The Bluster Meister

On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump stepped off of his golden escalator to launch his rather unusual campaign to win the presidency in 2016. On that day I still considered him to be little more than a tedious charlatan, warmed-over from his gauche Studio 54 days. Simply put, I had never taken him seriously as a threat. That changed in the days that followed. 

A month later Style Weekly published a commentary I penned looking at Trump's style and his prospects as a politician. Here's part of what I called "The Bluster Meister":

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Like a movie monster created by a mad scientist, the candidate that Donald Trump has become was created semi-unwittingly by mischievous ultra-conservative Republicans who’ve relished annoying Democrats to distraction for the last six and a half years. Naturally, when the monster came alive, its creators marveled at their work and assumed they could control the creature when the time came for it.

Now some different Republicans, the kingmakers, must be wondering who in their party will be brave enough to face the monster, to put it down. After all, to fail on such a quest could be suicide, because the monster has plenty of fans who love how he’s scaring people they see as wimps. Unlike most of his campaign trail rivals, Trump has no voting record to defend. Nor does he have any responsibilities to make laws or govern, so he’s been able to pick the issues he wants to talk about and blow off the rest.

On July 11 in Phoenix, Trump staged a crowd-pleasing campaign event that made it look like he’s morphed into a threat that’s going to be hard to kill off. Down the road, the roaring Bluster Meister threatens to scuttle the elephants’ chances of taking the White House away from the donkeys in 2016. So plots to get Trump out of the presidential campaign picture are being hatched as you read this.

Still, without the groundwork having been laid in 2008 by putting silly Sarah Palin on the national ticket, without the noxious rhetoric of government-hating poseurs, without the flamboyance of reality-ignoring, right-wing pundits, the terrifying Bluster Meister probably wouldn’t be on the loose, roaming the countryside.

Too many Republicans stayed quiet while some within their ranks contorted themselves into birthers, just for fun. When Trump took ownership of birtherism, it was peachy. Laughing at that artificial issue and other absurdities that Fox News came up with to harass President Barack Obama — while thinking all that wicked good fun would come without a price tag — was foolish.

Although some Republicans have liked bluster for a long time, most conservatives used to stand firm on the notion they were all about hard-edged reality. Liberals were said to be dreamers. Now, flat-Earth Republicans don’t even believe in science when they see votes in pretending that evolution didn’t happen and isn’t happening, and in ignoring scientists who warn of the dangers of continuing to exacerbate climate change.

Don’t forget, the party’s leadership in Congress has sometimes thrown in with their fringe elements to make a big show of opposing Obama, just for the hell of it. Remember the bizarre threat to scuttle the federal government’s ability to pay its debts, all in the midst of a routine budget debate? Now the bill for all that snickering under the Republican big tent has come due. Trumpism has become a force...

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So don't tell me nobody saw Trump, the monster, coming. Plenty of people did, including other writers. I can remember talking about it regularly that summer with some artist and musician friends on Facebook (who will remain unnamed). 

Likewise, I also recall how much those of us who realized early on that Trump was dangerous were scolded, and or mocked, by conservatives and apoliticals who enjoyed Trump's showmanship and shrugged off what they saw as our exaggerated fears -- just paranoid lefties. 

Later they stopped laughing and started unfriending. Well, I know it won't do much good to say, "I told you so." It rarely does.

Instead I'll just say, "Sometime, artsy liberals are right." 

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-- Words and art by F.T. Rea