News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Feb. 1, 2019: I was inspired last Sunday night watching 60 Minutes …
In fact, I had a revelation if not quite a cosmic experience and you my Dear Readers will benefit dramatically as a result …
I am going to begin a reoccurring segment in Trump’s America starting this episode and periodically over the Presidential 2020 campaign which is of course clearly already underway two years before the election.
Once again, here in Trump’s America, I will feature something you will not find elsewhere. A new series titled IDIOT CANDIDATES, that will focus on individuals who are running or might well run for President who stand out from the dozens of other because of their special brand of IDIOCY.
It can be because of who they are, or what they believe, or what they represent as a symbol for something. Most will combine all these features.
First up in fairness because he the inspiration for this series is …
HOWARD SCHULTZ, billionaire founder of Starbucks.
I need to add an ASTERICK here because the original idiot candidate is Donald Trump, but he does not qualify because he is already President.
This series is about other “new” idiots who want to become President in 2020.
Howard Schultz is most of all a SYMBOL, in fact he is multiple symbols in my view of what we do NOT need in a Presidential candidate in 2020. For starters, for being a blatant liar not unique to him of course, but it is very much key to his expected candidacy, which makes it very important.
Let’s start with his background. Every candidate who ever ran for President shares a common narrative of their so-called troubled childhood. The very first obstacle they overcame. Reality is not a factor here. What is important is what you can get away with and childhood is a big opportunity.
President Obama did it very, very well for the 2008 election. Barack Obama had to “overcome” the childhood torture of living in heavenly Hawaii, going to school with the islands’ elites, hanging out with all the rich kids smoking pot and playing basketball after school. No part time job for this “poor” kid!
The media rarely digs deep into those childhood experiences and if they do there is usually very little factual information available. So most candidates and their advisors have a field day with their earliest year in constructing a narrative about their early years that will be most appealing to voters.
The problem here for Howard Schultz is his love of writing about himself and Starbucks. He has already “co-written” three books on the subject. Unfortunately, when Howard wrote his first book about himself back in 1999, he was not focused on running for President someday.
Back then he described his early years and his father in rather bucolic terms. Growing up in Canarsie, Brooklyn being fortunate enough to live in public housing he contrasted with the current reality known as the Projects. When he was growing up in the 1950s in his first book, he describes it as “Back then the Projects were not a frightening place but a large leafy compound with a dozen eight story brick buildings all brand new. The elementary school PS 272 was right on the grounds of the Project complete with playground, basketball could and paved school yard.”
He does add he was not proud of living in the Projects. As for his father, all his memories in his first book are very positive. Schultz fondly remembered playing basketball with his father. He also notes that his father took him to “countless” Yankees games during his youth. Not a word anywhere about an abusive father – just the opposite – an admiring view of his working-class dad.
Now we come to his third book about himself and Starbucks, 20 years later as he prepares to run for President, a book just published this week in tandem with his prime time interview on 60 Minutes last Sunday.
NOW Howard Schultz’ father is some kind of a monster who beat young Howard repeatedly and his most vivid memory of growing up is of his father savagely beating him in a bathtub and Howard watching his blood flood down the drain as he let the water cascade over him as he suffered abuse.
SYMPATHY for Howard that he overcame this abuse! How timely!
The much bigger LIE has to do with why Schultz says he is running as an independent candidate not a Democrat in the primaries, even though he admits to being a life-long Democrat.
Here is what Howard said on 60 Minutes: It is because we need a President who will appeal to both Democrats and Republicans and Independents and he can achieve that goal by running as an independent candidate who buys his way on to the ballet in all 50 states, and DC, etc.
LIAR, LIAR Howard Schultz and his book on fire!
In case you don’t know, Schultz is planning to run as an independent for only ONE reason and no other – because he knows he cannot win the Democratic Party nomination as a super-wealthy billionaire who will spend $500 MILLION of his fortune or more if need be to try and BUY the nomination.
What he is really hiding with his LIES is that Schultz is just another BORED super-rich guy who already owns anything money can buy who now wants the ultimate PRIZE he thinks his $$$ will buy – The American Presidency.
What is the real “value” (sic) of his likely run for President in 2020? Yes he has all the money he needs and organizational skills building Starbucks into a huge money machine that he can and will get on the ballot everywhere.
What will be the result? NOT that he will ever win the Presidency but might well get just enough Democrat and Independent votes – NOT Republican votes – so against all the odds – yes elects Donald Trump President again.
WHY???? For just one reason – to feed Howard Schultz’ monster EGO while telling the rest of us if he can’t be President, he will use his fortunate to try and ensure NO Democrat is elected President in 2020.
It’s time here to remind us of the legal SCAM created by the “great” Supreme Court when they ruled 5-4 that it is UN-Constitutional to put any restrictions at all on how much any individual can spend on a campaign for office for themselves or their children. It would restrict THEIR free speech!
Really???? Not quite as horrendous as all the Supreme Court decisions before the Civil War that upheld Slavery as Constitutional, but this ruling is a close second. Everyone else who is not rich can and does as makes sense have restrictions on how much campaign cash, they can take from any one source but the rich especially the Super Rich get a very special exception because they are so rich they don’t need other peoples’ money to run.
That is what is so, so UN-Constitutional unfair & unequal laws for the Rich.
The result is that idiots like Howard Shultz have the POWER to undermine the entire election process if they want and produce BS election results.
To add more insult to a fatal injury, Schutz is exactly the kind of President we do not need in 2020. As proven in his 60 Minutes interview, Howard is rather happy with the Status Quo. Like other rich and powerful Americans, he just wants a “kinder gentler” version of reality Democrats & Republicans working “together” sucking the life out of America for 90% of us.
President Howard Schultz will do so with his fantasy; he will get Democrat and Republican power brokers to work together to SCREW the rest of us. Schultz is only slightly critical of the Trump tax cuts and get this, Schultz opposes universal health care ‘Medicare for all’ for all Americans.
Most of all, Schultz tells 60 Minutes he does not have many fixed views.
This super rich guy who is one of life’s big “lottery winners” does not have a Clue that blatant INEQUALITY is the scourge of America. He wants an America where we are all “baristas” happily working behind the counters of America while the Chosen Few like him reap most of the rewards.
Howard Schultz … LIAR. Howard Schultz – UNQUALIFIED to be President. As a satirical tribute to Howard I am including some of the lyrics from Bob Dylan’s song “IDIOT Wind” in honor of his potential candidacy:
Someone’s got it in for me
They’re planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out quick
But when they will I can only guess
People see me all the time
And they just can’t remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas
Images and distorted facts
Even you, yesterday
You had to ask me where it was at
I couldn’t believe after all these years
You didn’t know me better than that
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the back roads headin’ south
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe.
Who will be the next IDIOT Candidate to be featured here?
I don’t know yet but guaranteed there will be others.
(This series dedicated in honor of the late Liu Xiaobo & Jamal Khashoggi)
EDITOR’S NOTE: About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.