Checking "The Donald's" Compass

Back in the early part of the 2012 Presidential campaign season, The Donald (aka Donald Trump) announced his intention to think about running for president. Most people with functional frontal lobes considered this little more than a publicity stunt. After all, Trump's ego is only slightly smaller than a major European country. His wealth, of course, is likely larger. But be that as it may, he got a lot of support. And it wasn't the first time he dabbled in politics. In 1999, he was largely thought to be behind the "Draft Trump" movent on the Reform Party ticket. He filed paperwork to establish an exploratory presidential election committee. He eventually dropped the idea when Jesse Ventura quit the race. Twelve years later, he was back.

This time he came back spouting the most idiotic nonsense out there: That Obama wasn't born in the United States. The premise is that his father was a Kenyan and that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore is ineligible to become President because he was not born in the United States. He was the first half-black president (no one calls him half-white. As comedian Steve Byrne, an Asian/Irish American who's never been called "Irish" in his life, says, whatever muddies up the white is what you're called in America) and the first to ever have his citizenship called into question by ANYONE. It was demanded that he show his birth certificate to "prove" he was born in America. This, despite the fact he's done it - twice. First with the short form which is what anyone would get as proof of birth. Then the long form which is what is always kept in vaults to protect the individual's privacy.

Now, all this focus on birth certificates overlooks one little, but critically important, thing about Americans and citizenship. Being born in the United States is only ONE way of becoming a citizen. The other way is to be born to an American - who can be ANYWHERE in the world. It's not part of the Constitution - which confuses people - but it's universally recognized in the United States by the Immigration folks that offspring of an American citizen, regardless of where they are born, are American citizens themselves. They are "natural born" citizens. The 14^th Amendment says that people who are naturalized are citizens, but, according to Article 2 of the Constitution, only "natural born" citizens can hold presidential office. Unfortunately, "Natural born" isn't constitutionally defined. This means a first generation immigrant, which Obama would otherwise be had he not had an American citizen for a mother, could not run for office because he was not born to an American IF he had been born outside of the country.

It's somewhat confusing, but naturalized citizens like first generation immigrants go through the legal process to become a citizen. Natural born citizens have it by birthright - whether through being born in the United States, or by being born outside of it as long as at least one of the parents are American. In this case, Obama was covered either way and anyone with enough sense to not stand on train tracks while a train is coming would know that.

But "The Donald" brought it all up again in 2011 - as it had been brought up by the right wing in yet another way to distract and enrage their followers back in 2008. The lack of a definition in the Constitution for "natural born" led to the erroneous rationalization that if you weren't born in the United States, you couldn't be President.

The Donald was supposed to speak at the GOP's convention in Ft. Lauderdale Florida but Tropical Storm Issac cut things a bit short and his appearance was canceled. He was supposed to have "big news about President Obama". And he waited until two weeks before the election to actually make the announcement.

The "Big News" was a $5 million dollar donation to the charity of his choice if Obama would release his college records and passport. To say that it was met with howls of derisive laughter would be a major understatement. Of course, it appealed to the nutjobs on the right who are more inclined to vote for a birther than against him, but the right-wing propaganda machines are virtually silent on this "big news" from Trump.

This is, after all, a bad time to prove the right-wing has more nuts than a Jimmy Carter family farm. Romney is trying to appeal to the middle who will decide the election while a GOP senatorial candidate came out a few days ago during a debate and said that pregnancies from rape are a gift from god, compounding the asinine assertion on the part of another senatorial candidate who, during an interview, said that women couldn't get pregnant during a "legitimate rape".

So throw in The Donald with a moronic "big news" announcement that was neither big or news at a critical time with polls evenly split proving that the right-wing is full of kindergarten dropouts.

Personally, I find it all very amusing - as, I'm sure, Trump does. Here's a guy who has the money and the ego to prove to the American people that if you say ANYTHING that appeals to the prejudices, hatreds, superstition and ignorance of the average right-winger, you can get yourself a large following of equally ignorant, superstitious, racist bigots to follow you.

It's how the right-wing works. It's what right-wing politicians have been doing to their followers for years to get elected. Trump did it in an egregiously over-the-top scenario, probably on a bet that people wouldn't be that stupid or a dare from someone that he couldn't pull it off. I suppose it COULD be because he hates liberals, but given his background and past, I'd find that suspiciously unlikely. People do change, but it seems his changes seem somewhat more contrived than most.

And yet, he was the right-wing's leading shining star for quite some time at the start of this sorry excuse for a political campaign season - and he was never an actual candidate to begin with. He garnered as much, if not more, support - 26% - than any other candidate until just before Romney became the de facto candidate a few months before the GOP convention.

Assuming, for the moment, Trump is the kind of man who would do this (and given his past nods to his ego, he is certainly a very likely candidate), and assuming Obama wins in a very tight election, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Trump addressing the crowd at Obama's victory speech with a "Man, did I prove a point" speech.

Should that happen, I'll be laughing for an hour...

On the other hand, if he's serious, and I were an investor in his endeavors, I'd be short-selling my entire Trump portfolio immediately because this particular Capitan of Industry is mentally on the Good Ship Lollipop heading off to Candyland.