By D. Allan Kerr

You know those old Westerns where the traveling snake-oil salesman rode into town in a garish medicine wagon selling some mysterious elixir guaranteed to cure your ills?

He was essentially selling miracles to folks who were hungry for them. He was almost always a phony, a liar and a crook.

And now he’s sitting in the Oval Office.

Donald Trump sold voters on promises they wanted to hear. It got him elected. So he’s bringing his show on the road again, hoping you’re as gullible as those Old West settlers looking for something better.

He’s trying to sell you on more tax cuts, just this past week promising a 10 percent reduction for the middle class. When a reporter reminded him Congress wasn’t going to be in session before the election, he said the cuts would come “after the election.”

Then, at a rally later on, he promised they would be done next week. Remember, Congress isn’t even in session.

He’s hoping you won’t figure this out. He’s hoping you’ll forget he’s talking about reducing taxes – which pay for government programs and agencies – while Republicans are already planning to cut Social Security and Medicare and health care.

Trump is hoping you won’t figure out they want to cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for the previous tax breaks implemented to make his rich friends – and himself – even richer. Or that we’ve already seen a 17-percent increase this year in the deficit, which he had previously promised to reduce.

He’s trying to buy your vote, and hoping you forget it’s your kids and grandkids who’ll pay the price.

He’s hoping you’re a freaking idiot.

 

He thinks if he keeps describing this caravan of refugees from Central America as a “national emergency” requiring military action, you’ll believe they are truly a horde of invaders. He wants you to believe these people are coming to your town to rape your wife and sell drugs to your kids. Or to just kill you and take everything.

In reality, these are desperate people fleeing desperate circumstances looking for a better way of life – just as your ancestors did. Look at the damn pictures.

He wants you to believe his blatant advocacy of hate and fear and violence have played no role in the increased level of vitriol threatening to swallow this country. He wants you to believe whatever evil befalls the media is nothing more than a consequence of the media’s own actions.

I’m not ready to lay all the blame for the recent nationwide pipe-bomb scare at Trump’s feet, but I’d like his more rational supporters to ask themselves this:

Do you think his rants are helping to keep the country together?

Or to put in a way you can appreciate, imagine if Barack Obama had repeatedly accused Fox News as being “the enemy of the people.” Or said he was “at war” with them. Or shared video of him literally punching a guy with “Fox News” superimposed over his face. Or if he called someone who body-slammed a Fox reporter as “my kind of guy.”

If some terrorist nut with Obama stickers all over his car then tried to send a bomb to Fox News headquarters, would you think there’s some kind of correlation?

Even as these bombs were being discovered all across the country, all aimed at those critical of Trump, our commander-and-thief tweeted, “Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

The implication, of course, is bad things might happen to those who dare to question Princess Cupcake. And he shares no responsibility for any of this.

He wants you to ignore reality, and to just accept his word without contemplation. And if you do, he promises, your life will be the best it’s ever been.

It’s all in the same vein as his sales pitch to students enrolling in Trump University – until his business school went out of business and he had to pay $25 million to students who said they’d been duped.

It’s a similar pitch he made to fellow owners of the old United States Football League – right up to the moment when the league had to fold. I mean, damn, it takes a special level of ineptitude to bring about the demise of an entire sports league.

It’s almost up there with his pledge to build a $25-billion wall along the entire southern border of the United States and getting Mexico to pay for it.

You’re being played for a chump. You’re being sold promises by a carnival barker who has no idea – or perhaps even intention – of how to deliver them.

If you’re not pissed off, you should be. If you’re not fired up, what does it take?

It’s time to speak up for yourself.

D. Allan Kerr really, REALLY misses John McCain right now.

(Oct. 27, 2018)

Follow, connect, empathize, and harass D. Allan Kerr on Twitter @Sloth_Blog