The silly season is well under way.
In a bid to have their egos and “values” stroked on another televised episode of “America’s Politicians and How They Got That Way,” seventeen candidates for President of these United States threw their straw hats into the Republican ring earlier this year.
While shedding themselves of Rick Perry and Scott Walker, one of their ilk made an extraordinary mess.
Trump Is Not a Happy Guy
Donald Trump, emboldened on past celebrity exposure, became the Koch Brothers’ pandering ringleader by riling the masses with outrageous epithets toward Mexican-American citizens, while Jeb Bush forthrightly held his temper. I don’t need to requote “The Donald” here, except to express astonishment over his latest salvo: He says his Republican rivals plan to start the next world war over Syria. Where do they plan to recruit soldiers: from immigrants?
On this website is “Virgil’s Story,” where anyone can deduce that Virgil’s contribution to my ancestry was a rabbi’s ingenious ruse enabling him to slip by U.S. immigration gendarmes on Ellis Island. You can read it here. My father’s later fame to claim was that of a renowned big-band musician; he’s one of many immigrants who excelled once arriving on these shores.
What would Donald Trump do with everyone whose descent evolved from ploys similar to my father’s? Would he subject our nation of immigrants to checking, double-checking and eventual deportation?
Of course not. That’s why I see the aftermath of Trump’s obnoxious mouth as a sign of the silly season.
Anti-Communism as a hammer
But why hasn’t Marco Rubio raised holy hell about Trump? As the photogenic son of an immigrant Cuban, certainly he sees behind the inherent danger of the “blame game,” in which politicians conjure up scapegoats to explain tough financial times, i.e. targeting immigrants whose ethnic experience differs vastly from Europeans.
How would Rubio answer the question, “Do Cubans think of themselves as better than Mexicans?
That’s not a stupid question, either. In Miami for 50 years, I became familiar with Cuban social circles ever since Cubanos left their island nation to avoid political persecution. Their exodus eventually transformed politics in Miami, and their brain-trust Latin Builders Association became South Florida’s money machine.
On their way up the ladder, Cubans pushed African-Americans to the back of the bus once again. I wonder if Cuban exile politics finds it expedient to expose the whole country to unfair categorizations of Mexican-Americans. When I lived in Southern California in the late 1960s and early ’70s, I discovered Mexican immigrants to be mostly deferential and anxious to stay below the radar.
Only when an undocumented immigrant commits an unspeakable crime does the reputation of that ethnicity become viral. I say, “None of these accusations and innuendos is good for the country.” Intolerant generalizations of ethnic groups divide us, and dash the concept of nobility against the rocks of vile behavior.
The Travesty of Republicanism
Republicans of the 21st Century are so dissimilar from their forefathers that they resemble miscreants who will do and say anything to get elected, while pursuing hidden agendas from wealthy contributors who try to remain masked by PACs (political action committees).
As a youngster, “I liked Ike.” I remember when conservatism was synonymous with “conservation.” Republicans then espoused protecting the environment; these days, I hear none of them embracing the inescapable fact that global warming is real.
What I despise most is that today’s Republicans have turned this country into a one-party system. I believe we deserve a choice, but how can anyone deny the rising seas that are a direct result of climate change caused by human activity?
We can only laugh when the sideshow of politics borders on the absurd. Let’s hope someone steps forward – besides a Democrat – who cares enough about this country to inspire a serious conversation. Only then will we be able to stop laughing at this train wreck of a long-running stupid, silly season.
