the trump card

I heard that in the card game of Bridge, one that ranks above others is a “trump” card, a valuable resource used as a surprise to gain advantage. Informally, it also means an admirable person.

The self-proclaimed billionaire worth $5 billion to $6 billion by his claim counts for a lot of quarters. The Donald says he got his start by borrowing a million from his father. We should all have such a difficult start!

The Donald is a flamboyant character, over the shroud of advertised data. He ran for the U.S. Presidency in 2000 winning two primaries under the Reform Party. Barrack Hussein Obama lost his campaign to be a Democratic congressman to a Republican opponent at the time, resuscitated as a fresh face out from Illinois when he captured the Democratic imagination in a speech at the Chicago Convention of 2004 while running for the Senate.

The New York Times claims that The Donald was pushed to his candidacy when Obama roasted him in a White House Correspondents’ Dinner 2011, where the President and the audience traditionally receive good-hearted ribbing. The Donald was reportedly pouting when he hurried out of the door after the dinner. No kidding.

It is The Donald back in the news. The former owner of Trump Entertainment Resorts that went belly-up and was rescued by Carl Icahn was just endorsed by CNMI Gov. Ralph DLG Torres. And why not? The Donald after all is known for “gambling” his way, and why not the presidency of the United States? The island is currently being schooled to be a casino Mecca of the western Pacific. Trump Enterprises?

Unlike Obama’s mistaken choice of ridiculing The Donald, we take him seriously for he represents a segment of U.S. society that has been pilloried by shades of color since the days following the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I arrived in the United States in 1965 thinking that civil rights was a foregone reality, schooled in the notion that when something becomes law, it is the end rather than the start of a done deal. Not so in America. Change happens because a few dare to stand at the wedgeblade of history to proclaim and live out of something innovative, and history bends. Civil Rights legislation was such a bending occasion but definitely not the end of a dynamic movement in history that rippled around the world.

In any political reality, there are discernable forces that either aim to preserve what is deemed working (a conservative impulse) and a desire to create (a progressive drive). Both movements are legitimate since both simultaneously tend to produce a balance.

George McGovern was perceived to be too far left field so we got Richard Nixon. With unabashed liberal Bernie Sanders of the northeast, Hillary is keeping her options close to the center. An activist when Hillary was Mrs. President in Washington, carved down to size after the elected opposition pointed the absence of her being chosen by an electorate in her official functions to push for the Health Care plan of 1993 at the Clinton White House, she took a low profile.

The GOP decided to go conservative, The Donald led Ted Cruz while Ben Carson the neurosurgeon dropped out of the race, and Marco Rubio fell by the wayside. He exited graciously reminding all that the Republican party is more noted for what it stands for than the emotions of hatred and disdain that The Donald allegedly unleashed. John Kasich of Ohio threads toward the middle providing the Gophers’ balance, though his chances in the ticket as a VP, is out of the question. A brokered GOP convention in July is a story in the making.

The media plays up the trump card as The Donald, less than a year my junior (I am 70), a year older than Hillary, points the finger of history backwards, when the time calls for crossing lines forward, first, that of color, which Obama did, and with integrity, twice supported by thinking Americans. Next is obviously the gender line, and that’s why I predicted Hillary creating a First Gentleman out of William Jefferson Clinton.

With The Donald, Hillary is Madame President, perhaps, even for two terms. I do not perceive the American people taking their emotional hiccups too seriously to the polls, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres notwithstanding. The Donald is entertaining in the electoral tableau. That The Donald out rightly changes personal style and political stance as he becomes the GOP choice, a significant bending of history in politics occurs.

The Donald jumped over 15 heavies: FL Jeb Bush, WI Scott Walker, FL Marco Rubio, Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, KY Rand Paul, AR Mike Huckabee, TX Ted Cruz, NJ Chris Christie, TX Rick Perry, OH John Kasich, PA Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, SC Lindsay Graham, and LA Bobby Jindal. The Donald deserves a big hand! It would be fatal if the GOP reneged at the convention.

Nevertheless, as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of England once said, “if you want things said, listen to a man; if you want things done, find a woman.” March is Women’s Month. It’s the trump card. I rest my case.