Just about every situation in life is contained in a Clint Eastwood movie script...yes, seriously!

​Happy Wednesday everybody and happy August. I hope you’ve all had a decent summer, there’s not much left. Mine was headed that way but took a U-turn somewhere around Albuquerque. Sorry, inside joke that likely only makes sense if you watched as much of the old Looney Tune cartoons as I did as a kid (and adult).

It wasn’t too bad a day yesterday. The MLB trade deadline passed without Bryce Harper (Nationals) being traded as most of the sports pundits were saying. Still not sure the Nats are in it for the long haul, but at least Harper’s off the table…for now. 

Okay, but it wasn’t all sunshine and unicorns yesterday. For the idiot hater that sends me not-so-cleverly-veiled threats, try to get a sense of humor. I hear you can buy one on eBay if you look around enough…and can read. Fool.

But enough of that…

In other news, the distinguished(?) membership of the Pathetic Order of the Jackrabbit - Original Charter showed up at The Compound yesterday to start work on the new and improved Cabinet Saloon replication. As predicted, I spent the better part of the day smoking ribs and pork butt and making ranch-style beans for their dining pleasure. Not much work got done, though Terry Two-Fingers and Jake the Snake at least tried to make it all look good as they inspected a few boards for “straightness and timberocity” …whatever that means.

Friends, do you love western movies? Of course, you do! Mostly because I say you do. Mr. Robin certainly loves westerns, all westerns, and has been known to sit for days on a sofa drinking Choc beer and eating chipotle-flavored popcorn while watching John Wayne and Clint Eastwood marathons.

There is a common thread in some of the classic western movie scripts wherein the citizens of an old west town are so oppressed by a gang of atavistic thugs that they turn to a relative stranger to bail them all out.

Sound familiar?

High Plains Drifter is a movie like that, though with more ambiguity, amoral hypocrisy, and pathological psyches than the Motion Picture Association of America would normally allow.

In the movie, the townspeople (for purposes of our scenario, the GOP) fearing a band of atavistic thugs (for our purposes, the Dems) turn to a no-name stranger (in this case, The Trump) who sets up shop under the guise of helping the helpless townspeople overcome the atavistic thugs.

The problem is, the no-name stranger appears to have his own agenda against not only the atavists, but the townspeople too. Soon no-name stranger wears out his welcome, but what are townspeople going to do? If they let him go, they’ll have to face the atavists all by themselves. In other words, the hero no-name stranger becomes the devil you must deal with and is perhaps far worse than the thugs you originally wanted to rid yourself of…or words to that effect.

See where this is headed?

So, now The Trump and one of his former associates (in this case that double-polo-shirt-wearing-freak, Steve Bannon) have taken on conservative royalty (in this case, the Koch brothers).

Over the weekend, Bannon all but threatened the Koch brothers following a conservative mind-meld in Colorado Springs last week presided over by the Kochs. Bannon went public in an interview damning the Kochs for “undermining” The Trump’s administration ahead of what will undoubtedly be a freakin’ food fight in November with mid-term elections.

In the interview with Politico, Bannon said, "What they (the Kochs) have to do is shut up and get with the program, OK?"

Hmmm.

The Koch bros. for their part have said that they feel that The Trump’s efforts have been divisive and toxic for the country. They announced that they would go so far as to happily fund a Dem who showed…well…an ounce of reason. Okay, they didn’t use those exact words, but it was darned close to that.

The Trump infuriated by the billionaire Koch bros. comments took to Twitter to say (sigh, someone break his thumbs), "The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don't need their money or bad ideas."

This seems to me to be a risky strategy on The Trump’s part. It assumes that the rank-and-file Republicans (as I’ve identified in previous posts) will be blindly led around by The Trump. It also assumes that the party’s backbone, in this case billionaire conservatives, will tow the party line and not become a full-blown adversary.

Hmmm…me thinks the Republican Party is falling apart before our eyes. It’s becoming the out-of-the-box-twitterites vs. the we-know-what’s-best-for-conservatism. This is a similar thing to what the Dems went through several years ago, with the rabid liberals vs. we’re-more-middle-of-the-road Dems.

That’s not to say that the Dems have actually learned anything over the years or that the upcoming mid-terms and 2020 presidential chase are a slam dunk for them. It almost certainly won’t be if they front their own Trump (in this case, Hillary Clinton).

Just sayin’…

That is all!
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