To Trump, you’re all Suckers And Losers, America
Donald Trump is gonna need new hats. SALA hats. Or maybe SASA hats (Short Attention Span America). Whatever. Another marketing coup to go with Trump’s administrative coup. Except the new Trump hats might need lots of ticky-tacky gold appliqué and a Chinese tariff waiver. What he won’t need is a fan base gullible enough to buy them in bulk. Trump is no rocket scientist, but he knows there’s a sucker born every minute.
Which brings us to the mortal threat that is Venezuela. Readers not from Short Attention Span America may have noticed striking similarities between the Bushies’ pitch deck for invading Iraq and how the Trump administration is selling his planned, undeclared and illegal war of choice against our South American neighbor.
Jon Stewart did, and last night issued a warning: “If you’re going to bring back early 2000s geopolitics, I’m gonna have to bring back early 2000s ‘Daily Show’ gotcha clips.” It seems like Trump is using the neocons’ sales manual. Stewart brought receipts.
I’d missed Sen. Tom Cotton (R) of Arkansas arguing on “Meet the Press” that “President Bush has every power under the Constitution to strike boats in international waters.”
Game. Set. Match.
I’ve complained that Democrats are in a rut. They keep doing the same things and expecting better results. Except Repunblicans keep running the same plays because they get the results they want.
So let’s revisit early 2000s “Daily Show” and see. In a 2004 interview, former President Bill Clinton cited a Republican smear campaign run against Sen. John McCain during the 2000 South Carolina presidential primary. (Sorry, the clip link is dead.)
Stewart: Do you believe that politics has gotten so dirty … that these kinds of tactics become so prevalent that this is the reason half the country doesn’t vote? Or this is the reason that we don’t get, maybe, the officials that we deserve?
Clinton: No, I think people do it because they think it works.
Stewart: That’s it? Simply a strategy?
Clinton: Absolutely. And as soon as it doesn’t work, they’ll stop doing it.
The Bushies took Americans for suckers in the run-up to invading Iraq. It worked. Now the “isolationist” Trump 2.0 administration is running the same play to justify invading Venezuela. As Clinton suggested 21 years ago, as soon as a strategy doesn’t work, Republicans will stop using it.
“There’s a sucker born every minute” could be on Trump’s headstone. He’d claim the quote as his own. Americans keep proving it right.
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