So Trump is at it again. His most recent racist trope is that Rep. Ilhan Omar (an elected-Representative, with a majority of the popular vote cast, who just happens to be, literally, an African-American) "hates America." This is the Trumpian version of the Leader Principle (otherwise know historically as the "Fuerher Princip "): "If you don't agree with me [on policy, e.g., national health insurance; practice, e.g., how to deal with asylum-seekers, or whatever] you are not a "true American" and "you hate your country."  

So, Trump has done it again (no surprise there). That it is one of his most open, most violent, racist screams should come as no surprise. For Trump is already buckling down for an election fight in 2020 that is going to be a tough one, even for him. He is, of course, going to run on The Three R's: "Racism, Russia, and Repression (of voting)," just as he did in 2016. But Trump, history's consummate con man, who, knowing nothing about U.S. government, thinks always in terms of reality TV. He knows that in order to keep his audience (otherwise known as "his base") he's got to up the ante this time around. And so he has, in spades, as they used to say at one his (bankrupt) casinos. Of course, we hope that his electoral strategy this time around will be in the end as bankrupt as were those casinos, with no (unknown-but-we-can-guess) bank(s) to bail him out. But hey, you never know. There were many in Germany in 1932 who thought that that "crazy man" Hitler could never become Chancellor.

A few weeks ago I published a column entitled "Why do the Republicans Stick with Trump ?" After going through the various possible reasons that I could think of at the time, I came to the conclusion that most of them who do so, do so because they realize that without him at the top of the ticket in the 2020 election, down-ballot the Party would get destroyed. With that conclusion, I came up with a new name for their party: the Trumpublicans (tm). However, following what has been going on the Mexican border over the last several months, and the total refusal of the Congressional Republicans to ally with the Democrat in the Congress to "do something" about it in the legislative manner, I have come to a different conclusion.

Your Republican Party today is some spectacle, is it not? Its House of Representatives dips into foreign policy. As is well known, it invites the Prime Minister of a foreign country to make a speech that serves two purposes: campaigning against the US President's present foreign policy and campaigning for re-election in an increasingly tough battle in his home country. Since he offers no alternatives to the proposed policy of the US President, it cannot serve any purposes other than dual-campaigning. Oh yes, and just coincidentally, the ambassador of that country to the United States, who arranged the whole thing behind the President's back, just happens to be a native U.S. who formerly was a Repub. operative.

For those of you who might not know (and I should think that most political types would, given the massive publicity on media of all stripes the event gets) something called the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) took place over this past weekend. It was funny, because when I heard about this year's event I thought "wait a minute; didn't they have one of these of few months ago?" No, I'm not losing it yet. That's just some evidence as to exactly how much the annual shindig is talked about.