A Sunday Op-Ed Piece

Spawn of the GOP

Yesterday, at the end of an unusually balmy February day, a friend posted on Facebook, "60 degrees and Trump - the end times?" Yes, it is that kind of spooky. Shedding the heavy winter coat and enjoying the sunshine was a treat but we all know that it only serves to predict the sure arrival of much less pleasant and even disastrous effects of climate change. What is similarly disturbing about Donald Trump's win in South Carolina? Beyond spooky and downright frightening is that the Republican Party has created its own Frankenstein, a shocking monster resulting from their  manipulation of American minds.

The Grand Old Party has long pursued the program of dupping the people. They have spewed forth fear mongering; fear of the other, the immigrant, the undeserving poor; fear of an undefended position of power and masculinity betrayed by efforts to arrive at concensus through compromise; fear of the Black man, especially the one elected by the people to hold the office of president. All of this, plus their sabre rattling calling for all out war in any area of the world that threatens our interests, has been a calculated distraction for the American  mind. It is a slight of hand trick directed at the fearful, the greedy, the insecure. Its purpose is to distract from the real causes of income inequality, a shrinking middle class, the persistence of poverty, job insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, etc., etc. And distract they must because the real solutions to these problems would negatively effect the private interests of coorporations, monopolies, and stockholders.

But something has gone horribly wrong for them. Imagine the conversations in their closed door meetings? Their message has worked so well that it has allowed for the rise of an extremist beyond their imagining. It has been said, "Be careful about what you pray for." They have gotten Donald Trump! His successes are reminiscent of Hitler's rise in a demoralized, inflation strapped, humiliated German society. My own grandparents fled this circumstance in 1928. Adolph Hilter was democratically elected in the most sophisticated and intellectual society in the world. And we all know what that Frankenstein monster wrought in the world.