by Nomad
"Gotcha!" says Donald Trump, in a recent news spoof in the North Carolina Charlotte Observer.
A recent satirical op-ed piece by Walker Lundy of the Charlotte Observer reports that the GOP nominee Donald Trump has announced his intention to delete his entire campaign and endorse the Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.
Furthermore, the presidential candidate gave this startling admission.
Trump said the only point of his campaign was to show how stupid and gullible many Republican voters are.
Even though he had been a Democrat for most of his life, Trump declared, he knew that if he ran as a Republican and said "increasingly ridiculous, idiotic, racist and sexist things" he had a good chance of picking up a lot of votes.
Beyond Belief
Of course, he says in the Lundy spoof, Trump had never imagined that he would "win the Republican nomination and poll 40 percent or better in a national race against Clinton."He also pointed out that he had offered no real solutions to any of the country’s problems and nobody, even the news media, took much notice that “there was no there there in my campaign,” he said.
Although the Lundy article was written to entertain, in some ways the idea makes a lot more sense in an election year that has been both silly and shameful, ridiculous and raunchy. Lundy provides us with a logical explanation for all of the inexplicable things that
Trump has said and done, especially in the last month.
The theory that Trump has pranked the nation isn't all that original. Many political analysts in the past have seriously suggested Trump's campaign may not be genuine.
Trump has said and done, especially in the last month.
The theory that Trump has pranked the nation isn't all that original. Many political analysts in the past have seriously suggested Trump's campaign may not be genuine.
In June 2015, The New Republic, one of America's oldest liberal media organizations, hailed Trump as "an artist."
And his masterpiece is the way he brilliantly skewers the American political system and exposes just how easy it is to make your way through a presidential campaign on bullshit alone.
His clever satire, wrote Elspeth Reeve, is elevating America. Perhaps that view was okay when Trump's path to power seemed nothing more than the wet dream of a billionaire egomaniac.
A year passed since Reeve applauded Trump's wit and as he inches closer and closer to the White House, and his elegant sendup of American politics - if that's what was intended- has turned sickeningly unfunny and unclever.
It's become a potential disaster for the country.
On April Fools' Day of this year, the late-night comedy television show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! produced this spoof video that had so many viewers convinced that the fact-finding site, Snopes.com, felt the need to debunk claims that Trump's presidential campaign had all been an elaborate joke.
It's not a surprise that many Americans have had trouble coming to grips with this scary reality. In a rational world, it is really the only explanation.
However, the nation apparently had passed that sanity threshold sometime before the first Republican debates. Around the time Trump was on stage bragging about the size of his privates.
What Does It Take?
The confessional Trump in Lundy's piece asks the question all Americans ought to have asked sometime in the past two weeks. After all of the racist statements and all of the incompetence, after all of the nutty and unprofessional statements, Trump finally asks "what does it take to get tossed out of the Republican Party?”
That's a good question. Nobody knows the answer. Refusing to release your tax returns? Fine, fine. Being a member of the Putin admiration society? Well, ok. Calling for your opponent to be locked up? No problem. Hinting at a "second amendment solution" as the answer to the problem? Shame on him but quit being hysteria.
These are messages that the Republican has sent out every time Trump pushed the envelope.
Even Trump's verbal sparring with a Muslim family who lost their son in Iraq was only enough for the Republican Party leaders to wag a finger at the candidate.
The Republican Party has proved itself incapable of dealing with this challenge. Unable to respond to this master manipulator with anything more than a self-pitying pout and a catty tweet on social media. Any talk of an "intervention" or that Trump will somehow change his evil ways, is pure flatulence, fooling nobody.
Sadly, Lundy's article, while brilliant and reasonable, is only satire. As far as we know at the moment, Donald Trump isn't a cruel practical joker. He isn't trying to make some clever commentary on the dilapidated and spineless state of the Republican party. He is what he is and that's a nightmarish thought.
With the elections looming on the horizon, we have to face the unpleasant fact: Trump has always been totally serious about being America's next president. He really really believes he is fit to be the leader of the nation and worse still, millions of proud (and otherwise sane) citizens agree with him.
And that's where the laughing turns to long-drawn sighs through clenched teeth.