One would have thought that when Donald Trump secured the GOP nomination, the news media might focus more on the ongoing race between Hillary and Bernie, but such is not the case. The human hair piece continues to get an outsized amount of attention for basically doing nothing. He hasn't filled in the threadbare outline of his infeasible policies or offered us anything new that I've heard, other than attempt to have us salivate over his VP short list. At this point, Donald must be thinking this is so easy why didn't he run for President before.
The idea of Trump using a retired neurosurgeon he once referred to as "low energy" to manage this VP vetting should be enough to make anyone question Trump's judgement. However, we should all know by now that Trump calls his own shots, and Ben Carson is nothing more than a foil to keep the media guessing. And, guess it has. So much so in fact that it is all we have heard about the past two weeks.
If nothing else Trump is the undisputed master of media manipulation, and for that the media should be ashamed. I can't think of a time when the media has fallen so pathetically for a phoney campaign that never planned to get this far. But, thanks to all the news coverage Trump had to invest very little of his own money in this venture, giving him an unprecedented amount of free air time thanks to a media that saw a ratings bonanza by focusing on him.
We heard again and again how Trump jacked up the television ratings, to the point he could just phone his interviews in, literally. John Oliver didn't even have to invite Trump on his show to have the highest rated segment of Last Week Tonight. His piece on Drumpf has since garnered over 25 million hits on Youtube, a best-selling cap and an app. Don't think Bill Maher doesn't know the value of Trump either, continually using him as a punching bag on Real Time. At this point, Trump's brand appeal is through the roof and he can probably dredge out all those bottles of Trump water, flanks of Trump steak, and even his old board game and find a ready audience. Hell, he could probably even relaunch Trump airlines, and have a long waiting list to board his planes to anywhere he wants to take his devoted fans.
Win or lose in November, Trump has succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. He has taken America by storm and no one, including myself, can stop talking about him. It's utterly brilliant what he has done. He is P.T. Barnum and the Horatio Alger myth rolled into one, sold to an all-too-gullible audience craving for someone other than the standard fare offered each election cycle.
The irony of Carson screening Trump's VP nominees is that he was seen as that outsider at the beginning of the election cycle, and better fits the Horatio Alger prototype. Alas, Dr. Ben couldn't make the pitch. He came across as dull-witted and humorless. No one wants that. The public wants someone larger than life, and Trump has blown out his yuge frame to an enormous size, well beyond the 198 lbs. he's listed at.
Rather than being ashamed of itself, the news media now attempts to explain itself, filling up even more airspace with analyses of Donald Trump. Pundits like Joe Scarborough try to rationalize Trump, after having dismissed him earlier. Being a former Republican US Representative, Morning Joe has to come to terms with Trump, as so many other Republicans are being forced to do. It's a bitter pill to swallow after seeing all those candidates they supported go the way of Hunger Games tributes.
Some of these "tributes" are being granted a second life, like Chris Christie, who apparently made the VP Short List along with Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Marco Rubio. However, Kasich has said he wants his name withdrawn, preferring to return to his Ohio district. Not Chris though, he has said he would gladly serve as Trump's VP. He's already proven he can do the dirty work for him by taking Rubio out in the New Hampshire primary before "Little Marco" had any chance to gain momentum in the campaign. The poor guy never recovered from that thrashing.
The sheer audacity of Trump's campaign is no doubt what has captivated the media and in turn the public. The guy would say one outlandish thing after another, yet rather than be run out of the race, it only gave him strength among the conservative electorate, who ate up his unscripted comments like popcorn. The Donald even out-foxed Fox by taking down the mighty Roger Ailes, who thought with so many candidates in his stables, he had this election all sewn up, but now even he has to pay deference to King Kong Trump.
It just makes you wonder where does it go to from here? Each time we believe the self-proclaimed billionaire has launched his last salvo, we find he has even more ammunition to draw from. No doubt, he has accountants doctoring his tax returns to maximize his wealth so that when finally pressed to release these returns, they will show at least $8.7 billion, which he initially claimed when he launched his campaign in June of last year, making all those periodicals that besmirched his fortune and good name look foolish once again.
This is a game for Donald J. Trump, a game he now thinks he can win. Having slain 16 GOP candidates with hardly breaking a sweat, Hillary must seem like an easy target at this point. He has a vast arsenal to draw from thanks to all the negative reporting on her over the last four years. All Hillary has is her bow and quiver. Democrats are forced to begrudgingly accept her as their Katniss Evergreen, and hope she can take down Trump in this final round.
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