When Ted Cruz and John Kasich announced their alliance Monday to not compete against one another in the upcoming Indiana, Oregon and New Mexico primaries in order to squeeze out Donald Trump from winning an outright nomination at the GOP National Convention in Cleveland come July, Trump once again screamed “foul,” calling the deal an act of “collusion.”
After repeating the word “collusion” ad nauseam like a kid with a new toy in his vocabulary play box, Trump then proceeded to his favorite bullying tactics of blistering name-calling and personal assaults against his opponents, belittling Kasich for his uncouth table manners and calling him “disgusting” and a “slob.”
Trump also repeatedly brandished his now-weary nickname for Cruz, “Lyin’ Ted,” as if he had run out of adjectives with which to insult his rivals.
But beyond Trump’s verbal torments and callow blustering, his game plan to constantly present himself – a poor, underprivileged billionaire who is the frontrunner for his party’s nomination – as a victim is becoming both tedious and redundant.
Whenever Trump decides he doesn’t like the rules of the electoral process, he accuses the contest of being rigged and paints himself as the target of a massive conspiracy theory by the entire U.S. political establishment out to steal his legitimately entitled pretense to the throne.
Contrary to what Trump would have people believe, the Cruz-Kasich is not illegal and is not even unethical. It is a pragmatic political maneuver (which, unfortunately falls into the category of “too little, too late”).
Trump is not a victim and, despite any paranoid perceptions of him being persecuted that he may be trying to shove down the throats of his devotees, he is not the center of a massive X-Files-style plot to usurp his candidacy.
Trump is a bully, plain and simple. He has ridden to glory on a campaign of divisiveness, xenophobia and manipulation.
He has opted to enlist supporters through emotional Casandraisms rather than through intelligent, fact-based arguments.
Rather than engaging his opponents on real and pertinent campaign issues – and there are plenty out there to be debated – he takes the stance of a malicious harrier, insulting them with libelous invectives and unfounded railing accusations.
Trump loves playing the underdog and proclaiming himself a champion of the disenfranchised and persecuted.
But, as in the case of all false messiahs, his acolytes will eventually wise up and realize that they are being duped.
Trump’s rantings about the Kasich-Cruz plot is just one more untenable conspiracy theory in a very long list of Trump’s fantastical fables.
