Friday was the regular Republican National Committee consultation appointment, and Dick Bilmoer, their premier political policy wonk extraordinaire, was in a state of high dungeon.
“Damn it all, Collins!” he bellowed as he flung himself down on the couch in front of the picture window overlooking the White House, “there’s no underestimating the idiocy of the American voter!”
“Excuse me,” I opened, “but hasn’t that been one of the basic tenets of Republican strategy for the last one hundred and twenty years?”
“Yeah, sure,” he acknowledged, “but not like this! We’ve got fourteen perfectly viable, sensible, conservative, law-and-order, family-values, free-market economics Republican candidates out there, and the polls say likely primary and caucus voters won’t give them the [expletive] time of day in a watch factory!”
“I simply can’t imagine why – there’s certainly no lack of choice.” I subtly japed.
“No [expletive]!” he responded, totally missing the irony, something at which Republicans excel, by the way. “They want extreme – we’ve got extreme – Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee! They want willfully ignorant – damn it, we’ve got willfully ignorant – Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, Scott Walker! They want bat-[expletive] crazy? We’ve got that, too – Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson! They want total [expletive]-holes? No problem, we have that covered with Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina! So who do the Republican primary and caucus voters go for? Who do they flock to? Who do they lionize? Who do they put in first place in all the polls? Donald Trump!”
“Obviously,” I replied.
“What do you mean, ‘obviously?’” he growled throwing me a look that would turn Medusa to stone.
“I mean,” I explained, “that they rallied around Trump because he’s the most extreme, bat-[expletive] crazy, willfully ignorant [expletive]-hole in the Solar System. What’s more, he not only knows it, it’s his major marketing angle. And the constituency we’re talking about here are all hard-core Republican primary and caucus voters – seriously, what did you expect?”
“I expect,” he huffed, “somebody who understands how important it is that the Republican Party convince all the drywallers, coke camels, hot-footers, beaners, wetbacks, cholos, pepper-bellies, chicos, spics, gravel crawlers, greasers, berry pickers, border bunnies, black oil-drillers, cheddar chokers, Goya snarfers, and other assorted half-wit housekeeping, nanny-whoring, garbage collecting, dish washing, toilet cleaning, leaf-blowing, hanging-out-at-the-convenience-store-at-six-in-the-morning sweaty, stinking, day-laboring Mestizo tacos and temales who insist on infesting our country and breeding like [expletive] rats, that the Democrats are fetus-murdering, child-rapist coddling, murderer-paroling, terrorist-appeasing Socialist monsters who threaten the very life blood of Truth, Justice and the American Way, not to mention their illegitimate, tax-free, under-the-table illegal cash incomes! Not – not, sir, I say – not some pathetic buffoon with terminal foot-in-mouth disease who tells those steaming piles of geopolitical compost what the average, typical Republican actually thinks of them! And that’s what this unpardonable, disgusting, piece of [expletive], Donald J. Trump, has done! He has totally screwed the [expletive] pooch for the Hispanic vote in 2016!”
“Perhaps not totally,” I offered. “It’s still a long time between now and Tuesday, November 8, 2016.”
“The problem is,” he fretted, suddenly pensive, staring down at the antique silk Oriental rug, “that may not be long enough to repair all the damage Trump is going to do.”
“The fact remains that Donald Trump lives in a parallel universe. Even conservative Republicans will catch on to that sooner or later,” I assured him. “His analysis of the world petroleum market, for example is that, quote, ‘We have nobody in Washington that sits back and said, you’re not going to raise that [expletive] price.’ He thinks that the solution to high oil prices is to issue veiled threats to the producers. He’s under the impression that the President of the United States can order Britain, Norway and Saudi Arabia around like the sycophantic flunkies on his pathetic reality TV show. He’s still yelling that Obama’s birth certificate isn’t real, and that Obama’s a secret Muslim. He even tweeted that, quote, ‘Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore,’ after the riots precipitated by the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. He asserted that ninety-eight percent of the fatal shootings in New York City are committed by blacks and Hispanics. He talks about a massive crime wave sweeping the country, even though crime statistics are down across the board and crime rates are the lowest they have been in over thirty years. Trump said he thought Ariana Huffington’s husband made a good choice leaving her for a man. He called for American volunteers who worked to save lives in Africa during he Ebola epidemic to be barred from re-entering the United States. He said that he could have a government Web site like Healthcare.gov built for ‘three dollars.’ He told the world that God created him to provide jobs for the American people. He wants to build a wall that spans the southern US border to keep out illegal immigrants and declared he will make Mexico pay for it. Then he announced that confidential, highly reliable sources have determined that Hispanics love him, and he will carry the Hispanic vote in the next election. He claims he has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, ‘a method of defeating them quickly and effectively and having total victory,’ which he will carry out as soon as he is elected President. Really now, how long can he keep talking like that before the voters who aren’t already laughing out loud at him start to at least get a little bit nervous?”
“Long enough to put Hillary Clinton in the White House!” Bilmoer fumed.
I began to speak, but he raised his hand indicating a pause for silence. Evidently, something portentous had occurred to him. After a long moment sitting with his brow knit in concentration, he looked at me with an ominous expression.
“What if…” he murmured, “what… if Trump is working for the Democrats?”
“Like some sort of agent provocateur, you mean?” I responded. “I don’t know… after all, Trump already has – or claims to have – quite considerable personal wealth. What could the Democrats possibly have offered him in return for sabotaging the Republican Party’s relationship with minorities, immigrants, women, and sane white males?”
“Some kind of clandestine business deal?” Bilmoer suggested. “He shoots his mouth off a lot about illegal immigrants, but the fact is, his hotels, resorts and casinos employ thousands of them. Maybe there’s an agreement that if he tarnishes the Republican image badly enough to cinch a Democrat presidential win and perhaps even drag a bunch of new Democrats into Congress on the coat-tails of Hillary’s pantsuit, then ICE will look the other way for eight years. That could be worth enough money to even turn Donald Trump’s head, couldn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” I shrugged. “But if that’s the case, it’s already backfired on him – so far, he’s lost The Apprentice and major network coverage of the Miss America Pageant. Besides, I thought you mainstream Republicans are supposed to leave the convoluted conspiracy theories to the Tea Party wing.”
“Yeah,” he relented with a heavy sigh, “I suppose we are. It would explain a lot, though.”
“Any proof of that which you could produce, of course,” I observed, “would be a real blockbuster. Maybe it might be worth… looking into… quietly. You know – drop some hints… obvious hints… here and there… that anybody who could substantiate a sub rosa agreement between Trump and the Democrats would be… let’s say… handsomely rewarded.”
“Hmmm,” he mused. “Got any recommendations as to how we can go about doing that?”
“You’ll receive a list of action items by COB,” I told him. “But the whole concept is a long shot, so you shouldn’t depend on it panning out.”
“Okay,” he relented with a reluctant tone, “I won’t. Still seems mighty damn suspicious to me, though. Look, Tom, if Trump were running as an independent, or had his own nut-job political party like H. Ross Perot did, the RNC wouldn’t give a rat’s [expletive] about him. But that’s not what he’s doing! He’s going around claiming to be a Republican! We’ve got to stop him before he marginalizes the Republican brand to a point where we can’t win a national election! We’ve tried everything – we’ve tried ignoring him and that just provokes him to pull even more outrageous stunts aimed at getting attention. We’ve tried attacking his ideas, only to discover that the Republican ideological base agrees with him! We’ve tried ridiculing him as a political sideshow and watched him turn it into the main ring of the circus! What the hell can we do about this [expletive] clown?”
“Start taking him seriously,” I advised.
“Seriously? Trump?” Bilmoer’s eyebrows shot up and did a little dance of incredulity. “Why should the Republicans do that? What’s more, how can we do it?”
“People enjoy watching the clown,” I observed. “They love the show he puts on. And he does it so well, he’s even started to attract zanies”
Bilmoer gave me a puzzled look. “What are zanies?”
“In the traditional Italian village circus, which traveled from town to town, there were usually only one or two clowns, sometimes three or four, but not that many, because the traditional Italian village circus was a rather small affair. The clowns were expected to perform in the street as well as in the shows, and when they did, it was likewise expected that the spectators would throw small coins in appreciation. The zanies were either tramps or sometimes even other villagers who would crash the act when the clowns performed in the street, aping the clowns and trying to scoop up their tips.”
Bilmoer’s eyes lit up with realization. “You’re talking about Ted Cruz! He’s playing the zany to Trump’s clown!”
“Precisely,” I confirmed. “But don’t be surprised if there are more zanies flocking around Trump pretty soon, trying to pry loose some of the votes he’s attracting so they can get out of margin-of-error-land in the polls.”
“Okay,” he continued, “I get it about the zanies and the clowns. But what’s your point?”
“The point is,” I pressed on, “that the fact he is attracting zanies proves Trump’s clown act is very effective.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “agreed. Trump has great clown act. He’s a world-class clown, no doubt about it. So?”
“So,” I concluded, “until you neutralize his clown act, you’re never going to be able to stop Donald Trump. And the best way to do that is stop treating him like a clown and start taking him seriously.”
At that Bilmoer scratched his head and gazed up at the ceiling in frank puzzlement. “I don’t get it. What are you saying it is, that I should tell the RNC to do?”
“Okay,” I began, “take that transcontinental wall Trump says he would build…”
“Take that seriously?” Bilmoer’s head snapped back down to confront me with a look of complete incredulity. “The whole idea is completely ridiculous!”
“Precisely my point,” I insisted.
“But something like that,” he protested, “would cost like… Jesus Christ… a hundred billion dollars!”
“At least,” I agreed. “Probably more. So – treat Trump’s absurd suggestion as if it were a serious proposal meant to implement some sort of rational immigration policy.”
Bilmoer quickly grew mystified once more. “And then what?”
“Remember how he said he’d make the Mexicans pay for it?” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” he replied, shaking his head slowly up and down. “So?”
“So have someone ask Trump how he plans to make the Mexicans pay for that wall,” I explained.
“Someone?” Bilmoer whispered, completely baffled. “Who?”
“One of the candidates,” I suggested, “or, if they’re all chicken to make the first move on Trump, maybe you could have a member of the Republican congressional leadership, like Mitch McConnell or John Boehner take a shot at him. Or have your boss, Reince Priebus, do it.”
“Now that you mention it,” Bilmoer nodded, “Reince tells me he’s ready to denounce Trump. As soon as Trump says anything worth denouncing, that is.”
“That’s only a matter of time,” I noted. “But calling for Trump to publicly explain how he would make the Mexicans pay for that wall is something that the Republican Party needs done as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, if Reince is looking for outrageous utterances from Trump, needling him about how he would make the Mexicans pay for the wall is a potential gold mine. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg – what if the RNC were to take some of his other prattle seriously? When is a prominent Republican going to ask him to explain how he intends to control world oil prices from the White House? Who’s going to ask to see these Web sites he has had developed for ‘three dollars?’ Who will hold his feet to the fire about his alleged Divinely endowed ability to create jobs and ask him what God Almighty has directed him to do about the unemployed American manufacturing labor force? If he didn’t just flat out refuse to respond to a question like that – which would make him look evasive and sneaky – can you imagine what cockamamie nonsense Trump could start spouting? If you could get him to start going off about how he would create jobs, it’s dollars to donuts he’d come up with a plethora of half-baked, harebrained ideas you could turn around and take very, very, seriously. And ask him to explain how his secret plan to defeat ISIS differs from Nixon’s plan to win the Vietnam war. It’s not as if he has to tell what his secret plan is – he just has to tell what his secret plan is not, and show that he knows what Nixon’s plan was, neither of which he can do because Trump never bothered to study history of any kind, and his secret plan to defeat ISIS is just a figment of his imagination. Just take Trump seriously and let him prove it’s a pipe dream, that’s all you need to do.”
“That,” Bilmoer skeptically huffed, “and find a Republican with enough [expletive] between his legs to take the first stab at Trump.”
“Not necessarily,” I answered. “Any day now, Trump could say something so awful, so offensive, so disgusting, so callous and so psychotic that only one single Republican with the least shred of decency…”
“Still… that’s not going to be easy to find,” Bilmoer warned.
“Nevertheless,” I vouched, “just given the huge pack of Republicans running for President, plus all those publicity-hungry members of Congress, not to mention a whole gaggle of Republican governors, when Trump finally ventures beyond the Pale, it will only take one of them to step forward, and the mere statistics of large numbers favor it. And when that happens, the others will pile on in a feeding frenzy. It will be an avalanche of criticism that will drive Trump into a Saint Vitus Dance of blustering, raging, incoherent insults, threats, announcements and proclamations the likes of which has not been seen since Mussolini overdosed on Benzedrine.”
“And then,” Bilmoer asked, “Donald Trump will neutralize himself?”
“Correct,” I confirmed. “Because Donald Trump’s Achilles’ heel happens to be that he is his own worst enemy.”
A pregnant pause ensued, and after a prolonged deliberation, Bilmoer finally spoke. “Yeah, okay, I can see it working, Collins. But that explosion of bluster, rage, insults, and threats accompanied by a tirade of lunatic announcements and proclamations worries me. What if it turns out that the American public in 2015 is as stupid and ignorant as the Italian public was in 1930? They liked Mussolini on speed. They liked him a lot. What if the American voters decide they like Donald Trump hopped up on his own adrenaline?”
“The trump card there,” I assured him, “is an additional ingredient. Certainly the American public has the aggregate stupidity and ignorance necessary to respond enthusiastically to Donald Trump on a maniac jag, but, unlike the Italians of Mussolini’s day, Americans in 2015 have another powerful attribute Il Duce’s admirers sorely lacked.”
“What’s that?” Bilmoer anxiously beseeched.
“Apathy,” I said, letting the word hang in the air, reverberating throughout the room like the tolling of the Devil’s tocsin.
“Oh… right,” Bilmoer echoed with an air of distinct relief, “apathy. But it’s a strange thing, though, to think that apathy will be what saves the Republican Party from Donald Trump.”
“Perhaps not so much strange,” I posited, “as appropriate.”