2020 Democratic Candidates by Anticipated Shenanigans at Trump Rallies

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Trump rallies are ridiculous.

Look, I know people who are supporters of President Trump for one reason or another. They think other countries have been taking advantage of the United States and he's pushing back against that, or that he's trying to improve federal spending, or whatever. Most of them acknowledge Trump's less than affable public personality, but usually say something along the lines of "Yeah, he's kind of an asshole but I think he's done a good job with XYZ."

I don't really agree with these sentiments, but I try my best to listen to opposing viewpoints. Given that conservatives were frothing at the mouth to attack President Obama for any possible misstep ("He asked for Dijon mustard on his burger, like a Frenchman?!?"), it's not really a good look to go after Trump for his fish feeding abilities...especially when there's plenty of personal quirks and policy to criticize. And I think most if not all of the more levelheaded folks who voted for Trump do the same thing; they may be rooted pretty strongly in an ideology, but are willing to consider opposing viewpoints.

But the people who attend Trump rallies? Yeah, I don't think they fall into this category. Because these rallies just seem to attract some pretty awful people.

I mean, what else would you expect when you give a blatantly obvious narcissist in perpetual need of self-reassurance a lectern and a microphone, and invite a crowd to indulge him in the idea that he's the greatest human to walk the earth? And hey, why not have said narcissist rail on about how people who criticize him are enemies of the country, since the impressionable people at the rally will lap it up and go into a proud, frenzied, public demonstration of the worst aspects of their personality? So the shining examples of humanity these rallies feature front and center include QAnon morons, neo-Confederates, people who harass reporters, and other very fine people who get offended when they're called deplorable.

Given that Trump never actually stopped holding these horrible events, and that he's officially declared his re-election bid for 2020, we're obviously going to see more of them in the next 16 months. In the meantime, the Democrats have 25 possible candidates to run against him, and the one they settle on will inevitably be subject to whatever jibes and effigies and other nonsense at the Trump rallies.

And since people have been having fun creating lists of "Democratic Candidates as...," I thought I'd make one about how you could identify the likely candidate based on the reaction at one of Trump's ego boosters in the midsummer of 2020:


Joe Biden

Seeking to capitalize on Trump's "Sleepy Joe" nickname, the rallies hand out free nightcaps for attendees. The crowd of angry people wearing white caps ends up looking like something else.

Bernie Sanders

After Trump denounces Bernie's "socialized socialist socialism," rally attendees are inspired to torch their Social Security cards, driver's licenses, library cards, Medicare cards, and any other forms issued by a local, state, or federal government. Fire departments supported by local taxes respond to a burning arena after the flaming ID cards inadvertently ignite a Confederate flag someone has proudly displayed at the rally.

Elizabeth Warren

Rally attendees pretending to be offended by Warren's dubious claims of Native American ancestry respond to every single one of Trump's "Pocahontas" remarks by erupting into tomahawk chops and war whoops.

Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, or Wayne Messam

Pretty much just blatant racism.

Pete Buttigieg

Pretty much just blatant homophobia.

Kirsten Gillibrand

Confused by Gillibrand's vague resemblance to a younger Hillary Clinton, Trump frequently slips up and yells about e-mails and crookedness. The crowd doesn't bother to correct him and obediently erupts into cheers of "Lock her up!"

Andrew Yang

In order to criticize Yang's proposal of a universal basic income, rally organizer hand out "cash guns" to make it rain with fake money. Trump officials collect the counterfeit bills at the end of each rally and try to use them to pay off subcontractors jilted by Trump.

Beto O'Rourke

Having already tested out his flailing arm mockery, Trump thrashes his arms around in an exaggerated imitation of O'Rourke's mannerisms; it's the most exercise he's gotten in years.

Jay Inslee

Rally that would have made fun of Inslee for making climate change his central issue when it's still kind of cold in winter in some places is canceled after Florida is obliterated by Superstorm Geoffrey.

Amy Klobuchar

As a gimmick to highlight accusations that Klobuchar is a mean boss, rally organizers hand out binders and other office supplies to throw whenever Trump references these allegations. Many are injured.

John Hickenlooper

Trump takes the lazy route and nicknames his opponent "Loopy Hickenlooper." He also decides to contest Hickenlooper's record on brewing beer by founding the Trump Brewing Company and inviting rally attendees to find it at the cash bar or their local package store to outsell Hickenlooper's Wynkoop Brewing products. Attendees happily answer the call but give up after one six-pack after realizing that the beer is absolute crap; Trump Brewing fails within a month.

Tim Ryan

Trump goes on at length about how stupid Ohio voters must be to choose someone like Tim Ryan as their representative while his handlers desperately try to signal him to stop.

Tulsi Gabbard

Attendees start coming to rallies dressed up like Moana and Maui, and burst into impromptu renditions of "You're Welcome" whenever Trump brags about his purported accomplishments. Disney brings the legal hammer down on each and every person who does this with a lawsuit for unlicensed use of copyrighted material.

Steve Bullock

Trump mocks Bullock by making some remark about how Montana is the site of Little Bighorn, site of a notorious defeat of American armed forces by Native Americans. Rally attendees immediately accept his claim that he would have won the battle and Bullock would have rolled over for the Sioux.

Bill de Blasio

A vehemently anti-New York City theme builds from rally to rally, with attendees' insults toward the metropolis and its residents growing more and more intense. Trump, a lifelong New Yorker, finally snaps somewhere in the Midwest and calls the crowd a "bunch of losers meting out a sad existence in some meth-encrusted flyover shithole." Trump rally attendees are finally shocked by something Trump says.

Seth Moulton

As a rebuttal to Moulton's military service, Trump brags about how great a soldier he would have been in Vietnam if he had actually gone there. The crowd starts dressing like the cast of Hocus Pocus after realizing that Moulton represents Salem, Massachusetts.

Eric Swalwell

As a dig at Swalwell's central issue of addressing gun violence, Trump rallies begin inviting people to bring their firearms to the rallies and show that they can handle them responsibly. The rallies average 26 people accidentally shot per event as well as approximately 863 bullets shot into arena ceilings during the celebratory gunfire that follows a Trump insult.

[Posted just hours before learning that this scenario will not happen]

Joe Sestak

If Sestak gets the nomination, Trump would be going up against a likable former Navy admiral with a solid record but little name recognition as of yet. Trump rallies will feature the President completely ignoring Sestak in favor of yelling about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Michael Bennett

Born in New Delhi, India, Michael Bennett is the only Democratic candidate who could maybe merit a "birther" scandal. But he doesn't "look Indian" and he's a senator from Colorado, so Trump instead spends most of the rally making bad jokes about marijuana.

Mike Gravel

Trump mocks Mike Gravel's bizarre 2008 presidential campaign ad where he stares at the camera for awhile and then throws a rock into a pond. Rally attendees start to respond by bringing in their own large stones and chucking them whenever he makes this reference. Many are injured.

Marianne Williamson

Trump settles on "Moonbeam Marianne" for his nickname, though most Democrats are using this as well. Rally attendees buy crystals and dreamcatchers, both to make fun of them and because their horoscope told them they would try a new experience today.

South Carolina's State House Should Remove A Couple Of Statues, Too

The presence of the Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina State House has come under more scrutiny recently. It took a gunman entering the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston and killing nine people to reignite the conversation about what the flag represents and why it might be time for it to come down.

The renewed call to get rid of the Stars and Bars at the state legislature in South Carolina has been motivated largely by the fact that the shooter was clearly racist and seems to have a bit of a love affair with the flag. His car had a specialty "Confederate States of America" plate, showing a couple of flags from a pretend nation which no real country ever recognized. It also turns out that he had a white supremacist website with pictures like this one:

Nice garden, asshole. (Source)

All of this has resulted in a lot of pressure on South Carolina to reconsider why it needs to fly the Confederate battle flag at the seat of state government, especially when it winds up flying at full staff while the American and South Carolina flags are lowered in recognition of the tragedy. Even if it's not flying over the capitol dome  like it once did, it's tough to defend the display at the capitol as "heritage" or some such crap after the actions of people like Jorts McBowlcut. Not that presidential candidate Lindsey Graham doesn't try.

While one legislator in South Carolina has already vowed to pursue the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the capitol grounds altogether, it's important to note that the State House grounds have some other celebratory markers to horrible racists. They should really come down as well. 

Feel free to keep the monuments to the veterans and the fallen police officers and the founder of gynecology (yes, there is one). But it would really be nice if the South Carolina State House got rid of...

The statue of Benjamin Tillman

With a scowl like that, how can you not love him? (Source)

Even people who are prominent enough to be memorialized in bronze have their flaws. Take Wade Hampton III, a Civil War general, South Carolina governor, and U.S. senator honored with a monument on the capitol grounds. He held white supremacist views, but he was moderate enough to support equal protection under the law for freed slaves. Or James F. Byrnes, who also has a statue outside the State House; he supported segregation, but he also fought the Ku Klux Klan. 

Benjamin Tillman was just a terrible man in general. One of the more notable atrocities of "Pitchfork Ben" took place when he was part of an anti-black militia. This group carried out an event known as the "Hamburg Massacre," in which five blacks were executed. Tillman later bragged about how such murders had saved the state from the "rule of the alien, the traitor, and the semi-barbarous Negroes." 

There was that time he helped write a new draft of the state constitution for the express purpose of disenfranchising black voters. As governor, he was instrumental in bringing about several Jim Crow laws meant to skirt the Fifteenth Amendment. He served in the Senate, where he was censured after getting into a fistfight with the other senator from South Carolina. He warned that the black man "must remain subordinate or be exterminated." When President Theodore Roosevelt hosted Booker T. Washington at the White House, Tillman complained that, "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again."

The shooting in Charleston has drawn little attention to Benjamin Tillman's statue, aside from this article in the Huffington Post. There's been an ongoing effort to get rid of his statue at DownWithTillman.com, however.

Strom Thurmond's statue

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Yes, the Strom Thurmond. His monument is placed in about as prominent a place as you can get outside the South Carolina State House.

To be fair, Thurmond served honorably in World War II (at the battle of Normandy, no less). And he was praised for his response to the lynching of Willie Earle in 1947, namely his demand in no uncertain terms that the perpetrators should be brought to justice. This didn't exactly happen, since all 31 men arrested in the crime were acquitted despite such pesky evidence as their signed confessions, but it got the message across; no more lynchings took place in South Carolina after Earle.

So do the bright spots on Thurmond's record make up for the blemishes? Not really.

Thurmond's most notable accomplishment during the many, many years he spent in Congress was a record filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He rambled on for a full 24 hours and 18 minutes, probably pissing in a bag as he went, all to oppose a bill that would let black citizens register to vote in federal elections.

Before that, Thurmond ran for President as a third party candidate against Harry Truman in 1948, because he was upset that Truman had supported such shocking things as eliminating the poll tax and banning segregation in interstate commerce. Though Thurmond knew he was unlikely to carry a majority, he and his ilk figured they could throw off the balance enough to send the election to the House of Representatives and force the candidates to abandon the civil rights platform to win Southern support. He carried South Carolina and three other states (it probably helped that those states left Truman off the ballot) but didn't sway the election enough to deter Truman's win.

Thurmond also had a big part in drafting the "Southern Manifesto," which mainly served to whine about how Brown v. Board of Education was a result of "outside meddlers" trying to disrupt a South that was getting along just swimmingly when it came to blacks and whites getting along. Excluding the lynchings and poll taxes and whatnot, none of which made it into the manifesto of course. He ranted about how the civil rights movement was dominated by Communists. Interviewed in 1998, he said he didn't have "anything to apologize for" when it came to his central role in the Dixiecrat movement.

He was also quite the hypocrite. For all his effort to deny equal rights to black citizens, it turned out that he had fathered a child with his 16-year-old black maid and never once acknowledged her existence in his career. Thus the less than subtle revision to update the inscription on Thurmond's statue.

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The Confederate battle flag

The Confederate battle flag used to fly over the capitol dome itself in South Carolina, below the U.S. and state flags, as a reminder that South Carolina spearheaded the hissy fit segregation effort that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people because they wanted the constitutional right to enslave other people. I'm not sure that's the best legacy to celebrate.

The flag was moved to its current location, over a memorial to fallen Confederate soldiers, as part of the controversy in 2000 over the more prominent placement over the dome. This decision also led to the creation of the African-American Monument, a new display on the State House grounds to recognize the accomplishments of black people in South Carolina.

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The argument that always comes up in support of displaying the Confederate battle flag is that it's a sign of Southern pride and not a symbol of hate. Some people probably do fly the flag intending it to be a way of showing their love for the South, not as an affront to black people or Northern folks or the federal government or anything like that. There are also the more strained arguments that it doesn't matter because the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery anyway, or that it's OK because sometimes a black guy flies the flag (usually it seems to be H.K. Edgerton), or that a handful of black soldiers fought for the Confederacy, or that you shouldn't get all worked up about the battle flag because it's not really the true Confederate flag. 

The Washington Post and The Atlantic have both done a nice job of deflating the tired old arguments about how the Confederate flag is just a harmless symbol of Southern love. The Post talked to a race historian about its meaning. The Atlantic followed up on a 2012 article with a more recent piece arguing for the flag's removal. One of the main points in all of these articles is how the flag became a show of defiance during the civil rights movement, waved as a clear sign of protest.

It's pretty easy to see.

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Here's motel owner James Brock raising the Confederate battle flag over his business back in 1964. Activists conducted a "swim-in" there to protest the motel's policy that the pool was open to whites only. Brock responded by pouring acid into the water.

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Some civil rights marchers in 1966. The girl is waving the Stars and Bars and the boy is reportedly playing "Dixie." I'm sure the marchers were just delighted by such a reception.

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Here's some more folks who don't like the idea of black people marching for voting rights. The guy at the bottom left suddenly realized how he's going to look in 50 years and doesn't appreciate that his bigotry is being recorded for posterity.

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Members of the Organization For Better Government march outside the Alabama State House in 1965, promising "larger white marches" in the future. They stopped within 25 feet of voter registration rallies, probably just to tell the black citizens expressing their constitutional rights about this cool new grits recipe they came up with. Hey, it's all about heritage, right?

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These marchers seem to be protesting how Alabama isn't all that fair to them. The guy waving the Confederate battle flag is probably just saying he likes how Birmingham is a big industrial center or something. Heritage.

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That's the Ku Klux Klan. They like this flag a lot.

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And him, well, that's Jorts McBowlcut again. You already know about him.

The revival of the Confederate battle flag is a result of a bunch of scumbags who felt threatened by a race they didn't like who had the temerity to demand that they not be treated like second-class citizens. It got its start from some states who wanted to make sure they had the right to keep certain folk from being citizens at all.

So to any South Carolina folks reading this, go ahead and fly the Confederate battle flag at your home or from your car or whatever. You have the right to look like a fool. Your government shouldn't have to.

The Apex of Crazy: Terry Jones and the Quran of Fire

There is blood on Pastor Terry Jones' hands.

The last time I did an Apex of Crazy post was also about book burning, and of the Bible no less, so it seems only right to weigh in on this while it's still a current topic. I'm not even sure whether I can give Jones credit for canceling his planned event, to burn copies of the Quran at his Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida on September 11. He's been weaseling around on the issue in recent days, calling it off when he claimed that he'd brokered a deal to stop the proposed Park51 Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. He's now waffled because the imam he spoke with said he doesn't have the authority to make such a deal, and merely offered to open a channel of communication on that issue. Jones, of course, has whined that he was lied to, but who is more believable: the man who said he single-handedly resolved one of the most controversial issues of the day or the Florida imam who said he can't influence New York politics?

So now the event is merely "suspended," with the less principled half of Jones' church (you know, the one that hasn't deserted him over this issue) apparently waiting on his e-mail to say whether it's a go or not.


Even if the event does not occur, the uproar over the planned burning of the Islamic holy book has resulted in at least one death. A riot broke out in Afghanistan today on the eve of the planned burning, and one man was shot as protesters burned an American flag and hurled rocks at a NATO base. Word of Jones' idea spread from the local area to the region to the nation to the world. His church has become a world outreach center all right, but it has resulted only in condemnation and hatred from all quarters of the globe. It would be improper to say the rioters had no responsibility in the casualties that occurred in Afghanistan, but Jones' threat was the root cause of their actions.

The issue has a number of different nuances. People have complained of a double standard, not just in this matter but in general, regarding jokes and swipes that can be taken at Christianity but not at Islam. There's the argument that it's an issue of free speech, and that Jones has the right to burn the Quran, or the Bible or Harry Potter or any book he sees fit to torch. Despite the fact that I thoroughly denounce Jones and disagree with him wholly, I also find it rather malicious that he's been made the subject of a rumor suggesting that he was arrested for child pornography. Several media reports have been defensive in light of accusations that coverage of the pastor is fanning the flames of hatred, saying social media is a key factor in the story's spread; indeed, word would likely get out even if every news agency decided not to report the story, and the old cliche about not shooting the messenger certainly applies to the media here. I can only hope that a proposal this rash will dull the anti-Muslim sentiment in this country and blunt its frightening increase in intensity.

In the end, Jones is just a full-blown hypocrite. He's an opponent of the Ground Zero community center, but he wants to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001 by an act of hatred rather than remembrance. Any act of book burning is an attempt to strangle free speech, so he can hardly argue that point. And finally, he doesn't even have a permit to stage the burning, so it becomes a legal rather than a constitutional issue if it proceeds.

One wonders if Jones, about 13 years younger and sprightlier than hatemonger Fred Phelps, is simply looking to usurp the title of King Douche.

"If chance may have me king, why chance may crown me. Er, I mean, God hates you! Fag!"

Let's imagine what might have happened if Jones hadn't staged this whole charade. He wouldn't have gotten his 15 minutes of fame, but he would at least have his whole flock. And a man in Afghanistan would still be alive.

He may have respectfully asked people to remember 9/11, the people who died, and given a little spiritual guidance on the events of that day and what people can do to make the world a better place. That, in the end, is what religion is all about. It is people like Jones, like Phelps, like the men who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, like anyone who squeezes the words of any religious text and makes poison drip out, that turn religion from a guide into a weapon.

The Apex of Crazy

I have a friend who probably never thought he'd have something in common with the fringe of the Christian right: Bible destruction. We were both on the cross-country ski team at our college, which took us on quite a few overnight trips to go racing. On one trip, he was feeling particularly sacrilegious and tore a page out of the motel's complimentary Bible. He may or may not have flushed it down the toilet afterward.

The point? To show that God wasn't going to destroy him for such an infraction.

While the motivation is different, the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, has decided to do something similar for Halloween. These seem to be the kind of folks who consider trick-or-treating, drunken costume parties, haunted houses, and perhaps even a pleasant church event with hot cider and games to be the devil's work, so they've opted for the old standby: a book burning. Which, in and of itself, wouldn't be too noteworthy except for the fact that they're going to be torching Bibles.

If the Bible hates gays so much, why is it so flaming?

OK. So apparently God wrote the King James Bible, and Satan wrote every other version? Or perhaps the translators of the King James version were all true believers and everyone else was an evil Unitarian? What it boils down to is a church believing that one translation of the Bible is so unimpeachable that they're destroying any and all other versions they can get their hands on, despite the fact that it's all pretty much the same message. Seriously, how far to the right do you have to go to think that the Bible is a book that needs to be destroyed? Political thought might well be a circle, because I think you can see the far left from that vantage point.

I wonder what this church thinks of a project by Conservapedia (a right-wing Wiki) to re-translate the Bible. The idea has gotten a lot of flak, considering how the site has an obvious slant with article subheadings such as "Liberal Hysterical Criticisms." So people have been having fun suggesting how the users will translate the Bible, with well-known passages being horribly misinterpreted to become little more than Republican screed.

They'll be lucky if the project even gets off the ground. Right now, users have only taken a few stabs at a couple of passages. Still, despite the bent of the site, the project at least seems to have the reasonable goal of producing a translation of the Bible based on user input. While it would be more accurate to do so under a site like Wikipedia, which is edited by people across the political spectrum, it's still a worthwhile project and one that will have an interesting outcome.

Even if it's totally satanic.