Trump the Loser?

Way back in this bizarre election cycle, I told myself that my Republican neighbors here in the county could possibly gather enough oom-pah to put a halt to the Trump phenom. What I hoped for was that my Republican neighbors, and they are legion, were God-fearing enough to realize the Donald was not their man. He wasn't, isn't, and never will be.

Iowa's first-in-the-nation's caucuses could, I hoped and wrote, end Trumpmania by not voting for him. He'd lose in Sioux County and therefore, Sioux County being the Republican stronghold it is, he'd lose in Iowa. Trump is a loser and the bubble--the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade character he is--goes poof! He goes home to his blessed casinos. Sioux County beats Trump means Iowa beats Trump, and Trump jets blessedly back to his towers.

Sioux County did beat Trump, and so did Iowa; but Trump got back his plane and started scoring win after win after win by punching out opponents, one at a time. 

Maybe. Until. Now. 

Google "Trump" and "Waterloo" and watch the opinion pieces rise from all over the media, right and left and in between. I'm proud again because this time it's "On Wisconsin" taking up the cause, the state I still can't help call home. No one talks about the thousands of Wisconsin evangelicals, even though my Badger family is full of them. No one talks about them because it's not the Christians who are turning on Trump, although they should. It's the loyal Republicans, many of whom are, I'm sure, evangelicals. 

What those who study such things claim is that Wisconsin has been at war for the last four years over issues created and championed by Gov. Scott Walker, who Trump helped destroy in Iowa. That war has made ideas and information vitally important and understood in the state. Wisconsin Republicans, my own family among them, I'm sure, can't help but be thoughtful about the issues. Their plowshares have been sharpened into swords for several years. They think. They know. And they don't think Trump. Bully for them, I say.

Conflict, real conflict, can be, paradoxically, a blessing because it sharpens minds and hearts. Wisconsin Republicans, some say, don't get bullied by Trump's bluster because the bloody wars they've fighting have taught them why they think the way they do. When discover that Trump doesn't think that way, he's toast. 

Well, that's overstatement. He's still Donald Trump and he's got his own plane, he's beholden only to his own fat bank account, and he's going to make America great again and basically step on whoever doesn't think so as if they're late night's campaign cigar stub. For some white folks, somehow The Donald is Mother Teresa.

But right now, in Wisconsin, Ted Cruz is beating him by ten points. 

The good Dr. Ben Carson, who inexplicably went over to the dark side once he dropped out of the race, excused the Donald's determination to punish women seeking abortions by saying the Trumpster wasn't prepared to answer that question. 

Neither was Ben prepared for President. But Ben is right, and that's a very good reason--there are more!--why I hope my home staters send Donald Trump back to New York--dare I say it?--a loser.

"Trump, the Loser." I can see it on campaign signs and stickers all over. "Trump the Loser."

On, Wisconsin. Get him off the ground and on his way home.
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Just for the record, two of the most interesting and thoughtful conservative voices are unequivocal on the candidacy of Donald Trump. You can read a whole string of Michael Gerson's columns in the Washington Post, but try yesterday's. It's impossible to call Gerson a liberal.

And then there's David Brooks, New York Times, who, on Wednesday, claimed that voters who were siding with Trump were leading the country into "a descent into darkness." Read it for yourself.