This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

To the surprise of no one, Donald Trump wins the New Hampshire Primary in a cake walk. The score is the same as before. Same circle with one less jerk. 54 – 43 just like Ron DeSantis had never existed. The voters aren’t a Haley groundswell but a refugee tide swimming ashore from all the other defeated political vessels.

You know what that means, don’t you? 54% of Republicans want Donald Trump to be their candidate, and 43% don’t want Trump to be the Republican candidate under any circumstances given under god’s green earth. As in semiofficially, “No fucking way!” There is no other logical reason not to go along with the program. They’re all selling the same smoke and bullshit; they just serve it up differently.

It really doesn’t matter if you build that wall with flowers around it or with razor wire. You couldn’t slide a playing card between Donny Trump and South Carolina’s own Penelope Pit Stop Nikki Haley. One, the engorged enraged orange contorted face of a Big Brother cult leader having a conniption fit during the two minutes of hate. The other, the calm demur Nikki serving up good old-fashioned Trump flavored iced tea at the cotillion out on the veranda. The calmer alternative and nearly sane and now, the only alternative.

From the look of the New Hampshire results Ron DeSantis departing the race has netted the Trump camp somewhere in the neighborhood of between ZERO and 1 percent of the voters. With everything else going to Nikki Haley. As in “No fucking way!” Trump versus not Trump! Anybody but that brain dead moron about to wipe his butt with the remnants of the Republican Party in his “Juggernaut to defeat, deceit and disaster!” A Greek tragedy in the making, Will Shakespeare hold my beer! The last flight of the flying monkeys.

A sizable and prohibitive block of Republican voters doesn’t like the leading Republican candidate. It is the kind of issue that could prompt many Republican voters to just stay home for the general election. Too revolted to vote for Trump and too programmed to vote for Joe Biden. Trump has already seized power inside the Republican Party. This isn’t Trump’s first rodeo, the incumbent advantage of knowing all the bumpers on the table. 43% of Republicans get nothing. Just line up and salute, like I showed you!

They get the door slammed in their face, you’ll vote for Trump, and you’ll like it! But an extreme orbit can only become more extreme, until it either breaks away or the orbit collapses in on itself. Trump says hints or implies; you know mobster talk. That’s a real nice face you got there. It would be a real shame if something untoward happened to it. Trump says if he wins the primaries and Nikki is nominated there will be INVESTIGATIONS!

Trump smells a rat as his paranoia kicks in. I won, I won, right? It doesn’t matter if she made a good showing. I won! Trump suspecting a backroom deal, or the fix is in. A compromise candidate to save the life and reputation of the Republican Party. Unless Trump wins the nomination outright, the delegates are only obligated for so many ballots. So, it is always best to leave one’s options open and keep your eye on the news reports. Just in case, what with Trump’s legal standing and situation subject to change hourly.

Attorneys in and attorneys out, attorneys quit, and attorneys sanctioned. “Scorecards! Get your scorecards! You can’t tell all the players without a scorecard!” If you have more attorneys than children or Ex-wives, your life is in turmoil. This is the Death Wish Trump 2024 playing for all the marbles and the Republican Party is their captive Patty Hearst.

The unwitting and unwilling vehicle of a parasitic Donald Trump organization. Trump feeding on the Party while giving nothing back in return. The Republicans must ape along for fear of the contorted Big Brother deep freeze stare. It reminds me of that scene in “Goodfellas” where the mobsters looted the bar for all it was worth in cash and liquor, and then setting fire to it.

I thought that maybe we were finished with Mister DeSantis’s neighborhood at least for a day or two. But it’s right out of a Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect” routine. Just home from the largest collapse since the 1969 Cubs. And Ron is presented with a bill to help pay off the legal bills of the man who just ruined all his dreams and pooped in his Easter basket.

“I asked my father, if there were any alligators in the river?” He said, I don’t know. Why don’t you go find out. On Halloween, they used to put ME in the front window! I don’t get no respect!”

DeSantis threatened a petty and cynical veto, and the measure was appropriately dropped. Good grief, let him get off the plane before you start kicking at him. He don’t get no respect; he came, he saw, he lost and came home without victory. He returned home thin, ragged, broke empty handed, but wiser in the ways of the world. Lessons learned so that next time! But there won’t be any next time! This was Ron’s one shot at the bigs.

This wasn’t a 51 to 49 decision, it wasn’t close. The DeSantis campaign spent the mostest to go the leastest. If he was going to catch fire he’d be smoking before now. Until finally, it became obvious, he’d become a meme. The lesson was clear; Never, ever challenge a cartoon character to a fight! Never, ever wear white boots to a flood! Ron was too short to be President anyway.

Life is cruel and unfair.

The Republicans are stuck with the Reverend Zombie Frankenstein leading the cult on a doomed Kamikaze campaign out for victory or destruction. Chances are…destruction. The Trump walls are crumbling, and it is perhaps best if a spare Republican candidate remains available for the duration. A sort of “Miss Congeniality,” just in case something happens, and the apparent winner is forced by some odd circumstance or calamity to drop out of the race unexpectedly.