How Donald Trump Swindled The Republican Party, And Why "Know Nothing" Alt-Right Conservatives Love Him For Having Done It

I know what you're thinking if you've been following my posts on this blog within the past year: "Oh, God---he's going to criticize Trump again". Well, you're absolutely right. However, I must point out one very important fact before I begin this post, and that is this: a presidential nominee will never be anything more than a reflection of the party that allowed him (or her) to win their party's nomination; and since this is true, then the Republican Party is in a world of trouble as a result of Donald Trump being their nominee for President in 2016.

As I have already tried to point out in previous posts, there can be little doubt as to how so many Republican voters were willing to sell their party's soul in order to make certain that Trump would win the nomination, especially when a large percentage of angry, poorly-educated white conservatives within the GOP were already waiting for someone who was as effective at channeling their resentment towards Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party as Donald Trump. Facts, figures and statistics have never mattered to this "Alt-Right" crowd, and they never will as long as someone like Trump keeps telling them to blame everyone other than themselves for what is wrong with their own party and America in general. The only thing that matters to Trump's voting base is guaranteeing that their voices will always be more prevalent than the overwhelming numbers of demographic groups in the U.S. who are vehemently opposed to right-wing conservative ideology.

Clearly this is an indication that voters who support Donald Trump's candidacy for President are more than willing to embrace authoritarian fascism over democracy or any other form of governing in which a majority of people determine how their nation functions. Considering that there are many within the conservative movement who already believe that America was never intended to have a government which was based on the principles of democratic populism, federal authority, legislative and judicial equality or separation of powers, it isn't too difficult to understand why so many among the far right accept Trump's "strong man" unilateral approach to governing. As far as they're concerned, only one person should have absolute control of all governing functions within the U.S., and Donald Trump is that one person for 2016. Don't bother trying to explain the concept of what a banana republic is to an infantile-minded group of people like Trump's voting base who look at politics the same way as playing an adult version of "Simon Says" or "Follow The Leader". They couldn't care less what a banana republic is as long as they're convinced that it doesn't cause them to lose their disdain for the Federal government and helps secure their place at the table when it comes to attacking the influence of liberalism within the Democratic Party.*   

Another factor that plays into the popularity of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential candidacy has been the lock-step "know nothing" mentality which has crept back into the puritanical and poorly informed tendencies of conservative Republican thought like never before. Naturally a despot con artist like Trump has been aware of this mentality for quite some time and has been using it to his advantage throughout Barack Obama's presidency in the hopes of ultimately winning the Republican nomination and going on to win the general election in November. If there's one thing that can be said about Donald J. Trump, it would have to be this: He never does anything coincidentally or accidentally. Like any conniving, opportunistic charlatan who sells a faulty product to his own customers to see if he can get away with making a quick fortune at the expense of rubes, Trump methodically uses ignorance, arrogance, demagoguery and deception as weapons against even the very people who support him, and his supporters only confirm how dangerous their own willful ignorance is by having placed his incendiary rhetoric above any form of objective or rational thought. 

As I have also mentioned in previous posts, the fact that Trump has even been taken seriously as a contender for the 2016 presidency is an obvious sign of desperation within the Republican Party itself, and this desperation is the result of having a platform which no longer benefits the majority of Americans. From policies that promote fear-mongering and varying degrees of prejudice to the blatant hypocrisy of using politics and religion to promote oligarchy and serfdom over democracy, conservatism's influence has done little if anything to insure the future of the Republican Party, and Donald J. Trump has now become the living embodiment of what could end up being the Republican National Committee's inevitable and long-overdue downfall.

 Even if Trump should win the general election next month (despite not having received endorsements from any reputable conservative news outlets), there's a very good possibility that his presidency won't make it through an entire four-year term. The reason for this is due to the fact that New York State investigators are now looking into re-opening a case based on a civil suit that was filed in California earlier this year in which Trump allegedly raped a thirteen year-old girl while she was visiting his home at the Mar-a-Lago Estate in Palm Beach, Florida during 1994, not to mention what damning information will be discovered in the eventual release of his tax returns. However, an even bigger problem would arise if Trump were to resign his presidency or end up getting impeached, and that bigger problem has a name: Mike Pence.
     

Like others within the Republican Party who pander to the extreme right-wing members of their voting base in order to move up in American politics, Mike Pence has earned a reputation for placating hostile, anti-establishment conservative voters while serving as Governor of Indiana after replacing Mitch Daniels in 2012. This wasn't too difficult for Pence given the fact that he helped to generate a lot of the hostility among conservatives in Indiana while working from 1994 to 1999 as a local radio and television talk show host before successfully winning his bid for Indiana's 2nd Congressional District seat in 2000.
Like his running mate Donald Trump, Mike Pence has also used manipulative tactics for the purpose of self-promotion within the confines of the Republican Party. This in turn has allowed him to use religion in particular as a vehicle for signing into law legislation which blatantly discriminates against minorities (the homeless, single mothers, the LGBT community, etc.) while serving as Indiana's 50th Governor. In short, Mike Pence is perhaps the most dangerous Vice Presidential selection that has been made since George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney for his running mate.

I genuinely hope that this will be my last post regarding the dangers of Donald Trump's candidacy for President. I can't stress enough how much trouble the Republican Party and the United States will be in as a result of him winning the general election. This fraudulent, egotistical, vindictive little man who isn't above using wealth, power, influence and demagoguery to deceive as many voters as possible in order to get everything he wants as a celebrity presidential contender (book deals, TV appearances, etc.) has all but guaranteed that his presidency will be nothing short of exercising his own self-gratification at the expense of a country which he believes has already rejected him as both a public figure and a private citizen in spite of his already-existing popularity. There have been reports that Trump even intends to cash in on the publicity of his presidential run by starting up his own cable television network if he should lose to Hillary Clinton in the general election. This should come as no surprise either given the fact that no publicity is the only form of negative publicity in a mind that's as twisted, diabolical and self-serving as Trump's.

Regardless of the outcome next month, American democracy has already received a major black eye as a result of Trump's candidacy for the 45th presidency, and November 8, 2016 will decide whether America is willing to tolerate or reject Donald J. Trump's brand of fascist tyranny once and for all. Hopefully there is a substantial number of voters left within the U.S. who still appreciate democracy enough to keep this pathetic excuse for a human being from ever becoming President of the United States, and those who don't care about preserving democracy in the U.S. or anywhere else on this planet can pack their bags and live like recluses in obscurity someplace beyond U.S. jurisdiction instead of voting for Trump in next month's election---or in any other election for that matter---as far as I'm concerned.

*For further reference, read my blog post from October 16, 2014 entitled "Obama's Legacy: A Damning Indictment on White Conservatism in America".

Why I believe that fascism could end up replacing democracy in the U.S. within my lifetime

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

-Adolf Hitler

It's not easy being a moderate Republican or Democrat in America's current political climate, and the reason for this is due to the fact that there has been a tectonic shift within both parties in recent years from bipartisanship and compromise to ideology, extremism and the polarization that comes with both. While this may seem like a positive inevitability at first glance, it also has the potential of leading to the very form of political and social despotism that George Washington spoke of in his presidential farewell address while warning his audience about the dangers of factional dissension and the destruction of public liberty as a result of it.
If you're hoping to find a reason that justifies the level of puritanism within both parties during this presidential campaign season, you might as well stop reading this post and look for some other outlet that will help you to avoid facing some ugly realities that will be addressed here. American politics is an ugly business, and like it or not, that ugliness is due in large part to the fact that the American public have allowed it to become that way.

I."Triumph Of The Swill"

The main reason for why I became a registered independent voter in 2007 is because I had to come to a harsh, grim realization, and that realization was this: all political parties in the United States---regardless of the "purity" of their agenda---rely on private funding from lobbyists who represent special interest groups in Federal, State and Municipal government. In other words, EVERY politician who works in the U.S. is on someone else's payroll other than taxpayers alone, and that payroll helps to keep EVERY politician's bank account nice and fat. Of all the people who are working to undermine democracy in America, lobbyists and special interest groups have to be at the top of the list if for no other reason than because voters are too ignorant and arrogant to see them for the threat to democratic liberty that they really are.      

II."Crock Of Ages"

 One of the biggest misnomers that has ever been intentionally promoted by the conservative movement in the United States is the notion that America was founded on Judaeo-Christian principles. I could write an entire thesis on how this garbage became popular among social conservatives as a result of lobbyists who represent Christian schools in Washington, D.C. like Oral Roberts University, but quite frankly, it would take up too much of my personal time to invest in such an endeavor. Instead, I'll keep it brief for this post.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, once stated the following in 1808: "Erecting the wall of separation between Church and State is absolutely essential in a free society." The reason why Jefferson made this statement is because, like other founders of American democracy, he was knowledgeable enough to understand the dangers of theocracy within society along with the values of secularism within government. 

Contrary to popular belief among evangelical Christian conservatives, separation of Church and State serves two purposes: One, it prevents government from dictating which religion(s) shall be mandated onto society, and two, it prevents government from mandating which religion(s) shall be prohibited from society. Contrast this to the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 which made Christianity the only religion to be sanctioned in Germany by the Third Reich while outlawing the practice of Judaism and other religions altogether, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why separation of Church and State is absolutely essential in a free society indeed. 

III. "Mass Stupidity Makes For Better Election Results"

Perhaps the most intentional and deceptive forms of legislation that Republicans in Federal, State and local government have passed into law in recent years for the sole purpose of broadening their voting base have been forms of legislation which cut spending for public education. While conservative Republicans may argue that there is too much bureaucracy within America's educational system and needs to be removed for the greater good, one needs to understand what is really being insinuated behind their "greater good" rhetoric.
Institutions of higher learning like public schools are not only intended to teach the values of reading, writing and arithmetic, but they are also intended to give students an opportunity to understand the values of civics, public discourse and objectivity: the very ideals which help to preserve democracy in society. Since the end of the 1960s, conservatives have made a concerted effort to remove all forms of fundamental understanding of democratic thought from America's public school system. This in turn has led to legislation which cuts tax dollars from being used to help students learn about the values of democracy itself. 

As you have probably figured out by this point, when a student is no longer taught the values of democracy within a democratic society, that student is more likely to either vote without properly vetting candidates or simply not vote at all, but either result inevitably works to the Republican Party's advantage in the long run with devastating consequences for civil liberty in general.

This leads me back to the quote by Adolf Hitler at the beginning of this post, because Hitler understood that in order to elevate himself on the ruins of public liberty in Germany, he would have to prey upon the weaknesses within the German people's lack of understanding in regards to democracy under the Weimar Republic following World War One. Hitler also understood that in order to further the cause of his vision for a "Thousand-Year Reich", he would have to rely on the ignorance and arrogance of German youth to carry out his plans for perpetuating National Socialist ideology among future generations of Germans or anyone else in the world who became disillusioned with democracy and wanted to be led by a fuhrer rather than have control of his or her own government.

In the seventy-plus years since Adolf Hitler's death, this mentality has crept into the minds of both conservative and liberal voters within the United States. While it should come as no surprise that conservatives have chosen to embrace Hitler's ideology of "strong man" authoritarianism over democracy, it's troubling for me to watch this ideology also take hold among liberal-progressives in regards to the Democratic Party's choice of presidential candidates and the current leadership within the Democratic National Committee itself during this election year of 2016. What troubles me even more is the fact that many supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have stated that if their candidate doesn't win the nomination, then they will either take their proverbial political marbles and go home by not voting or support whoever the Republican nominee is in the hopes of generating a "real revolution in America". Naturally, both of these ideas among liberal-progressives work to the Republican Party's advantage when all is said and done. This is also one of those ugly realities that have come into existence as a result of an ignorant American electorate.

So I have now been forced to come to a rather grim conclusion regarding the future of democracy in the United States, and that grim conclusion is this: Unless there is a genuine effort to restore bipartisan governing, I may very well live long enough to see the day when American democracy will be replaced with a totalitarian form of fascism not unlike what Adolf Hitler had envisioned for himself at the expense of Germany and the rest of Europe. What makes this conclusion all the more disturbing is that unlike the millions of Germans who pledged their allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi Party after World War One, Americans have been used to living in a democratic system of governing. And because of this, Americans also have less of an excuse to reject democracy than those millions of Germans who chose Nazism over the Weimar Republic.

     

"I Hate to Say 'I Told You So', But..."

Men worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"

-Revelation 13:4

Those who would give up essential Liberty, even to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
-Benjamin Franklin

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
-Patrick Henry

I would rather be right than be President.
-Henry Clay





WARNING:
THE FOLLOWING POST INCLUDES CONTENT WHICH MAY BE CONSIDERED AS OFFENSIVE. VIEWER DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED.

On August 19, 2015, I posted what I thought would be the definitive blog column on why Donald Trump would prove himself to be the worst possible presidential candidate in the history of the Republican Party. I thought that whoever read the column would realize how much of a mockery Trump would make of Republican voters to the point that they would refuse to accept him as a viable presidential contender. I thought that whoever read the column would realize how much of an opportunistic charlatan Trump really is when it comes to taking advantage of people's fears and then using those fears to expose everything that has been wrong with the Republican Party since the end of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency. All in all, I thought that the column would actually help Republican voters to put their "Party Before Country" attitude aside and be objective enough to avoid making the embarrassing mistake of handing their party over to someone as lacking in ethics, decency and other forms of civil respectability as Donald Trump...

...Stupid me. What was I thinking?

I should have known as I was writing my column in August that Donald Trump would end up becoming as popular as he is among Republican voters today, just as I should have known all along that words like "objectivity", "ethics", "decency" and "civility" have been all but removed entirely from the Republican vocabulary since the end of FDR's presidency and World War II when Republicans in Congress attempted to use "The Red Scare" as a means to smear the reputations of prominent liberal Democrats in both public and private life for political gain. And because of this, I also should have realized more than ever that anyone who is white, protestant and portrays himself as a hybrid of Adolf Hitler, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace and Charles Foster Kane would be accepted as the quintessential candidate to support among Republican voters if and when that person announced his candidacy for the highest and most honorable office in the United States after eight years of Barack Obama's presidency. Xenophobes, racists, misogynists and other assorted sociopaths in America can rejoice now that Donald Trump is their "voice of reason" for the White House in 2016. "Praise The Lord, Pass The Ammunition, Close The Borders, To Hell With The Constitution, and Political Correctness Be Damned!"

  

As for the Republicans in Congress who have made the headlines this week by "condemning" Donald Trump for his statements about banning all Muslims from the United States, make no mistake: Despite their attempts at publicly denouncing Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, you can all but guarantee that the majority of House and Senate Republicans will end up becoming too reluctant to announce that they would be willing to either vote for articles of impeachment or renounce their party affiliation if Donald Trump ends up winning the nomination and goes on to win the 2016 presidency. Keep in mind that these are the same Republicans in Congress who used similar campaign rhetoric in 2010 against President Obama and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in order to win their seats on Capitol Hill.

Always remember that Republicans in Congress must answer
to crowds like this now.

I personally would be willing to argue that a large percentage of Republicans in Congress would have no other alternative but to accept Trump's nomination even if he were to announce that he had chosen former Ku Klux Klan leader and current Tea Party spokesperson David Duke to be his running mate after winning a majority of delegates at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio next Summer. When you create a mess, you have one of two options: You can either be a mature adult, take responsibility for the mess that you have created and clean it up before it becomes disastrous, or you can act like an immature delinquent, add to the already-existing mess until it becomes disastrous, and then blame others for the disaster that you have created. The majority of the Republican electorate have clearly chosen the latter option by showing their overwhelming support for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential candidacy, and it's a safe bet that even the most hardened anti-Trump Republicans in Congress will ultimately cave in and choose the latter option as well if he should win the Republican nomination next Summer in Cleveland.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader-turned-Tea Party
representative David Duke

Knowing how much Trump likes to portray himself as the ultimate anti-government/anti-establishment hero who doesn't have a problem with using negative or blatantly shameless publicity in order to keep his name in the headlines, it wouldn't be all that surprising to me if he actually did make the decision to select David Duke or some other influential white supremacist Tea Party leader as his running mate if he ends up winning the Republican nomination, especially if no one within the Republican establishment wanted to be remembered as the man or woman who took the job of being Donald Trump's choice for vice president. Consider this: The potential for a Trump/Duke presidency would help give the more radical element among conservatives a legitimate excuse to get out the neo-Confederate/Tea Party "White Pride" vote in the South and in other rural and suburban sections of the U.S. before the general election in November. Taking this into consideration, can you think of any other 2016 Republican presidential candidate who would select a white supremacist as his or her running mate for the general election with the same level of gall and calculated shock value as Donald Trump?

You can expect to see more billboard ads like these in the U.S.
if Donald Trump selects David Duke as his vice presidential
running mate and wins the 2016 general election.

For obvious reasons, neither Dr. Ben Carson or Senator Marco Rubio would continue to be thought of as credible Republican contenders among "White Pride"conservative voters if either of them were to select David Duke as their running mate after winning the 2016 nomination. For Senator Ted Cruz, selecting Duke as his running mate would be too much of a risk for him to consider because it would only sour his relations with fellow House and Senate Republicans even more on Capitol Hill. As for Jeb Bush, the prospect of selecting David Duke as his running mate would only add more injury to insult if his brother George W. Bush were to campaign for both of them. 
In short, only Donald Trump would have the audacity to pull off such a potentially disastrous stunt after winning the Republican nomination and get away with doing it unscathed from the consequences among white conservative voters; and it's mainly because no one in Congress would take Trump seriously if he were elected president, regardless of his choice for vice president. Democrats in Congress have no reason to take him seriously as a presidential contender already, and Republicans in Congress would be forced into taking him seriously if they wanted to keep their jobs in Washington, D.C. after his inauguration. Add David Duke to that equation, and the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency looks even more like a profile in stupidity among the Republican electorate than a demographics victory for the Republican Party as a whole. 

This brings up something else that should be considered as a nightmare scenario for the Republican establishment in particular: Given the amount of racism and xenophobia that already exists within the Republican electorate (which, as I will explain later in this post, is due in large part to the conservative media), what Republican member of the House or the Senate would dare to risk losing his or her seat in Congress by standing up against their own constituents and declaring Trump's candidacy for president as being too dangerous for their party and for the country after he selected David Duke to be his running mate following the 2016 Republican National Convention? At this point in time, Donald Trump already has the Republican Party by the balls enough to know that he can do or say whatever he wants on the campaign trail as long as it keeps his numbers up in the polls. If by chance that should include selecting David Duke as his running mate after winning the nomination in Cleveland next Summer, then everyone from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to the local Republican mayor in "Hometown, U.S.A." would have no other choice but to accept Trump's selection of David Duke for vice president as being legitimate. 

Stop and think about that for a moment before continuing to read further, because it should give anyone an idea as to how much conservative Republicans would like to drive the United States off the cliff of progressive thought and into the dark, putrid abyss of their regressive and unhinged ideology. 

When all is said and done, the real battle for the heart and
soul of the Republican Party can be best determined by the
above statement.

While the possibility of Donald Trump selecting David Duke as his running mate for the 2016 general election may be seen as an implausible scenario within the Republican establishment and among a certain number of Democrats and independent voters, it is nevertheless too much of a plausible temptation for white conservative voters to resist if such a possibility were to become likely. The fact of the matter is this: Despite his former leadership status within the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke remains a somewhat popular and influential figure among white conservatives in the Southern region of the United States. Couple that with the eight years of Barack Obama's term in the White House along with the lock-step, "Party Before Country" mentality that exists within the Republican electorate, and it wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate that Trump could actually win a large portion of the South and several key voting districts in other parts of the country with David Duke as his vice presidential running mate in a general election scenario. 

For members of the Republican establishment and a certain number of Democrats and independent voters who don't know any better, the idea of Donald Trump winning the South and other sections of the country with David Duke as his running mate could be compared to the old joke about Southern white conservative Dixiecrats who used the voting booth because they could never beat Northern Yankee liberals in their own backyard with any other weapon after the Civil War. But in many sections of the South, however, the voting booth is still thought of as less of a joke and more as a strategic weapon in an ongoing, vindictive campaign of political and cultural subterfuge against the Federal government, and it is used with the intention of being successful on a national level instead of in Southern voting districts alone. Just the fact that a substantial number of white conservative voters from beyond the Mason-Dixon Line were literally howling for their states to secede from the Union immediately following Barack Obama's presidential election victories in 2008 and 2012 is proof that "The Southern Strategy" remains in existence and has the potential of being more of a genuine threat to centralized government, representative democracy and race relations in the U.S. than during the post-World War II Civil Rights era.

Reactionary images like this became popular in the South
 following President Harry S. Truman's executive order to
mandate racial equality within the U.S. armed forces
during the Summer of 1948.

Nowhere else in America does the adage "old soldiers never die" apply more than in the hearts and minds of post-Civil War Southern white conservatives, and white supremacist leaders like David Duke have all but guaranteed that the South's "old soldiers" will live on in the hearts and minds of white conservative voters in Dixie and elsewhere in the country, regardless of how negative the consequences could end up in the United States when it comes to race relations and responsible governing within the general populace. The fact that the conservative media plays into the concept of generating fear among their audiences while promoting white separatist propaganda, institutionalized bigotry and Jim Crow-era state's rights under the guise of religious freedom and American patriotism doesn't help to improve the situation from a demographics perspective either.

For the record, it should also be noted that only one group of people have been intentionally targeted for the purpose of accepting and perpetuating the conservative media's unified attack on race relations in America, and this group is the same targeted demographic that white supremacist leaders like David Duke have appealed to for decades. The group in question is made up of white voters who claim to have been disenfranchised by the Democratic Party because of the progress attributed to the Civil Rights movement within their communities. Since the end of Harry Truman's presidency, this group of white voters and their descendants have argued that they have been disenfranchised by liberals and Democrats because they haven't personally benefited from the idea of civil rights and equality being part of their everyday lives. In reality, this group has continuously refused to accept or acknowledge civil rights and other forms of equality as being anything other than offensive to their own way of life altogether. This is also the same group of white voters who unequivocally despise the idea of political correctness being a part of mainstream, everyday-American society because it doesn't allow them to "exercise" (i.e., abuse) their First Amendment right to free speech by using words like "nigger", "wetback", "wop", "kike", "rag-head", "faggot" or "retard" in casual conversation without being held accountable, as opposed to when they are with others who think and behave like themselves at private gatherings or public demonstrations.

It is this targeted demographic of irrational and unreasonable white voters who are now making a genuine attempt at seizing control of the Republican Party in an effort to restore legislative white supremacy and other forms of institutionalized bigotry in the United States under the moniker of conservative values, and it is also this targeted demographic of irrational and unreasonable white voters who have chosen to invest the future of the Republican Party into Donald Trump or anyone else within the 2016 field of presidential candidates who can appeal to their bigoted aspirations more than he does before the Republican National Convention next Summer. 

Statements like this apply just as easily to elections among
Southern white conservatives today as they did to the
battlefield during the Civil War. 

Taking this into consideration, it also wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate that a Trump/Duke campaign victory for the 2016 presidency would prove to be the ultimate political litmus test in determining whether or not the Republican Party can remain a credible and viable faction among independent voters in other sections of the country besides the South. Imagine how four years of a Donald Trump/David Duke presidency would effect the political and cultural climate in the U.S., and it becomes more obvious just how devastating the results could become for the Republican Party on a national scale in regards to independent voters by November of 2020 and beyond.

Anti-progressive propaganda like this actually helps to
promote white supremacy by giving the impression that
white conservatives are being victimized by political
correctness in American culture.

As I stated earlier, when you create a mess, you have one of two options: You can either be a mature adult, take responsibility for the mess that you have created and clean it up before it becomes disastrous, or you can act like an immature delinquent, add to the already-existing mess until it becomes disastrous, and then blame others for the disaster that you have created. In the minds of Southern white conservatives and the conservative media that promotes their agenda, the latter option has proven to be an effective tool in getting a large percentage of the country to empathize with the already-existing hatred for the Federal government and the cause for civil rights in the South. However, the demographics numbers have clearly shown in recent years that conservatism is on a steady decline because of poor race relations between the Republican Party and an overwhelming majority of non-white voters in the U.S., including within the South. Basically, this means that the biggest victims of the conservative media's propaganda campaign to polarize Americans on the issues of federalism, civil rights and equality in general have been, and continue to be, the one group of people who drink the toxic Kool-Aid of conservative propaganda more than anyone else in the United States: White, conservative Republican voters. 

Irony always strikes at the best and worst of times when all is said and done, indeed.    

Quotes like these from Lee Atwater and Sen.
Lindsey Graham reflect how much racism plays
a significant role in Republican politics.

Yes, I honestly thought that the majority of Republican voters and elected officials would have realized by now just how far Donald Trump would go to bring their party to the brink of political and cultural ruin, but alas, I was proven wrong. Instead of rejecting Trump for exposing everything that has been proven to be failures within their party for the last 70 years, Republicans have chosen to embrace their party's failures in the personification of Donald Trump and his inflammatory, hate-filled demagoguery and megalomania, which he proudly displays like a two-dollar swastika armband around the sleeve of his high-priced, custom-tailored business coats, and expresses just as proudly with all the charisma, charm, grace and sophistication of a rabid pit bull on Prozac. 
I even made the mistake of thinking that Republican voters would have felt insulted to be described as "The Silent Majority" again by Donald Trump or any other presidential contender after the humiliating degradation of Richard Nixon's presidency and Watergate. But instead of feeling insulted, Trump's supporters proudly describe themselves as members of his "Silent Majority". I'm at the point now where I can't help but wonder how many Republicans would vote to re-elect "Tricky Dick" and "Sneaky Spiro" if they were alive and running for the Republican nomination again instead of Donald Trump. 

Are Republican voters so desperate to keep their party relevant in American politics that they're actually willing to jeopardize their party's future by letting a blatant fraud like Donald Trump become their next presidential nominee? And if so, then just exactly what are they willing to compromise in order to guarantee Trump's success in the November general election and beyond? Trump himself has made it clear that he doesn't have a problem with circumventing the Constitution to satisfy his fascist tendencies. Are conservatives actually hoping to replace almost 250 years of representative democracy and self-governance with Donald Trump's crude, obnoxious, vitriolic and vulgar brand of Holy Roman imperialism just so that they can thumb their collective noses at liberals once and for all, or has the Republican National Committee become so terrified of their party being thought of as obsolete that they're willing to continue dragging their own country through the mud of history until they have succeeded at getting the rest of America to go along with their corporate lobbyist-driven agenda? Your guess is as good as mine as to which of these is the real motive behind the fevered popularity of Donald Trump's candidacy among Republican voters at this point in the 2016 presidential election cycle.

One thing is definitely certain: Regardless of who he selects to be his vice presidential running mate, Donald Trump's legacy as president of the United States would prove to be the most embarrassing and degrading chapter in America's history if he were to be nominated in Cleveland, Ohio next Summer and go on to win in the 2016 general election, and Republican voters would have no one else to blame but themselves for the disgrace that they will have brought onto their country as a result of his presidency. Republicans might as well gamble away their party's credibility in November of next year, because they have already chosen to gamble away whatever shred of dignity is left within their party by allowing a tasteless and unapologetic con artist like Donald Trump to run for the White House under their banner, along with having chosen to gamble away whatever integrity America still has left in the modern, civilized world.
If repeating the same mistakes over and over again while hoping for a different outcome each time is the best description of insanity, then Donald Trump is the latest and most blatant example of how much the Republican National Committee is having difficulty with keeping their "Southern Strategy"-influenced lunatics from taking over the asylum.    

Abraham Lincoln once said that America will never be destroyed from the outside, and that if we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Given the current situation that Republicans find themselves in with the growing popularity of Donald Trump's candidacy for the 2016 presidency, Lincoln's words could not be more hauntingly prophetic than they are now for the political party that he helped to establish. I should have known in August what I know now, and what I know now is this: As long as the Republican National Committee continues down the road towards plutocratic fascism in order to compensate for their party's lack of any substantive foreign and domestic policies that would benefit all U.S. citizens, then there will always be more fraudulent demagogues like Donald Trump to manipulate fear-obsessed voters into accepting the cowardly, delusional and unpatriotic notion that plutocratic fascism has and always will play an important role in America's future.   

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"Every town has one..."

With Halloween just around the corner, I have decided to write about a subject that is as much a part of October 31st as costumes and candy corn: Ghost stories that feature an old haunted house in them. But rather than focus on the typical examples of haunted houses, I would like to introduce the reader to a certain type of house which also has its fair share of chilling stories surrounding it, and that is the nearby funeral home which is no longer in business and yet remains standing, dilapidated and abandoned.
In the U.S., such funeral homes can be found mostly in rural areas where urban development is generally frowned upon by locals and practiced only when it is absolutely necessary. Such funeral homes are also considered as important cultural landmarks in rural communities because of the amount of business that they once had when their doors were opened to the public. Most families in these areas of the country can tell stories of what it was like for them to attend the viewing of a departed loved one for the first time and how important the funeral home was in taking proper care of that viewing for friends and family members of the deceased.

However, there are also those who live in these rural communities who are willing to give "swear to God and hope to die" accounts of paranormal activity within such funeral homes. Some of the accounts are provided by former employees, and some are provided by those who were in attendance during a funeral service, a viewing or both. For instance, there is a story involving an abandoned funeral home just outside of a rural South Carolina town which featured a large, nineteenth-century mirror in the reception parlor between the front entrance and the viewing chapel, along with a large grandfather clock. Both the mirror and the clock were heirlooms that belonged to the owner and proprietor of the funeral home which he had inherited from his father. The owner was last seen alive by the funeral director at approximately 11:30 pm on the evening of May 16, 1968 after a viewing reception for a ten year-old local boy who died after being struck by a car. The next morning, the funeral director found the owner lying dead on the floor in front of the mirror in the reception parlor with his right hand clutching his chest and his left hand pointing towards the viewing chapel. The official time of his death was recorded at approximately 12:00 am. Police records state that cemetery clay was found smeared onto the antique mirror.  
According to the legend, the owner was getting ready to leave the funeral home when he suddenly heard a loud, scraping sound in the reception area. He turned the lights back on after he walked into the reception parlor and noticed that someone had smeared fresh cemetery clay across the mirror. As the grandfather clock began to chime at midnight, the owner saw the image of the ten year-old boy staring back at him in the mirror from the entrance of the viewing chapel, which caused the 65 year-old owner to die of a massive heart attack on the spot.

Although there was no evidence to suggest that there were any intruders, it remains a mystery as to how the reddish-orange cemetery clay ended up on the mirror. What's even stranger is that the medical records for the funeral home owner showed that he had no signs of coronary problems before his sudden and fatal heart attack. The funeral home eventually went out of business three years later as a result of the owner's son having to sell it for collateral to pay off a gambling debt. Since then, it has been rumored that the mirror and the grandfather clock remain inside the reception parlor. 
Some people have claimed to see the lights in the reception parlor turn on and off at 11:55 pm inside of the now-abandoned funeral home despite the fact that the power has been turned off for over forty years, and some have even claimed that anyone who goes inside and stays until midnight will hear the faint sound of scraping on the mirror as the clock chimes twelve, even though the clock hasn't worked within the last forty-five years. 

       

There is another story about a funeral home in a small town in Kentucky which was forced out of business by local health code officials because of a foul odor which filled the main office area during the last week of May in 1973. Employees and health code inspectors described the odor as being like that of decomposing flesh, and the smell had reached the point where it was attracting large swarms of flies into the funeral home.
What makes this story unusual is that upon further inspection by police and health code officials, there was no indication that the employees of the funeral home were violating any regulations, and there was no sign of foul play or any dead animals in or around the funeral home itself. To this day, anyone who worked at the funeral home or the local health department that is still living cannot explain what caused the nauseating odor. However, there is a rumor that a photograph was taken by one of the health code inspectors which shows the image of a light-blue mist that is in the shape of a human figure and standing by a window inside of the main office. Unfortunately no one knows what became of the photograph because the health code inspector who allegedly captured the image died of an aneurysm one year to the day after he photographed the apparition. 

There is one more haunted funeral home-related story that I would like to share, and this one is perhaps more disturbing than the first two. It involves a funeral home/mortuary which was located in a small Georgia town near the Okefenokee Swamp. As the story goes, the director of this particular funeral home hanged himself in his office on the second floor facing a two-lane street which runs through the town on September 30, 1934. He had left a suicide note which stated that he could no longer continue living as a result of his wife's mysterious death in the swamp during a July 4th picnic that year. However, there was some speculation within the community that the real reason for his suicide was due to the fact that the local district attorney was preparing to charge the funeral director with premeditated murder because of evidence linking him to his wife's death. A month after the death of the funeral home director, the owner decided to move his business to another section of town in order to avoid losing customers as a result of controversy. The abandoned funeral home/mortuary was finally demolished in order to make room for a restaurant in February of 1953. 
There are two different ghost stories that are related to the funeral home director's suicide. The first is based on eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw the glowing image of a man hanging from a noose within the second-story office of the abandoned funeral home every September 30th from 1935 until 1952, and the second is based on claims by members of a local family who said that they heard the sound of a woman moaning and crying out for help during the evening hours of July 4, 1961 in the section of the Okefenokee Swamp where the body of the funeral director's wife was discovered in 1934.

 These are just three examples of paranormal activity which involve funeral homes and have been told through the years by people who either claim to be witnesses of such activity, or by those who claim to know these witnesses and have been told of such activity. Perhaps these stories are told to keep kids from going into old, dilapidated buildings in general, particularly abandoned funeral homes which hold a special place in the hearts and minds of people who live near them. On the other hand, current and former employees of funeral homes and mortuaries have a certain credibility when it comes to accounts of paranormal activity at their workplace, especially when these employees have nothing to gain by giving such accounts.
Regardless of the reasons, accounts like these have validity if they continue to remind us of how disturbing a good ghost story can be.

        

   HAPPY HALLOWEEN