I’ve deliberately shied away from the current presidential contest for the past few weeks, but I guess it’s time to revisit the madness.

My boy Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee since Lyin’ Ted and John Kasich dropped out. Well, I think it’s good that Lyin’ Ted is out since his Cuban daddy assassinated JFK. Funny, within a week of Trump making that claim, Cruz dropped out of the race even though he was the favorite of the party bosses to steal the nomination from Trump at the convention.

And now, I saw on TV last night, 87 percent of Republicans now support Trump. Even most of the party bosses are backing Trump.

That’s not surprising to me, because I’ve believed for some time that Republicans are the ultimate hypocrites. There’s no way Trump is a conservative. He claims to be, like he claims Hispanics and Muslims love him best, but the things he wants are antithetical to conservative ideology.

But the conservatives will back him because ideology is, let’s face it, a distant second to power.

All politicians crave power, of course, but I think Republicans hunger for it like a religious quest to appease their God; a God that rewards the rich and powerful while banishing everybody else to eternal torment in that other place.

Trump is bat guano crazy. This stuff with him using pseudonyms and calling journalists in the 1980s claiming to be Mr. Trump’s representative. He denies it now, but admitted in court, under oath and recorded interviews that he faked it.

Why? And why deny it now after admitting it 25 years ago?

And, also, all the things he’s said he was going to do when elected are now just “suggestions.” He is every bit as unpredictable today as he was when he first announced he was running for the nomination.

Before now he appeared to be an ignorant celebrity making outlandish claims, but now he seems to be an outrageous politician trying to seem sane to his party bosses.

I don’t understand why some Republicans, like Mitt Romney, want to put up a third party mainstream Republican on the ballot. That’s a losing strategy and unnecessary, even for the NoTrump crowd. There is already a viable choice: the Libertarian Party. Their economic policy jibes with conservatism. Hold your nose and vote against your social policies and go Libertarian.

Better yet, just toss it all away and vote Hillary. You may not like her, but she knows how the world works and she knows how politics works here and abroad.

Speaking of the Democratic nomination, I like some of Bernie’s ideas, but it’s time for him to step aside. He can’t catch Hillary. And even if he could, Congress is never going to go along with his agenda. I doubt he would be able to get a majority of Democrats on his side and he wouldn’t get single Republican.

Bernie, you made a good go of it, but it’s time to step aside.

I’m not keen on political dynasties, but the way things shake out, Hillary is the most logical and viable choice. She knows what she’s doing and she has good sense. This is not an endorsement, just an observation.

 

Keith Hoggard is a Staff Writer at Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at keith.hoggard@r-cnewscom or 252-332-7206.