I can't stop him
The martial arts movie hero always wins his fights. The opposition doesn't work together.
I was planning a post centered around a comparison between movie heroes like Bruce Lee and Donald Trump. Bruce Lee wins fights because gang members go at him one at a time.
I was going to riff off the idea that a majority of Republican voters may be ready to move on from Trump, but the not-Trump vote is splintered among many. As of today Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, and Mike Pompeo show every sign of running. There will likely be more candidates. Trump can win states with 30% of the vote. Republican primary rules are winner-take-all. Trump can win because GOP candidates are all competing at the same time. It is the opposite of the strategy of the Bruce Lee movies, but the result is the same. They lose.
Gerald Murphy sent me a Guest Post. He uses different analogies to make the same point. Murphy taught high school English in Yreka, California for 35 years before moving across the border to Medford 10 years ago. He currently teaches various film and radio classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Southern Oregon University. Over the years, Murphy has written dozens of plays and musicals with productions in over forty countries, mostly in schools and community theaters.
Guest Post by Gerald Murphy
I can't stop him.
One of the card games my family enjoyed was “Hearts,” a game which involved a lot of strategy. Although the most popular strategy involved taking as few tricks as possible and thereby winning with the lowest score, you could reverse this strategy and “Shoot for the Moon.” This involved getting all the points possible, including the dangerous Queen of Spades. Whenever a player attempted this gambit, it was almost always evident to the other players, and there were many ways to stop this ploy. However, if you stuck your neck out for the other players, you dug yourself into a hole. And to avoid that fate, players would say “I can’t stop him” (or her) aloud, which allowed the moon-shooter to take a huge advantage and usually win the entire game.
We also enjoyed “Risk,” a board game which involved taking over the world with your armies. It took a lot of patience to play Risk, which could last three to four hours, but after the first hour or so at least one player would be seen building up enough strength to eventually wipe everyone else off the map. However, the other players had a way to defend themselves from this future onslaught. All they had to do was join together and attack the strongest player, leaving the weaker players alone. But who would be the one brave player to begin belling the cat? Or would they all play the “I can’t stop him” game?
By this time I’m sure most readers have no trouble seeing the connection between the games above and the 2016 election in which Trump’s adversaries, including Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz left Donald Trump alone to “Shoot the Moon.” Instead of ganging up on the vulgar game show host, they gave him a free pass, allowing him to run rough-shod over his last two opponents, Rubio and Cruz.
After the January 6th riots, which were ordered by Trump to deny Biden the presidency, most pundits saw the end of Trump’s political career. How could he possibly get away with such monumental treason, most of which was filmed live for hours on all our television stations? This was even worse than his “Grab them by the pussy” gaffe.
And so, Kevin McCarthy and others condemned the riots and condemned Donald Trump, the man responsible for this insult to our sacred institutions. He had finally gone too far. The man was toxic, and he would never recover from this debacle.
And then McCarthy changed his mind and made his pilgrimage to Florida to kiss the ring. Fox News doubled down on its hatred of Democrats and its worship of Trump. Except for a few lonely Republicans, the party marched lockstep to the same ugly beat of the MAGA drum. Could this be 2016 all over again? Have the Republicans lost all honor, all integrity, and all ethics?
There are some honorable Republicans. After all, the January 6 Committee gave us Liz Cheney. And Romney and McConnell occasionally murmur something that sounds like condemnation of Donald’s seditious behavior. But what I hear most from Republicans is the same tired phrase from the “Hearts” and “Risk” games. “I can’t stop him. I can’t stop him. I can’t stop him.”