Donald Trump’s campaign would make a great James Bond movie. He has assembled a cast of villains that would put Goldfinger and Dr. No to shame.
As John Avlon observes in the Daily Beast today:
There’s the exiled Paul Manafort, steely-eyed, hair-dyed and bathing in blood money. His replacement, Steve Bannon, is ruler of the alt-right trolls, fanning the flames from his fortified Hollywood villa, known as the Breithart Embassy. Off in the wings sit Roger Ailes and Roger Stone, the OG dirty tricksters, unrepentant Nixonistas still running the “positive polarization” play almost five decades ;ater.Â
And now the plot thickens with the entrance of Nigel Farage, described by Avlon as :the beer swilling leader of the anti-immigrant, ethno-nationalist UK Independence Party.” (As you probably know, that’s the party behind Brexit, one of the greatest mistakes of this century.)
Unfortunately, these are not Hollywood villains. This is real life.
I don’t know what Donald Trump is up to, but I find troubling hints of a very dark agenda when I browse the web.
Avlon suggests Trump may be losing this election on purpose as a prelude to creating a media empire worth billions. And he’s not alone in that belief.
But what if Trump wins?
This is a man who associates with the scum of the earth. A man without morals or scruples. A liar and a cheat who will say anything and do who knows what to achieve his goals.
He has known Mafia associates, and he is a Putin pawn who is heavily indebted to the Chinese government.
As I click the mute button on my TV, I see his grotesque, contorted countenance mouthing eerily, and I wonder that the media provides him with so much free exposure. Do they really believe he is a legitimate candidate for President of the Unites States?
I can only pray that Avlon is right, that Trump’s stratagems are meant to enrich him through a gigantic media project, not burden us with a creature like this in the White House.