I have thought since day one that Donald Trump had no desire to actually win the Presidency or God forbid, serve as President of the United States of America.  I think that like all of his activities, this run for office was intended to enhance his brand and more than anything else, make money.  There is nothing in his past or his life to indicate a desire to serve or to do any basic good for anyone or anything.  So he went out to make some extra dough, when perhaps he needs it to make up for other business failures.  Then something unexpected happened as he knocked off the Jeb!, Marco, Ted, John, Ben and our dear Carly and won the damn nomination.  Kind of like the dog chasing and catching the bus and wondering what do I do with it now!  

My Grandfather, Butler Pitcock was the elected Superintendent of Schools in Mingo Co., WVa back in the 1950’s, which was my introduction to politics.  That was WVa, Democratic “Machine” politics in the most basic form and the Superintendent position was very powerful because it came with jobs.  Jobs were very important in coal fields of WVa in the 1950’s.  My Grandfather had a couple of basic rules to cover if you wanted to get into politics.  He said you needed a close group of friends and “you need to raise a little money.”  Trump has no friends that I’ve seen, so he turned to his family and paid employees, who he owns and could buy their silence/loyalty.  Thus far, his campaign has paid around $8,000,000 in expenditures to Trump Companies and family members.  I haven’t done any research on this, but my gut tells me no other campaign for President, or any campaign except maybe soon to be former congresswoman Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, FL has ever done anything similar.   (sorry, I just can’t wait to see her out of office) And he had enough money to get started and claim to be independent of the influence of lobbyists or campaign contributors.  That changed after securing the nomination, which he never expected and he started using other people’s money.  

Then his campaign starts to falter, sometimes it seems almost on purpose as he goes against his original campaign chairman and staff that at least appear to be competent and the replacements begin.  Which leads us to Roger Ailes, Richard Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. A joke compared to any other national campaign staff ever.  So what is the goal?  Immediately after compiling this latest “leadership” team, rumors surface that internally the Trump Campaign knows they are going to lose the election. So the directive goes out from Trump that all efforts will be to “monetize” the campaign.  Just see how much money they can make through the general election, but more importantly, afterwards. So what does this dream team mean?  My guess that they want to destroy the Republican Party, check, destroy Fox News, check, and replace Fox as the new voice of the extreme far right with a combination of Fox principals and Brietbart practices.  The media of the future is set and secure.  Is there money in it?  Yep, as Fox is #51 on the Forbes list of most valuable brands at 11.2 billion dollars.  Yikes!  So if they off Fox, or even partially off Fox and other conservative media outlets the money in a very short time could be “Tremendous.”  So with the newly enhanced Trump brand, which sadly will be the case win or lose, they are just waiting to get this messy election out of the way and begin their real work.  That work, based on what I’ve seen since the second debate and the latest video revelations, will include bashing the media relentlessly and the incoming President and God know who and what else along the way.  I’m suspecting Muslims, Mexicans, Blacks, Women, Liberals, Asians, Immigrants, Politicians, Microphones and oh, Republicans, will be the usual suspects or targets.  It’s a start!

As a disclaimer, I’m a Democrat, except for four years in the early 80’s when I worked for a Republican I admired greatly and wanted to be able to vote for him in the Sarasota County, FL primary elections.  Then I returned to my Mingo County, WVa roots and registration working for Democrats here in Tallahassee.  As soon as early voting starts in Leon County, FL I will vote for Hillary and not watch one single second of any type of coverage until  four weeks from today, November 8, 2016 a day that will go down in infamy!  I am not writing this as political, it is simply to put down my thoughts and impressions regarding this election.  I don’t kid myself that I will ever influence one person how to vote and I’m pretty sure that minds have been made up by now and the election is essentially over, no matter what the outcome.  And with all my heart, God Bless us all and God Bless America! May we try to heal and become better as a nation when this is over.  It will take all of us to keep America great!