Make America Great Again? Or Degraded?

John Zogby, who’s very smart, suggests Rubio make Kasich his running mate now. It’s an intriguing gambit that could give Rubio a desperately needed boost. Or could be seen as a desperation move. But something needs to be done, and fast.

Meantime, Kasich has actually been running negative ads against Rubio. And nobody has run ads against Trump.

I’d been supposing that 33% primary pluralities would not give Trump a delegate majority, especially since the super-delegates (party officials and office-holders, 7% of the total) wouldn’t support him. But then I saw his South Carolina 33% gave him all that state’s delegates. So I researched the delegate apportionment rules.

Among Democrats it is largely proportional to primary votes; that’s why the 2008 Obama-Clinton battle was so prolonged. But the GOP powers-that-be wanted to avoid that, so they rigged the game to favor an early front-runner, requiring largely winner-take-all primaries. Never imagining the beneficiary would be a candidate like Trump.

What a disastrous blunder. A bunch more 33% wins in next week’s “Super Tuesday” will make Trump’s nomination virtually unstoppable.

He’ll be crushed by Hillary in November. But the nomination will disgrace not only my Republican party but the country I love. This is a quantum downward cultural shift. Our population has always had a percentage of uncouth lowbrow loser assholes. That’s natural, and they have a right to exist and maybe even sympathy. Yet despite their existence our civic life has always been conducted on a somewhat higher plane of seriousness. Now it’s diving down to the lowest common denominator.

Let me be specific, once and for all.

“Political correctness” disallows saying certain things, out of intolerance toward differing views. It’s not political correctness Trump is offending against but, rather, common decency. Denigrating John McCain’s war heroism, and various women for their looks, etc., Mexicans as rapists, and mocking the disabled, is not “politically incorrect,” but simply offensive, stupid, and vile. And of course he has a difficult relationship with truth, as in saying Muslim Americans celebrated 9/11 – not merely false, but incendiary.

His policy stances – if one can so dignify them – are an incoherent farrago. Can a billionaire businessman really be so ignorant about fundamental economic realities? With no understanding of global trade? He proposes huge tax cuts in the face of rising future deficits that already threaten fiscal ruin; his promises of unspecified but likewise massive spending cuts are empty nonsense.

But none of that is intended seriously anyway, he’s not appealing to policy wonks. Central to his campaign are the plans for a border wall, deporting millions of undocumented residents, banning Muslims from America, and forcing Muslim citizens to register. Crazy, sickeningly ugly, and divisive.

My GOP used to be a principled party of sensible policies aimed at a better world for everyone, including limited government, fiscal responsibility, a free competitive economy, and free trade. A Trump-led Republican party would instead be a nasty racialist vehicle of xenophobia, resentment, and bile. A party of people voting with their middle fingers.

Yet few Republicans say they won’t support Trump if nominated, instead being ready to fall into line (and over the cliff). I am heartsick at this national degradation.

Make America great again? It’s dragging America into the gutter.