2016 Feb 29^th

Last night I checked out Fox; Megyn Kelly was interviewing Dr. Ben Carson. Given the enormous amount of political news in which Carson plays no part whatsoever, I found that an odd use of Fox time so I decided to listen a bit. Perhaps Carson had decided to drop out, just give it up and go home to his trophy wall. Carson was again riffing on President Obama’s lack of participating in “the black experience.” He pointed out The President spent his years from 10 to 14 living with his white mother in Borneo and then lived with his white grandparents in an “exclusive” suburb and attending a private school in Hawaii. Megyn Kelly tried to interrupt pointing out that President Obama was, even so, a black man but Carson snapped, “Let me finish.”

Being a black teen-ager living in Borneo with a white mother and no father is certainly not the “normal black experience,” nor is attending a private school in Hawaii.  Of course how Carson could possibly comprehend what either experience is like is unexplained. Carson’s early experiences are recounted in one of his books, but his credibility has been questioned by others who “knew him when.” Carson himself should not be talking about the “typical black experience.” He certainly didn’t have it; going from the Detroit inner-city to Yale University is not typical for black teenagers. Of course neither Dr. Carson nor President Obama was a typical black teenager nor did either of them have “the typical black experience.” Unfortunately for Carson he has now become an irrelevancy…except for Megyn Kelly and Fox news.

Super Tuesday is tomorrow and the already decided electorate will present us with a fresh set of numbers…which will change nothing. The underdogs, Sanders and Cruz, might win a few States but the Trump and Clinton steamrollers roll on. Trump has run into slight glitch; he has been endorsed by David Duke the former head of what’s left of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke is an avowed racist and white supremacist and Trump was slow to “disavow” Duke’s support. Trump, when asked about this, initially claimed that his earpiece wasn’t functioning properly and so he really didn’t hear the question. This was a sufficiently lame excuse that Rubio and Cruz had a field day jumping all over poor Donald. Then Trump claimed he didn’t know who David Duke was. That was false to fact as some of his earlier comments demonstrated.

At this point this is all irrelevant because most Trump supporters really don’t care who else supports Trump. My guess is that the typical Trump supporter is nearly as Xenophobic as David Duke. The problem for Trump is not that he’ll lose any votes but that Duke’s support will encourage a big turnout among a previously lethargic Democratic electorate.