Trump On The Warpath... Against The World

Two days ago Trump claimed "people from Bernie's crowd"-- meaning what? people with college degrees-- were protesting at his rallies. Within 24 hours the fascist bully was urging his thuggish fans to attack Bernie rallies.

He doesn't have it dispatch his racist followers to rivals like Kasich and Rubio because it's now apparent to everyone that he knows exactly how easy it is to turn these GOP pipsqueaks' campaigns into smoldering ashes. Over the weekend, he was successfully defining Ohio Governor John Kasich as the cause of the economic collapse because of his support for NAFTA and NAFTA-like trade agreements and for be part of Wall Street's reign of terror, accusing him of having "helped Wall Street predator Lehman Brothers destroy the economy." Two great lines of offense against Kasich-- neither of which, for obvious reasons, Hillary Clinton could ever use.

Experiencing a senior moment yesterday and forgetting that Dayton, Ohio isn't in Maine or Connecticut, Trump announced that Kasich was "not the right guy" for the presidency because "he voted for NAFTA... NAFTA has destroyed New England. ... You’ve never recovered completely from it, but you will if I’m elected because I’m bringing those businesses back." Trump is intent on driving Kasich out of the race entirely on Tuesday by beating him in winner-take-all Ohio. The branding was relentless all weekend: "He’s not tough enough. He’s not sharp enough. He’s very weak on illegal immigration. He’s totally in favor of amnesty, which you can never be in favor of. He wants amnesty, he wants it always."

By Sunday Kasich was weakly trying to defend himself against Trump's barrage. He admitted to Jake Tapper on State of the Union that "there was greed on Wall Street, no question about it" and that he thinks "on Wall Street, the pendulum swings towards greed. Keeping in mind that Kasich backs dismantling Dodd-Frank, he then said that "Free enterprise is great, but it has to have a moral underpinning. Greed is really a leading reason for why we’re having problems. The regulators have to do their job. We absolutely have to keep a handle on this." A moral undermining, but a legal one, like Bernie is demanding. As for the "regulators," if that was serious they would have had Kasich and the rest of the senior Lehman Bros staff in front of grand juries long ago.

And it wasn't just Bernie and Kasich Trump was on the warpath against. He senses Rubio blood in the water and is moving in for the (easy) kill. He was back to mocking Florida's junior senator as "Little Marco" and accusing the Florida Republican party chairman of rigging the early voting totals on Rubio's behalf. Rubio, sensing the end is nigh, has been striking back blinding, emotionally and totally ineffectively, comparing Trump to a third-world dictator leading the country dangerously close to a boiling point and finally questioning whether he could really support Trump if he wins the nomination-- which will sound like sour grapes to most voters at this point.

“Most countries around the world that are failures are because they deposit their hopes in a person, a strong leader who comes forward and says ‘Put me in power. And I will make the country better,’” Mr. Rubio said in an interview Saturday with the New York Times.

“That’s exactly what he’s doing,” Mr. Rubio continued. “The rhetoric reminds me of third-world strongmen.”

As he campaigned in Central Florida three days before the primary that will most likely decide his fate as a presidential candidate, Mr. Rubio sounded at times as if he was in a state of disbelief about the turn the presidential race has taken.

“There’s going to be a reckoning no matter how this election turns out,” he said. “And I just don’t know if that’ll happen in time. I hope it does.”

“But you mark my words,” he added, his voice growing sharper. “There will be prominent people in American politics who will spend years explaining to people how they fell into this.”

Mr. Rubio began the day with a news conference condemning Mr. Trump for inciting supporters who have punched and beaten demonstrators.

“This is a frightening, grotesque and disturbing development in American politics,” Mr. Rubio said of the violence at Mr. Trump’s events, which reached such a pitch on Friday night in Chicago that the real estate developer was forced to cancel an event that had drawn thousands of people.

Mr. Rubio had previously said that if he were not the Republican nominee, he would support whoever was, even if it were Mr. Trump.

“I still at this moment continue to intend to support the Republican nominee,” he said at the news conference, pausing to contemplate his words. “But,” he added, “it’s getting harder every day.”

Mr. Rubio spread the blame for the anger coursing through American politics-- to the protesters, the media and the left, which he said too often tries to stifle dissent. But he reserved his harshest words for Mr. Trump. “We are being ripped apart as a country,” he said.

Though Mr. Rubio has taken on Mr. Trump more directly and forcefully as his own campaign for president lost altitude over the last two weeks, he was never as forthright or as angry as he appeared on Saturday.

The toll of a long and difficult campaign was showing on Mr. Rubio, who has been facing growing questions and even doubts from some of his own supporters about whether he can continue in the race much longer.

At times he sounded almost despondent, questioning not just the ugly turn the presidential campaign has taken but the future of the American political system.

Mr. Rubio continued to vent when he took the stage at a campaign rally here outside Tampa on Saturday morning.

“I’m not sure what happens next,” he dolefully told the crowd of about 200, a smaller gathering than he had been drawing just a week ago. “No matter what our political differences may be, who wants to live in a country where everybody hates each other?”

I don't know if that ws a veiled threat to move to Ted Cruz's homeland if Trump wins but apparently Florida Republican primary voters very much do want to live in a country where everybody hates each other: