The clowns perform

This weekend, the Republican Clown Bus came to a screeching halt so clowns could scramble off, horns honking, seltzer bottles spraying, and perform for their adoring audiences. And there are months more of this to come.

The Republican clowns candidates are currently fighting to see who can say the most outrageous thing to get attention from the media and to whip up the most frothing parts of the Republican Party base. All of which is why everyday Americans are raising their eyebrows and wondering what the hell has gotten into the Republican clowns candidates.

The Republicans aren’t talking to mainstream Americans at the moment—they don’t need to. Instead, they need media attention in order to have any hope of getting a seat in the Fox “News” candidate’s circus centre ring.

So, when Donald “I am the best human ever” Trump says outrageously racist things about Mexicans, he’s pandering to the frothing base of the Republican party who are racist and xenophobic. When he attacked John McCain’s military service, pundits declared he’d gone too far, and Lindsey Graham—currently second to last among the Republican clowns candidates—declared of Trump “You’re fired!” Ha, ha, ha, so very, very witty—and idiotic.

What none of the pundits or establishment Republican politicians seem to understand is that the frothing base of the Republican Party despises John McCain because they don’t think he’s conservative enough. Many of them call McCain a RINO, so when Trump, who got five deferments to make sure he didn’t have to go to Viet Nam, made fun of McCain’s service, the base will give at most a shrug. That base doesn’t think of McCain as a legitimate hero, which is how they justify tolerating attacks on an ex-military man when they normally would pretend they were about to beat up anyone who said a single unkind word about a military person.

Trump will continue to say outrageous things to fire up the frothing base he’s performing for, and the media will keep repeating it, ensuring the attention continues, thereby helping Trump all the more. Trump is a brilliant performer, and like all good actors, he knows how to give the audience what they want, and his poll ratings and amount of media attention show just how good a performer Trump is. The fact that there’s nothing more to him than his act is beside the point.

I did notice, however, how establishment Republicans and a few of his fellow clowns candidates were quick to dump on Trump for his McCain insult—yet responded slowly, if at all, to Trump’s blatant racism. Quite telling, really.

Of course Trump wasn’t the only clown performing this weekend. Ten of the Republican clowns candidates were at an event in Iowa hosted by some far-right religious extremists. Pandering to that crowd, each clown candidate was desperate to prove that he’s a bigger anti-gay bigot than the other clowns candidates by declaring that they’ll “fight” marriage equality! Well, somehow or other, you know, like with magic or something, and, like, um, hey! Did you know marriage equality is JUST LIKE slavery?! Well, sure, that sounds utterly absurd to normal people, but to the Republican clowns candidates pretending it’s the same gives them cover for so they can show their anti-gay bigotry all they want because, well, being against slavery proves they’re not bigots. Somehow. In the alternate universe that the USA’s radical anti-gay industry lives in.

Scott “Koch” Walker, meanwhile, said, golly gee, he has no idea whether being gay is a choice or not because, he assured the USA, “I don’t have an opinion on every single issue out there.” Whew! He also claimed he was “focused on representing all Americans, even ones who do not support his beliefs.” Just as long as they’re not gay and wanting to get married, of course. Or a worker who wants to join a union and bargain collectively. Or a poor person who thinks they ought to be able to get pasta sauce and spices with food stamps. Or—oh, heck, we should all just shut up and let Scott “Koch” Walker decide everything for us—even those issues he says he doesn’t have an opinion on!

Scott “Koch” Walker also tried to hide his anti-gay bigotry behind reasonable sounding words. He now says what he meant by opposing gay and bisexual adult leaders in the Boy Scouts of America is that “I just think it pulls scouting into a whole larger political and cultural debate.” Oh! We were wrong! He doesn’t hate gay people, he just hates the “politics” of people being gay! Quite how being gay is automatically “political” will mystify normal people, but the frothing Republican base understand the anti-gay wink-wink that Walker gave them. Besides, heterosexual religious extremists like Scott “Koch” Walker would never dream of forcing their politics on everyone else!

Rick “Oops!” Perry has no such reluctance. “I believe that scouting would be better off if they didn’t have openly gay Scout masters,” Rick said. He also said he stood by his 2008 declaration that “openly active gays, particularly advocates, present a problem. Because gay activism is central to their lives, it would unavoidably be a topic of conversation within a Scout troop.” Now, there are all sorts of ways that I could call Perry an idiot, though the fact that he’s an idiot is obvious, but if you take his statement and replace the word gay with Christian, you can see how Perry’s own words could be used to oppose him being a Scout leader, and it would be equally as stupid.

It’s hard to believe that it was just 2½ years ago that Bobby Jindal declared the Republican Party had to "stop being the stupid party". He and his fellow clowns have spent every waking moment trying to ensure THAT never happens, and this weekend was a great example of why they still are The Party Of Stupid™.

Oh well, at least some of the Republican clowns candidates will be gone by this time next month. That Republican Clown Bus has quite a few more stops to make before then, unfortunately.