Bill Straub: With Trump’s selection assured, election will become a test of America’s maturity

WASHINGTON – Like Sisyphus, Donald J. Trump is considered something of a self-aggrandizing, loud-mouthed jerk who the gods — or the Republican Party in The Donald’s case — understandably sought to repudiate.

Sisyphus, of course, was fated to unsuccessfully push a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Trump on the other hand, in the style of the ant moving that rubber tree plant, managed to not only shove the rock to the apex but simultaneously use it to crush all those tormentors like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who sought to thwart his objective of claiming the GOP presidential nomination.

Wow, talk about Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.

Now, with Cruz, Kasich and at least 14 others raising the white flag, the billionaire bullyboy from New York City with the inflated resume and hair that defies nature is, indeed, king of the hill. In reaching the pinnacle, Trump has transformed the Republican presidential primary process into a comedy, although anything but a divine one.

Trump, who took Kentucky on his way to the nomination like Sherman seized Atlanta, topped his oppressors, both real and imagined, by violating every rule in the campaign playbook. Coming across as rude, vulgar and red-faced like the shrieking sot at the end of the bar at McSorley’s proved to be only part of his allure. He also managed to prevail by coming across as racist, sexist, bigoted, scatological and intimidating, much to the apparent delight of his fan base.

And just who are these folks who sincerely believe that the insulting, spittle launching fraud would make a great president of these United States? They are the ones who hear Trump speaking with their own inside voices, a man who violates the proscribed standards of basic decency and stands up for the one sector of America’s population that consistently faces real abuse from its detractors.

That’s right. We’re talking about white men.

Pollsters and analysts these days frequently cite an angry electorate and, to a certain extent, they are correct. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in early April showed that 70 percent of those questioned believe the nation is headed on the wrong track while only 24 percent maintain it is headed in the right direction.

What the poll fails to delineate is the why. Most commentators cite the economy, and that’s part of it, as always. But there are different reasons for different people. White men are bitterly concerned about the curtain closing on the white patriarchy that has held sway since the founding of the republic, thus depriving them of the privileges their fathers and their fathers’ fathers enjoyed. African-Americans, Latinos and women might also feel the country is on the wrong track but their rationale would be quite different – veering away from that patriarchy isn’t occurring quickly enough to provide them with their warranted seat at the table.

That perception is backed up, at least somewhat, by a Gallup Poll, conducted earlier this month, which places President Obama’s job approval at 51 percent even though only 24 percent maintain the nation is headed in the right direction. Those results don’t really jibe unless one considers that Obama is far from serving as a proponent of the white patriarchy. Those voters, African-Americans and women particularly, may like Obama but they want change to come faster so they have the same ability to put food on the table as white guys.

The Trump candidacy provides white men, most of whom are already Republicans, with a voice that stands athwart history, proclaiming that women – like, perhaps, the Democratic front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – aren’t up to the man’s job of being president of these United States, providing him with an opportunity to proclaim his virility in a never-to-be-forgotten soliloquy and discuss the monthly cycle of a certain female newscaster.

Those who object to Trump’s lower than lowbrow campaign are dismissed for embracing political correctness, sacking long-held standards of decency for the sound of a whoopee cushion. Their perception of a political debate is somewhat akin to the Undertaker taking on Brock Lesner at SummerSlam, a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

And there’s the unrelenting meanness, unwarranted, which has drawn the hoots and hollers of Trump supporters as if they were attending the hootchie-cootchie show at the Shelby County Fair.

The most recent example came Tuesday, the day of the decisive Indiana primary, when Trump went out of his way to cite unsubstantiated claims that Cruz’s father, Rafael, a Cuban emigre, had ties to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

“His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday during an interview with Fox News. “What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

Think about it a moment: Trump raised the subject of his own volition on the day of the Indiana primary, basically the final day of the campaign, secure in the knowledge that he was going to capture most of the state’s delegates and that simple math precluded Cruz from attracting the support he would need to win the nomination. It was on this day he decided to deliver an insulting, hurtful, unsubstantiated message out of pure hatefulness for no apparent reason.

This came just weeks after Trump threatened to expose some still unexplored issue in the background of Cruz’s wife, Heidi. Trump’s supporters, who have regularly engaged in intimidating practices against protestors and have displayed a propensity to throw a punch or two, will decry those raising objections, dismissing them as being politically correct. Others might call it graciousness, a characteristic that appears to be lacking among Trump and his regulars.

In a serendipitous way a Trump candidacy may prove providential, establishing just where this nation is in the early part of the 21st Century, determining how far we’ve come and how much further we have to go. Will America keep its promise or has this been just one long, bad joke for 240 years? Some who once were crying Never Trump – phonies like Bill Kristol – now hope to maintain their political cred by suddenly asserting that The Donald, who has never held public office, is the superior choice when compared to a successful women lawyer, twice elected to the U.S. Senate who served as Secretary of State.

It’s called being gutless.

It was in The Godfather that Clemenza, anticipating a gang war in the aftermath of the attack on Vito Corleone, shrugged and admitted, “That’s all right.’’

“These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years,’’ Clemenza said. “Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. You know, you gotta stop them at the beginning. Like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they was just asking for trouble.’’

This election will be a test. Has America finally grown up?

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.