Politcs

The Kingdom, the Trump, and the Footy

/ sandycharlton / 1 Comment

The fallout from the exiting of the United Kingdom from the European Union is still being felt across the globe. Investors are still scrambling, with many investors, banks, and insurers trying their damndest to get off of the ship. Trump landed in Scotland and in his usual deafness to the current state of affairs tweeted congratulations to the country for the Brexit vote, even though the majority of the Scottish people voted to stay.

Trump-tweet-001

The man is pure satire fodder.¹

No games is right Mr. Trump. Not only did Britain fail the UK in the Brexit vote and is now leaving the EU, but they also lost the football match against Iceland and have to leave Euro 2016. Just like David Cameron decided it was time to step down as the Prime Minister of the country, manager Roy Hogdson of the British team called it quits and stepped down after their humiliating defeat. They say time flows like a river, but this is history repeating itself so quickly it might as well be the tail end of a catheter stuck in the mouth.

There is a growing rise of dissatisfaction in the western world at the moment, in both the United States and the United Kingdom, with striking parallels. Both countries are unhappy with the status quo, and they want change, real drastic change. For the UK, they were sending £350 million to the European Union every week. Every week! Those are pounds, people. This isn’t the colorful fun money we have here in Canadiana. The Leave campaign promised that £350 million would go back into the National Health Services. They even advertised it on buses.

Leave-bus-NHS

It was on the side of a bus, so that means it has to be true.²

They voted to leave. Great, I am now on board. We’ve got another 350 million kilograms of sweet cheddar to grease the mighty wheels of public health services. Right? What do you mean, you can’t actually do that and that you never made that claim? You had it on buses and it was all over your website. Why did you wipe almost all of your website clean of the promises you made?

Real talk for a second. The people in charge of the Brexit movement, guys like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, have flat out lied to the British public. Not did the movement lie about what they were going to do with the money, they also didn’t mention all the money the UK got in return. I’m not talking about money that would trickle back in through the economic boon of open borders with the rest of the EU. I’m talking about cold hard cash they got back as a rebate. They manipulated numbers to scare people into voting to leave.

At least they had the decency to manipulate the numbers that existed, because when you compare this to Trump, he’s pulling numbers out of thin air like a magician who pulls cards out of his ass. There is simply no feasible way Trump can actually accomplish any of the tasks that he’s proposing. Great Wall of America? Not feasible. Banning Muslims from the US? Again, not even remotely feasible. Making America great again? Unless Trump decides to tax everyone like they did during the 1960’s, which strangely enough coincided with the highest economic growth decade in the last century, then you’re going to be getting more of the same not feasibleness.

I understand why people are angry and upset. I can fully appreciate it. The numbers don’t lie though. Economic prosperity is always correlated with high taxes on the rich. If you didn’t bother to click on any of the links that I provided, I’ll just flat out tell you; In the 1960’s, when the US truly became the juggernaut powerhouse it is, the income tax on the wealthy was at roughly 90%. The US didn’t crumble, investors didn’t leave, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse didn’t come riding in to start the rapture. Instead, medical breakthroughs exploded, the US became the cultural hub of the world, and they even had time to stick a man on the moon.

Maybe you’re worried high taxes will affect you. Maybe you’re concerned people won’t work as hard if they have access to services. To be frank, if you’re reading this, you are not in that category, and you will never will be. You do not have hundreds of millions of assets strewn across the globe. You do not own a mega yacht with two helipads. But if you’re reading this and you happen to have a matching Ferrari for every outfit you own, maybe it’s time you started paying your fair share, because the roads you’re driving on were paid with taxes, and right now, they’re crumbling.

Sincerely, the Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Yes, I’m flat out stating that taxes are a good thing. It’s why we have public schools and hospitals and running water.

p.s.s. New logo! Thanks to the wonderful K.A.

¹ Image taken from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.

² Image taken from leftfootforward.org

Brexiting Out

/ sandycharlton / Leave a comment

Well, isn’t this just ducky. If anyone has money in the stock market, I’m sorry most of your money is on fire. After news broke out the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, the United States stock market is tumbling, the Canadian dollar is trending downwards, and the British Pound is taking a pounding. The pound hit thirty year lows, which is really not a good thing. The world’s markets are still recovering from the 2008 crash, and Brexit didn’t help the situation. The crazy got dialed up a notch when the Prime Minister David Cameron tearfully resigned after the news was announced. It was an incredibly tight race. 52% wanted to leave the EU, 48% wanted to stay.

Judging from my feeds, anyone who thought the UK leaving the EU was a good idea is also the kind of person that invests in gold bars, has a bug out bag, and is secretly hoping one day the whole planet goes to hell so they can live out their Mad Max style fantasy. Romantic for a crazy person, sure, but if you happen to like living in a city and getting sushi every once and a while, the Brexit vote simply added further destabilization in a market that was already hurting.

Let’s talk about what the EU really is, first of all. It started out after WW2, when people decided that two world wars fought on their soil wasn’t a whole lot of fun. They figured that extreme nationalism was an issue, and wanted to create an environment of cooperation between nations as opposed to feuding. The Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, and more and more nations got on board with the idea of working together on the same playing field. A whole bunch more treaties were signed (there was some serious litigation going on here, check out the Wikipedia page if you’re interested) and today we now have the European Union, which comprises of 28 nations.

If you’re a citizen of one of those nations, you can freely move from nation to nation without the use of a passport. You can also work in any one of the nations as well. It’s great for allowing the nations to keep their cultural identity while still allowing people, information and money to move freely in the union. Scientific information is easier to share in the Union, with numerous universities working together to further our pursuit of scientific gains. Mostly though, it’s about trade. The EU has adopted one currency, the Euro, and can trade freely within the EU as if it were one country. Countries that are constantly trading with each other are less likely to go to war, the theory is. The UK has always been a bit of an outlier, as it refused to adopt the Euro in favour of the Pound.

Now that the UK has left the EU, it’s going to have to spend a lot of money putting those fences back up. It’s going to cost the UK money to trade with the EU. New laws are going to have to be drafted, sanctions might be passed for a period of time. People from France, Sweden, Germany and a host of others are going to have to get out their passports if they want to head to Britain. The UK has decided to isolate itself further, and they were already on a damn island to begin with.

Scotland gave out a massive “Stay” vote, and now that the UK is leaving, they have announced they’re going to be having another referendum to determine whether or not to leave the UK. The United Kingdom may no longer be a united kingdom. Also to note, young people voted mostly to stay with the Union, and they are the ones who will have to live with the decision. So Scotland might leave, but the younger generation might take flight as well, leaving England to be a bastion of curmudgeons and sourpusses.

Here’s the weird thing. A lot of people who voted to “leave” are now regretting their decision. ‘What is the European Union’ became a massive Google search in the UK after the voting took place. It boggles the mind that people would do their research after the vote. This is another example of a select few fear mongers shouting Globalization and Soros and Illuminati out to scare a bunch of terribly misinformed people to vote in a manner that isn’t going to help them. In fact, I’m having a really hard time thinking who exactly is going to benefit from the Brexit.

The facts remain. The Brexit will hurt the UK’s economy, it could trigger the breakup of the UK itself, it forced the Prime Minister to resign, and it could cause trouble for the migrant workers in the UK, and the British workers abroad. The process will take years, though, so who knows? Maybe they’ll vote again to stay if enough old people die in the next couple months.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. George Soros actually bet the UK would leave and planned accordingly. He warned of the Brexit, but still managed to walk away smelling of roses. So, yay hedge fund managers? I mean, it’s nice to see someone having a good day while the rest of us pour gasoline on our savings.

Guns Don’t Kill People (But it Certainly Makes it Easier)

/ sandycharlton / Leave a comment

 “Today we are dealing with something we never imagined, and is unimaginable.”

Buddy Dyer, Mayor of Orlando, Florida

Last night, the largest mass murder in United States history took place at Pulse nightclub, one of the premier gay nightclubs in Orlando, Florida. The attack, which the FBI says was ‘organized and well-prepared’, has left fifty dead and fifty three wounded. The attack started at 2:00 am, where the shooter entered the nightclub and began to open fire. He then took hostages, and it was not until approximately 5:00 am that the police took aggressive action and stormed the club in an attempt to free the hostages. They were successful. The perpetrator was killed in the ensuing shootout.

Here’s what we know about the shooter so far. His name was Omar Mateen. He was 29 years old. He had been married twice, and has a young son. He worked as a security guard, and he wanted to be a police officer, often hanging out with cops and going to shooting ranges with them. His first wife divorced him, stating that Omar was abusive and controlling. She mentioned that he’d occasionally denounce homosexuality when violent. She also mentioned that he may have been mentally unstable, with violent mood swings and unpredictable behavior. He wasn’t overly religious when they first met, but in an effort to straighten his life out, was slowly becoming a more devout Muslim.

He was on the FBI’s radar prior to the attacks, first for making inflammatory comments to coworkers, and then for having ties to a US radical who eventually became a suicide bomber in Syria. Even though he was under the eyes of the FBI, he still had two valid firearms licenses, a security officer’s license and a statewide firearms license. A few days prior to the shooting, he legally purchased the handgun and semi-automatic rifle he used to murder dozens of people. Before the attack, he made a call to 911, stating his allegiance to ISIS.

From all this information, we can try to piece together exactly what kind of attack this was. Yes, this was an attack on the LGBTQ community. Yes, you can call this a domestic terror attack. Yes, the person was mentally unstable.

Now, you could say this shows the LGBTQ community is still under threat and marginalized, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to disagree with you. You could say that radical Islamic terrorists are a security threat to the United States, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to disagree with you. You could say that this demonstrates a serious problem with how mental illness is looked at and dealt with by our society, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to disagree with you. Personally, I’m still shaking my head at one crucial detail; how was a man, who had issues with the LGBTQ community, who was known to associate with terrorists, who was known to have a violent past with his ex-wife, how on Earth did this person manage to walk into a gun store and legally purchase firearms?

The deadliest mass murder in the history of the United States. It’s impressive, in an incredibly twisted sort of way, that someone was able to kill that many people on their own. What’s even more impressive, is the laundry list of politicians, celebrities and talking heads that are shocked, I mean absolutely one hundred percent shocked, that another mass shooting took place in America. I’m not shocked. Truthfully, the only thing shocking about this is the number of killed and wounded. And the reason I’m not shocked is that a mass shooting takes place in the United States almost everyday.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a link to shootingtracker.com, considered by many to be the authority on mass shootings. Note that a mass shooting is defined by an incident where four or more people are shot, resulting in them being killed or wounded. Click on a year, and you are going to find that mass shootings in the US happen frequently. There was five mass shootings on June 11th, there was one on the 9th, another two on the 8th, one on the 6th, four mass shootings on the 5th, and one on the 4th. Before the shooting last night, there have been 14 mass shootings in the United States, with 19 dead and 44 wounded. In the month of June.

I’m not trying to downplay the attack last night. I’m not saying this wasn’t an attack on a vulnerable community, because it was. I’m not saying this man didn’t have ties to radical terrorists, because he did. And I’m not saying that this man wasn’t mentally ill, because anyone who decides to murder a large number of people probably is. What I’m saying is the only reason you are hearing about this, the only reason this is news is the number of dead. If the same attack took place and he had been less successful, killing three and wounding two for example, it wouldn’t have left the local Orlando news. This is news because it’s an outlier, an anomaly in a culture that accepts mass shootings as the norm.

This is a phenomenon unique to the United States gun culture. This doesn’t happen anywhere else in the Western world. If you want to understand why it happened, just know this; a disturbed man with ties to terrorists and a hatred of homosexuality was able to walk into a store and purchase a handgun and a rifle. Because even though he was a homophobic, mentally unstable terrorist, he was an American citizen first. And we certainly wouldn’t want to trample on the right to bear arms in America.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Until they reform gun laws in the US, the mass shootings will continue.

 

Shillery Clinton for President

/ sandycharlton / Leave a comment

There’s a certain consistency to who I am and what I do, and I think people have finally said, ‘Well, you know, I kinda get her now.’ I’ve actually had people say that to me.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton was born in 1947, growing up in the Chicago area. She graduated from the prestigious Yale Law School, earning a Juris Doctor. Hillary has worked in politics in most of her life, and previously was known as the first Lady of Arkansas, then the first Lady of the United States, where her husband was the Governor, then the president. She was the Secretary of State and is now running for the position of leader of the Democratic party, in which she’ll be up against Donald Trump.

The Secretary of State is not a small position. Next to the President, it’s considered to be the most powerful person in the United States. Hillary has held that position from 2009 to 2013. A lot happened in those years. The Arab springs, the releases of the information from WikiLeaks, the Libyan Civil war and the toppling of Gaddafi were some of the major events that she presided over in her tenure. Although some label her as a warhawk, overall she didn’t do a terrible job. Except when it came to email security.

Hillary used her personal email server to send classified and sensitive information. The FBI are currently investigating whether or not charge should be laid. Hillary states this was done to make things easier for her, in that she would only have to carry one phone.

Her position as Secretary of State aside, let’s focus on the Juggernaut that is the Hillary Clinton campaign. Where the Donald Trump’s campaign is mainly self-supported, and the Bernie Sanders’ campaign is a grassroots movement, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is a well oiled, well funded machine. Her ties to Wall Street are apparent, as she has given numerous speeches to firms like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc. The same companies who were accused of rigging the housing market crash.

Make no mistake, Hillary is firmly entrenched in the oligarchy that continues to drive a wedge between the haves and the have-nots. Never has the population had such of view of exactly where the puppet strings go. Hillary said she would release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches when the other candidates did. Right now, the only two people left in the race besides Hillary is Trump and Sanders. Trump is considered a joke among many in the financial sectors, and Sanders is the candidate currently combatting big money in politics. Neither Trump nor Sanders were paid to give a talk to the banking elite.

The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.

Hillary Clinton

There’s good reason people are nervous that she’s leading the pack in the democratic nomination against Bernie Sanders. The polls are saying that Sanders has a better shot of defeating Trump, at least at the time of this writing. Superdelegates were created to combat a nominee would would win the primaries, but lose to the republican nominee. Now, it seems, they are being used against that ideal, to prop up a career politician with ties to both the banking institutions and big media.

The issue with Hillary’s campaign is that it lacks authenticity. The longer she campaigns and the more we find out, we see another candidate, like Trump, who wants to be president for the sake of being president. The second age to the Clinton White House dynasty. She says she represents the people, but makes backroom deals with institutions that bet against the average American citizen. How can she claim to combat big money in politics when she’s made a living taking it?

Bernie Sanders has trailed behind Clinton for most of the campaign, but has been sweeping up in the last few states. He’s also appealing to some of the superdelegates, in an attempt to change their tune. Hillary’s presidential campaign, even if she’s successful against Sanders, could be mired in the email scandal. Is it possible for a presidential candidate to be effective when they’re also involved in a legal dispute of this magnitude? Where classified information has possibly been compromised?

We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

Hillary Clinton

I would love to see a woman in the White House. What I would love to see more would be a dramatic shift in the culture of money in politics in America. And unfortunately, I don’t think that Hillary Clinton is the person who is going to bring about that change.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. A plane crashes with both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Who survives?

p.s.s. America

Personalized Propaganda

/ sandycharlton / Leave a comment

In an era of twenty-four hour news cycles, instant updates, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, information has never been easier to access and create. Digital cameras in all of our pockets that connect to us to both cellular networks and the internet allow everyone to participate and contribute to the sphere of political discourse. The biggest issue that arises from this ability to share is that misinformation can easily be shared and paraded as truth.

Photographs and memes have been used to sway people for generations. Typically it falls under the label of propaganda. You saw this a lot back in World War Two. Posters like this one were everywhere.

Canadian-Propoganda

What a hungry little beaver.

Image taken from WarMuseum.ca

Back then, someone was typically commissioned to create a poster like this. There was a lot of  bigotry and racism that was displayed in some of the posters. Canada was at war, we had an enemy, and many people were willing to do whatever it took to win the war, even if that meant embellishing the truth to get your point across.

We’re not at war anymore, but if you have access to social media, then you often see pictures like this one.

Rachel-Notley-meme

Going for the ‘Game of Thrones’ reference.

Or maybe this image.

Harper-Meme

For some reason, ‘temporary’ has an asterisk behind it.

Or, of course, this clever piece.

Trudeau-Meme

Right for the throat, eh?

These images weren’t commissioned by an artist, weren’t decided by a committee, there wasn’t a war room meeting with generals planning something that would stir the populace to buy war bonds. These were made by people who don’t have any ties to the political parties they’re trying to represent. None of these images were paid for by the Conservative or Liberal or New Democratic parties. Somebody, sitting at a computer, took maybe five minutes to think up a slogan and throw it over a picture. People are now generating their own propaganda.

The problem with propaganda is that, in order to be effective, it needs to be consumed quickly. It can’t be lengthy or use large words. It usually has to take a complicated problem and dumb it down into a digestible sound bite. It’s effective at getting a point across, but it cheapens the idea. You lose fidelity in order to target a larger audience. The internet, with the inherent ability to get messages out at the speed of light, has now become a bastion of poorly thought-out ideas plastered over pictures. The well thought out, researched, opinion is getting drowned out by memes and witty slogans. The rational voice is diluted by chanting and name calling.

This isn’t a left or right of the political spectrum issue. It’s happening to both sides. They applaud victories if they’re winning, and throw trash if they aren’t.

You would think that facts would get in the way of ignorance, but that hasn’t been the case. There was recently a study done at Dartmouth, which found out that when presented with facts that contradicted their own, people were less likely to change their mind. One of the major issues is the source of the facts. If a Conservative voter presents facts to a Liberal voter, the Liberal is less likely to accept those facts, as they came from a Conservative source. This is the classic Ad Hominem, in which the person presenting the argument is attacked, rather than the argument itself.

What’s the solution? People need to switch gears and reframe what an argument is. Arguments aren’t a football match, and we need to stop treating them as if there is winners and losers. An argument should be viewed as a discovery on both sides to find a solution.

In the meantime, there is a solution to meme propaganda. I’m absolutely sick to death of clever sayings put on top of pictures. Not just political propaganda, even the silly ones. I’m tired of minion quotes telling me someone is trying their best, sick of girls in yoga poses with inspiration garbage taken from Deepak Chopra, worn out by historical figures being misquoted. Social media has turned into your uncle who used to forward every email he thought was hilarious. Facebook’s ‘share’ button has littered my feed with ‘Top Ten Reasons I Prefer Dogs’ pictures and ‘Canada is a Great Country – Share if you Agree’ images. I’m going to try out an extension called F.B. Purity. It supposedly removes this sort of malarkey from your feed. I’m going to install it tomorrow morning and let you know how it goes. Until then,

Sick-Of-Meme

Wise words, Xzibit. Wise Words

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’ll probably still use memes in the blog every once in awhile. To get my point across.

p.s.s. Well, maybe not.

The PM Refuses Help From Russia, With Love

/ sandycharlton / Leave a comment

The town of Fort McMurray has been saved from worst of the forest fire. Even with the hauntingly powerful images we’ve seen recently, 85 percent of the town still stands. It won’t make the heartache of those who lost their homes any less painful, but we at least have a solid base to rebuild upon. The forest fire itself continues to spread, and the only thing that will quench the fire’s thirst seems to be a gift from mother nature herself.

Some of the more vocal proponents on the internet would have you believe Premier Racheal Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set the Fort McMurray fires themselves. The amount of outcry denouncing the Prime Minister, in particular the rejection of help from foreign nations recently, has been incredibly forceful, so much so I feel the need to clear up some misconceptions, some contradictions and some all around bullshit that needs to be addressed.

  1. Prime minister Trudeau didn’t reject the call for the foreign aid, it was the Canadian Inter agency Forest Fire Centre that did. The prime minister was simply the mouth piece that delivered the message. Pointing the finger at Trudeau is simply shooting the messenger.
  2. More boots on the ground and more water bombers in the air isn’t always the best solution. People have been clamoring ‘The More the Merrier’, but to logistically plan and coordinate a number of people, especially a number of those who do not speak English would not only be difficult, it would actually make the job more difficult. There’s only so much airspace to leverage as well. The last thing we need is a midair collision over a raging forest to make things worse. Right now our people are able to handle to job, and this has been determined by the people fighting the fires themselves.
  3. Russia. I’m going to start off by stating I love Russian culture. I love the people, the language, their works of art. That aside, their government is one of the most brutal, totalitarian regimes on the planet. So when people, who applauded our last Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, for famously telling Putin ‘Get out of Crimera’, are the very same people criticizing our current Prime Minister that he should be allowing Putin to lend us a hand putting out fires, it makes me question whether they are confusing politics for a hockey game.

I’m going to expand on that last point. If your party’s loyalty is more important than your ideals, then you fall into the very definition of the word ‘idiot’. Stephen Harper was absolutely right to tell Putin to leave Crimera. But to stand with Harper on that topic, then turn around and chastise Trudeau for turning down Russia’s help is beyond hypocritical.

You want Russia to give us a hand? The Russia that invaded a country recently? The country that, when the punk rock band ‘Pussy Riot’ spoke out against the government, they were thrown in prison? The country that has a head of state that refuses to leave, that assassinates and jails those who try to run against him? The Russia who’s head of state does these things because he’s ex-KGB? That Russia?

You want them to spend some time in Canada? The Canada that was the no-man’s land between the two greatest nuclear super-powers of the 20th century? That stood in between the eagle and the bear during the thirty or so years of the cold war? A war that some consider not quite over?

There is a ton of space up north, it’s one of the last great un-populated wildernesses on the planet, teeming with resources. Our sovereignty over that area is constantly being contested, and it’s mostly being contested with Russia. Their government is not an ally. We aren’t exactly friends. If we have Russia set up shop here to give us a hand, how easily are they going to leave once the job is done? They might think we’re not able to handle all this untapped wilderness on our own.

I don’t particularly think that Trudeau handled the Fort McMurray wildfires appropriately. We’ll touch on that subject tomorrow. He was right to refuse help though. The rejection of help came from the firefighters, not Trudeau. If you want to get pissy about the number of boots on the grounds, talk to the boots already on the ground.

I’m not a fan of politicians of any stripes. But the idiocy needs to stop. The people who are consistently posting nonsense from both sides are technically adults. If you want to argue constructively and with intelligence, you need to form a set of ideals, not some misplaced trust in a particular party. Once you do that, then you’ll miraculously find every politician will make you angry.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Humanity needs to stop communicating with Memes.

p.s.s. The word ‘idiot’ means someone who is ignorant of the political process, and refuses to vote (more or less, the word has been around for a while).

 

 

America: Taking it in the Trumper

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“It’s always good to be underestimated.”

Donald Trump

On June 15th, 2015, Donald J. Trump announced he would be throwing in his hat into the presidential race. People laughed, believing the idea to be ludicrous. Never in a million years would Donald Trump be the representative of the Republican party, people said. He’s been played off as a joke by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brian, and a smattering of other late night talk show hosts. He was not taken seriously as a contender.

As of May 3rd, 2016, Donald J. Trump has more or less secured the Republican nomination. Talk show hosts will continue to parade him as a clown. People will continue to laugh. Pollsters are already speculating whether or not he would win in a showdown against Hillary Clinton, while she continues to face Bernie Sanders. Most are leaning towards a victory for Hillary. He’s not taken seriously as a contender.

There’s a fifty percent chance the next President of the United States will be Donald J. Trump. The joke stopped being funny months ago.

“If you get good ratings, they’ll cover you even though you have nothing to say.”

Donald Trump

He mused over the deportation of muslims. His numbers went up. He thought outloud about building a wall between the United States and Mexico, a feat that is logistically impossible. His numbers went up. He stated that women who have abortions should be punished. His numbers went up.

The media, on both the left and the right side of the spectrum, want you to believe Donald Trump is an incompetent buffoon, that he’s a spoiled rich rich who grew up with daddy’s money. What people need to understand in that Trump is incredibly smart, and terribly savvy. Few people on planet Earth are as good at selling themselves as Trump. His fortune was made in Real Estate. He wrote a book, ‘The Art of the Deal’. He’s had numerous holdings, many of which were filed for bankruptcy, yet he’d still get most of his investment back. He’s an artist when it comes to manipulating the system so he ends up on top. Every product he owns bears his name, and all of them are labeled as luxury items, for the elite like Trump.

Trump isn’t terrifying because of what he says. The comments regarding muslims, the Mexican wall, the abortion issues; he’s only saying these things to keep the camera pointed on him. It’s questionable as to whether or not he actually believes what he says. Trump is terrifying because he’s not interested in getting involved in politics. He interested on getting his name on the presidency.

“I’ve got the hottest brand in the world”

Donald Trump

As terrifying as the prospect of a president whose interest in politics is to further his product line, there’s something more insidious in the mix. Donald Trump has taken advantage of the republican base, a base that has gone further and further right in the last decade. For years, the leaders of the republican party has been cultivating a pride in ignorance, a hatred in those who are different, not part of ‘our’ group. They’ve been fed on a steady diet of Fox News, where emotions trump facts. Trump saw this wedge, and hit it with a sledgehammer. The other republican leaders have been scrambling for a year now, trying to make sense, and counter, a man who will say anything to stay in the spotlight.

The republican party has been poking at the hornets nest for a while now. Donald Trump threw a rock at it.

That box has been opened wide, and there’s going to be no way to close it now. If you think Donald Trump as president would be a disaster, you have more to fear if he doesn’t. Donald Trump says a lot of terrible things, but it’s to simply leverage his position. Make no mistake, Trump isn’t going to be the next Hitler. He’s not going to round up muslims and throw them in camps. He’s not going to outlaw abortions. He’s not going to build a wall between two countries and make the other country pay for it. His base, the one he’s been pandering too, certainly wants him to. The United States has been slowly descending into a state of authoritative control. A nation that willingly trades it’s freedoms for the illusion of safety. For the promise that a ruler will step in and protect the flock. The NSA has been given resources to spy on Americans. The police in America have become increasingly militarized. The idea of deporting a group of people based on their religion was hailed as ‘someone finally talking sense’.

The future republican candidates will be less subtle than Donald. They’ll want to round up dissenters, they’ll want corporal punishment, they’ll want to limit the choices a woman have other their own bodies. They’ll have no qualms over separating ‘us’ and ‘them’.

“My whole life is about winning. I don’t lose often. I almost never lose.”

Donald Trump

Am I scared if Donald Trump becomes president? Well, no. I’m not sure how well he understands the role of the presidency, and I have a feeling that he’ll be sorely disappointed to find out politics requires a ridiculous amount of diplomacy and compromise. There isn’t a lot winning in politics. You win once every four years, and the time spent in between is arguing over which municipalities will get road repairs. Compared to the life Donald Trump lives now, I think he’ll find it boring , frustrating and tiring.

 

“As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.”

Donald Trump

Hey, a loud mouth asshole with too much money can be right every once and a while, right?

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’m coming after Hillary next week. She’s no better.

p.s.s. Tomorrow I talk about Alpha Go, and I welcome our future robot overlords.