry, Maureen, but I don't share your schadenfreude. The possibility of Trump winning the Republican nomination and subsequently thrashing Hillary, following an FBI recommendation to indict a woman suffering from a hyperinflated sense of entitlement, inspires nausea, not bliss.
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