A sinking feeling about this made-for-television political season.
Marco Rubio is going to be our next President. Mind you, this feeling is based on what I think I know about America, a centrist nation--sans its hawkish imperialists--if one currently exists in global politics.
On the right, the appeal of both Trump and Cruz is limited to the fringe voters who are either too bigoted (Trump supporters) or too dogmatically religious (Cruz's fanatics) to constitute a serious threat to the vast majority. I say this despite our nation's infamous religiosity.
That claptrap played well in conservative Iowa, but so did Rubio's much more moderate social exhortations. The vast majority of Americans are much more like Iowa's Rubio folks--centrists unwilling to hang their hats on bigoted speech and radical Christianity--than not.
The vast majority in this country has heart as well as a perplexing love of Jesus, and a common disgust for radical rightwing rhetoric. Nobody wants to see black people gunned down by the police in the streets, or bigots take over federal land.
That stuff is as unpalatable to centrists as Bernie's muddled socialism or Confederate-flag-waving, revisionist historians.
The fences at the border and the Will of God are just as absurd as Marxism to these folks.
All of that is embarrassing to free-thinking and semi-educated Republicans (just as is the right's conflation of modern socialism and Marx in my mind).
The point is the U.S. works on this level if it is given a chance. The haters and the free-range pseudo-constitutionalists have but one thing in common with the vast majority of Republicans--their dislike of Democrats.
That's not enough to get rightwing zealots over the hump (speaking of God, thank you for that, Ma'am).
The centrists' belief in capitalism is more urgent than a reactionary antisocial agenda. I think Rubio understands this now, and he'll back off his more extreme positions and let Trump and Cruz continue their unrealistic diatribes against all things alien.
(FWIW, I don't think Trump believes half of what he says, and Cruz is a dangerous man.)
Going forward, Rubio would be wise to avoid advocating for cuts in Social Security. If he has a better medical plan than Obamacare, he'd better state it unequivocally. His foreign policy thinking had better shape up and find its clarity. He might want to come around regarding the environment as well.
This amounts to unsolicited advice, but a discussion of these issues is what Americans are waiting for.
The gargantuan money will begin to flow into Rubio's campaign now that mainstream mega-capitalists have a clearer picture of who can challenge Clinton's heretofore expected coronation (not that they are very dissimilar).
The Iowa sideshow was, and always has been, good for airing the laundry. The fun and games are practically over, however.
Whether it is Hillary, pulled leftward by Bernie's policy ideas, or an unrepentant Bernie himself corralling the Demos, Rubio is now officially the challenger--as economy and how to run one once again takes its rightful place in the policy debate.
Trump and Cruz are about to be dumped by America's goodness--its rejection of tomfoolery and, ironically, hustle. Neither has a realistic shot, while Rubio is stepping into the resultant void.
America doesn't want extremism on either side.
About that sinking feeling I have: I'm for Bernie. I'm still not convinced he can win, and I've always disliked Hillary Clinton.
TS
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