[W]e go to war against the disruptive, postmodern, blowhard candidate we have, not the one we want. Get on it.
Just one of the great lines from It's Time To Declare War on Donald Trump, which is filled with inventive, punchy humor that had me laughing so hard, there were tears in my eyes. If you're watching the snooze fest of the kiddie table and need to take a break and wake up, read this to get some oxygen circulating again. Couple of choice bits below the artist's rendition of The Donald's hairpiece.
I know you’re waking up, slowly. With the exception of you, Ted Cruz, who appears to be playing the role of political pilot fish to Trump’s Great White (the classiest of sharks; really, really, tremendous predator), most candidates have run a few hit-it-and-quit-it attacks, then fallen victim to the showman’s juvenile put-down machine more suited to an 8th grade locker room than a presidential candidate.I love how he catches the stream-of-unconscious-bs tone of Teflon Don while in the midst of shutting down Senator Shutdown.
The article is really worth reading not just because of the humor (which would be enough for me), but because it demonstrates just how bad the Republican field as a whole is, and how clueless the Republican establishment (and the author of the article, perhaps) is about how to deal not just with Trump, but also with the crazies they've brought into the party.
Are you worried about alienating the Trump demo? Want to be their new hero when he implodes? Well, stop. You will never be Trump. You will never light up those dark corners in their limbic system with the fear and loathing of The Other he inspires. They are worshiping Donald Trump like a cult leader, not a political leader. You can’t bring them home until he is destroyed. You won’t win them over by moral suasion, policy, politics, arguments about electability or ideology.(bold in original, my italics)
My favorite bit:
Don’t try to outbid Trump’s version of crazy. You can’t out-crazy him on anything. Nothing you do will be as fabulous, as world-class, as elite, and as terrific as Trump’s fantasies. He can always up the ante. If you want to build a 60-foot wall he’ll want to build a 90-foot wall. If you say you’ll deport 11 million people too, he’ll go up to 30 million. If you say you want to eliminate the 14th Amendment birthright citizens protections, he’ll want to undo it retroactively back through generations. If you say you want to arrest illegal alien criminals and deport them, he’ll propose armies of robot wolves to hunt them on pay-per-view. You can’t outbid him on this, and if I have to tell you why you shouldn’t try you should not be in this race.Robot Wolves! Fits nicely on a ball cap, too!
Seriously, after reading this, and looking at the advice, I can't imagine that any of the current crop of Republican candidates has the ability to actually pull it off. I think Josh Marshall has it right:
Spittle and mouth froth do not a campaign make. Rick Wilson is right that someone's got to destroy Trump or the GOP is in for a world of hurt. But I don't think any of these folks on the stage are up to the task. And a debate stage, from a position of weakness and up against someone who if nothing else is quick on his feet on live TV, is just the last place anyone is going to be able to pull that off.{edit: I screwed up the author's name. Corrected, thanks to Clio2.}