Welcome To The Party. . .(the “Mad” Tea Party, that is)

I’m thinking some — okay, most — of what I write is pretty dull stuff. I mean, when I read it aloud it sounds like a lecture. I spend so much of my time telling people what they should do, how they should think, feel, etc . . .(at least it sounds that way), it only makes sense that my writing should carry the same “voice”. It probably accounts for why so few people read what I’ve written or bother to follow my blog. Nobody looks forward to being told how to do anything unless, of course, you’re a member of the Tea Party, or the NRA, or the ARC, or the Heritage Foundation; in which case you’re only too willing to allow some “wingnut” (by the way, I find that sobriquet highly insulting to a very useful piece of hardware) tell you what to think, do, etc. . .

As I wrote those last few lines I had an epiphany of sorts; I realized why they call it the “Tea Party”. It’s because it’s held in a mythical place called, “Wonderland” and presided over by a “Mad Hatter”, (the current Mad Hatter being one, Donald Trump, aka, “The Donald”), while the attendees sip nothing from their empty teacups and smile and nod inanely at their host’s nonsensical utterances. And all the while, the Cheshire Cat (Alex Jones, Alan Keyes, Sean Hannity, etc.) smiles maniacally at the assembled insanity, and a bloated Caterpillar (Roger Ailes or Rush Limbaugh ala Peter Max) sits on his mushroom, puffing on his hookah, chortling like some psychedelic Sidney Greenstreet, “Heh, heh, heh. By Gad, sir, you are a sly one.”

And what of poor Alice, finding herself in the midst of such insanity, with each of the attendees behaving so seriously and regarding one another with such hyperbolic seriousness, and wondering why anyone would choose to attend such a silly gathering in the first place?

But is it really all that silly? One only has to gain some distance from the superficial frivolity and the shenanigans of the Party to see the method in The Mad Hatter’s madness.

Donald “The Donald” Trump, the prevailing host of the Mad Tea Party, has managed to make himself impervious to assault by his competition (but not his own missteps). If any of the other 15 or so announced Republican candidates attempt to challenge him on any of his alleged “positions”, they run the risk of alienating not only his base but their own as well. Any attempt to unseat Trump as the “frontrunner” would mean taking one or the other of two positions. One would be “to the right” of “The Donald”, a position that may be too radical even for the Tea Party. The other would make the challenger appear to be “to the left” of “The Donald”, and anything “to the left” of anything is anathema to the Tea Party. And anyway, it’s not as though any of the other “contenders” for the Crown have any position of strength from which to launch such an attack (at least not for the present); they’re all much too busy trying to decide just what their position(s) are to try to unseat “The Donald”.

But what if the unthinkable (and “unthinkable” here is an understatement) should actually happen? What if The Donald maintains his lead in the polls and captures the Republican nomination?  Can you imagine what the next presidential campaign would look like, not to mention the mid-terms? It’s entirely possible The Red Queen would take center stage, screaming, “Off with their heads!” It could very easily become a political “bloodbath”, if not an actual one.