Karl Rove is bemoaning the presence of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate – odd, since Rove created him. In fact, Rove dumbed down the entire Republican Party so much that a clown like Trump now makes perfect sense to the majority of his Party.

  Everyone is missing this, and it’s so obvious. I watched as Rove and operatives like him (Frank Lentz, Arthur Finklestein etc.) enabled a political climate favorable to a man like Trump. Here are just a few of Karl’s Greatest Hits:

  He’s not one of us. Death Panels. Obamacare will kill your grandma. He’s a socialist and a communist. Big government is taking away your personal freedoms, and it’s un-American. But we’re tough, just like you, and we won’t take it. Medicaire and Medicaid is why we’re broke, not taxes, not war and rescuing Wall Street and a failed economy brought on by laissez-faire, toothless regulations and lobbyists – forget those things, because Obama, a black man, is out to get you. We’ll hold him back, keep him toothless, and you’ll be fine. We’ll save you from the boogie man, that un-American socialist who’s not one of us. Don’t worry that you paid more taxes than GE – they’re rich, yes, but their wealth will trickle down to you, just as it always has, and it will create jobs here, not overseas. Our friends didn’t really want to hire all those people who talk funny.

  The plan worked. Many frightened people fell for crap like that and voted Republican. And they’re still falling for it, thus Trump. The Shakespearean tragedy is that even though Karl didn’t misunderestimate either the gullibility or the attention span of the American public, he neglected to include the magic words to break the spell.

  Karl’s mission was to make Joe SixPlumber vote for the Party of Big Business, which ironically is not concerned with Joe beyond his role as drone and consumer, and will squeeze him dry for every penny. Joe’s health insurance rates are going up and will continue to go up, but such a financial burden goes unnoticed because Obamacare is bad, right? Does Joe have a lobbyist? Only a few, and they’re not enough. So Joe’s rates are going up – now, right now, this minute. The price of everything is going up, and no regulations will prevent that. Your health insurance will soon be major medical only; you’ll be able to afford nothing else, and then you won’t be able to afford that. And Wall Street speculation on the trading of energy contracts is adding – as Goldman Sachs admitted – about $25 to the price of a barrel of oil. And yet, if Joe’s Party has its way, he’ll have to shell out even more to keep his mother or grandmother in the nursing home, while wealthy people are asked to contribute nothing more. That is what should scare Joe, but thanks to Karl, it doesn’t.

  What scares him is that Obama is not one of us. That’s what he wants someone to fix, nevermind that Obama is half white and half black and therefore can’t be more Us. (If I were advising the Republican Party, I would suggest to Limbaugh or Beck that Obama was born in Mexico.)

  Trump has some ideas that sound nice to Joe because they’re tough, and Joe likes to think he is too. The ideas are geopolitically infantile, but Joe doesn’t pay enough attention to know that; he just wants someone to beat the crap out of China because they’re bad, they’re Chinese, and they’re manipulating … something. The last things he heard were: China’s bad, Death Panels, and Obama was born in Kenya. It’s all on Fox News, where Karl and other tough people work, so it must be true.

  Actually, Joe doesn’t know where Karl works. I accidently gave Joe enough curiosity and time in his life to catch up on such things. I should know better because I’m in the deep South and Joe is next door. Joe was very normal until he drank Karl’s Kool-Aid.

  Donald Trump is not dumb. What’s dumb is Karl and his party, the Tea Party, and the media. And Democrats are as spineless and weak as conservatives say they are – and worse than that, they don’t know how to talk to Joe.

  But I’m not stupid. I heard somewhere that the two wars are costing two billion dollars a week as well as human lives. I recall that a billion has a lot of zeroes and that weeks happen every week. And that dead is dead, and very, very sad.

  But the otherwise smart people in the media aren’t talking about that. They’re talking about Donald Trump being the frontrunner among Republican voters. About Trump maybe becoming president of the United States – Wait … maybe that’s more shocking than two billion a week and the loss of human life … maybe they’re right.

  Take a long, low bow, Karl. Very low.

Sam Broussard is a writer, songwriter and musician whose associations have included Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy. He is currently guitarist with Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.