Politcal Circus Scene - A break from Sailing

Being a loyal Democrat, I watch with growing wonder the on-going struggle by Republicans for a presidential candidate.  The Republican line-up, as you well know, is an assortment outsiders against the insiders, insiders being those with any smattering of governing experience, both insiders and outsiders vying for the attention of primary voters.  The traditional nationalistic right wing, tea party and evangelical social conservatives, voter groups that seem to overlap one day and not the next, keep me reading the political analyses and opinion pages as if they were serialized soap opera.  It's better than fiction. You can't make this stuff up.

Looking at the outsiders, the possibility or impossibility of Trump's nomination tops the pundit writing list. Compared to Ben Carson (evangelical neurosurgeon who among other bizarro ideas equates the Affordable Care Act, providing health insurance to 16 million people, with slavery) and  Carly Fiorina (incompetent and fired HP CEO, loosing California governorship candidate and admitted non-voter, who decided she has the credentials to be an American president), Trump appears to be the most acceptable of the unacceptable outsiders.  Why not?  He's rich and famous with his own reality show. Like the Italians, we too can have a media tycoon run our country.  Silvio Berlusconi  came to power as Italy's prime minister after founding his own political party.  Only a conviction of tax fraud in 2013 took him out of power.  Would another bankruptcy do the same for a Trump president?

From what I read, Trump finds his support strongest among non-college educated, white, working class men.  Angry and frustrated over their inevitable decline of power (not that they ever had any actual power except through democratically leaning unions) caused by "big government" who put in place policies and programs to improve everyone's lives, these guys soak up the barrage of impolitic race, women and Hispanic bating statements of Mr. Trump.  I think they like him because he is or continually acts like a prideful bully.

However, if you look behind the curtain and push away the smoke screen, we'll find someone who believes in abolishing the big PACs and political non-profits (even more secretive),  replacing the ACA with a single payer medical system (how socialist of him), and maintaining the safety net of social security, medicaid and medicare.  I've even heard statements about raising taxes by removing tax breaks like the carried forward interest loop hole using by hedge funds and the like.  Trump and Sanders appear to have much in common when it comes to domestic policy. As to foreign policy, Mr. Trump has yet to move beyond his anti-immigration proclamations to build a wall on our southern border and ship 11 million people back to their original countries.  Will he attempt to moderate his approach to attract other audiences?  Personally, I believe, in the end, the Republicans will choose a non-Bush insider to run against the Democrats, probably Marco Rubio.  He's handsome, young, a minority, well-spoken, knows his policy, was Speaker of the Florida House and since 2011 a U.S. Senator.  But who knows?  I bet my Republican friends are shaking their heads just like I am.