The 2016 GOP Search for Someone Other Than a Dog-Whistling Clown

Disaster could be averted if Americans on both the left and the right suddenly decide to be more mature about this, neither backing obvious mental incompetents, nor snickering about those who do. But that doesn't seem probable.

Instead, HashtagClownCar will almost certainly continue to be the most darkly ridiculous political story since Henry II of Champagne, the 12th-century king of Jerusalem, plunged to his death after falling out of a window with a dwarf.

  Matt Taibbi

We could outdo even that.  It's not over yet.

Matt Taibbi went to a Jeb Bush stop in a New Hampshire pharmacy, and it seems Jeb didn't come off well.

Bush has no feel for audience. He doesn't know how to play down to a mob. Nor does he realize how absurd he sounds when a Lucky Spermer scion like himself tries to talk about his "small-business" experience (his past three "jobs" were all lucrative gigs with giant companies that had done business with Florida when he was governor). Despite all this, Bush doesn't seem crazy, nor even like a particularly disgusting person by presidential-campaign standards, which probably disqualifies him from this race. 

Among the other less than crowd-rousing moments was one where the pharmacy owner asked a question. Or rather, offered a solution to his own pet peeve.

[Manoukian] has a proposal he's been trying to make state law that would give drug dealers special status.

"They would be like child molesters, always being registered," he says. He wheezes excitedly as he details his plan to strip dealers of all social services. I don't think the plan involves using hot irons to brand them with neck tattoos, but that's the spirit.

The reporters all flash bored looks at one another. People like Manoukian are recurring figures on the campaign trail, particularly on the Republican side. There's always some local Junior Anti-Sex League chief who asks the candidate in a town hall to endorse a plan for summary executions of atheists or foreigners or whoever happens to be on the outs that election cycle.

Bush absorbs the pharmacist's question and immediately launches into a speech about the dangers of addiction – to prescription drugs! Through the din of screeching parrots, Bush talks, movingly, I think, about his "precious daughter" Noelle's problems with prescription pills.

"There are some bad actors," he says. "You have people who overprescribe, people who are pharmacy shopping, doctor shopping..."

Everything he just said is true, but Manoukian, as he listens to this diatribe, looks like someone has hit him with a halibut. Does Bush know he's talking to a pharmacist?

Trump would have killed a moment like this, delivering some dog-whistle-ready line about gathering up all the dealers by their hoodies and shooting them into space with all of the child molesters. Who cares if it makes sense? This is the Clown Car.

And I don't know about you, but I'm thinking Marco Rubio is just the guy the real powers that be could use in the White House - someone who needs money and will do whatever you say as long as you give him the dough.

[Rubio's] main pitch is his Inspirational Personal Tale™. As he's told it, he's the son of refugees from Fidel Castro's Cuba (actually, they left Cuba before Castro, but whatever) who rose from nothing to reach the U.S. Senate, where he was eventually able to draw a $170,000 paycheck.

[...]

old tales about Rubio's use of an American Express card given to him by the Republican Party when he was in the Florida House began swirling again. The stories are complex, but the upshot is that Rubio once used party credit cards to spend $10,000 on a family vacation, $3,800 on home flooring, $1,700 on a Vegas vacation and thousands more on countless other absurdities.

Couple those tales with the troubling stories about his financial problems – the Times learned that he cashed in a retirement account and blew $80,000 on a speedboat he probably couldn't afford – and the subtext with Rubio is that he is probably both remaining in the Senate and running for president, at least partly, for the money.

Plus, he's young. He'll look good on TV.

But, the crazy thing is that the two least qualified, most insane presidential wannabes in the race are still topping voter polls: Trump, with his racist arrogance and Ben Carson, who has gone completely off the rails into a world he has completely fabricated in his mind, happily outdoing even Herman Cain.

Trump commented during a rally in Illinois: "You can say anything about anybody, and their poll numbers go up. This is the only election in history where it's better off if you stabbed somebody. What are we coming to?"

We are coming to the moment when Trump is the voice of reason, that's what.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.