Donald Trump is the GOP’S last act of sheer desperation. The party has become like a wild animal trapped in a corner of its own making and will now drop its last ounce of civilized behavior in order to break free and survive.  Gone is the Grand Old Party we used to know and, even over differences, still had respect for.

For me, it started when Obama got elected.  In years past, if we didn’t like the results of an election, we still respected the office and the person in it. I remember being so ashamed to have George W. Bush as our president. He just came off as, well…not presidential material and I always had the lingering sense that he was a puppet.  Still, I respected our laws and the way the government worked and gave him his due. I recognized that he was a politician with experience and a certain degree of ethics. After some initial grumbling, so did the Democratic party.  There were differences but no obstructionism.  The government worked as it should.  During Bush’s term, we then went through 9-11, a useless war and a terrible economy.  We dealt with it.  Then, when Obama got elected, the GOP went crazy and, well frankly, acted like a bunch of spoiled brats.  By the GOP I mean the elected officials, not the average American citizen.  There was a no-holds-barred attack on Obama from every direction. He was called names, town hall meetings became shout-downs, there were no limits on how he could be treated or what could be said to him or about him and his family.  I think someone actually threw a shoe at him and got away with it.  I remember being shocked at the behavior and wondered what the hell was going on.  Was the GOP actually behaving like that? That behavior was the beginning of what I call the YAKivist. You know, the yelling, screaming, ignorant,  in”DUH”vidual shouting insults at everyone who didn’t agree with them.   Pretty soon there were hoards of them and most of them were Republican conservatives.  Sorry, but they just were.  After a time, we would see more Democrats retaliating in a like manner, but the insidious behavior was born in the GOP.    We then suffered through EIGHT years of abysmal behavior from the GOP toward Obama. Horrible racist things were said and cartoons so racist they made me sick.  All the while the Obama’s kept their cool, dignity and conducted themselves admirably. I admired them even more.  Then the Tea Party crept into the cracks made by this political atmosphere like rats in a sinking ship, only these rats stayed and started chipping away at the hull of that ship.  In my opinion, a crazier, more fanatical, bunch of loonies had never before walked the halls of Congress.   Most American people, gob-smacked, like myself, just sat there and let it happen.  I mean, what could we do?  I think we were all hoping it would go away and just stop. It didn’t.  For EIGHT years, through a 2nd term, when the American people voted once again for Obama, through a much better economy (fact), less unemployment (fact), and no major terrorist attacks (fact), we had to suffer obstructionism (a tidy word for racism), and two shut downs of the government at taxpayers expense, because the GOP kept having temper tantrums over Obama’s election. Yes, GOP, we noticed what you were doing.   After all, Obamacare,  was a terrible thing.  Why? Because frankly many of the GOP leaders owned those cheap useless, scamming insurance companies everyone loved, that is until they actually needed insurance then read all the fine print.  For EIGHT years Obama endured obstructionism from a bunch of fanatics. Then, when he finally gave up on them and started getting things done without them, they accused him of misusing the office and threatened to sue him.  There were no lawsuits pursued because they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. EIGHT YEARS of this crap.!   During this time, it became more and more acceptable to tear apart, abuse and use our political system in ways that were so unimaginably insane and disrespectful of our American values it made me cringe.   The conspiracy theories started taking hold because it was absolutely acceptable to say anything, no matter how outrageous, in the media and on the internet. So here we are,  a demagogue like Trump sees the opportunity to step in and become “King of America” and before you know it the GOP has suffered a internal coup they can’t get out of gracefully and the average American has a racist, hating, unstable monster like Trump to contend with.  So what does the GOP do about it? Do they do the morally right thing and get rid of Trump at all costs?  Nope, they whisper and grumble and then cave in and start endorsing every hating, lying, thing they can find to hurt the opposition.  After all, it’s bad enough to have a BLACK man in office but a WOMAN?  NEVER!!!  Yes, it’s the last desperate move of a despicable, dying animal.  Good riddance!