I’ve only been in a fight twice in my life; the real kind, with fists being thrown and all that.  But I can tell you that, when it happens, a lot of things fade away.  Whether the other person is white or black or asian, tall or short, a conservative or a liberal, when they start throwing punches, the only thing that’s really on your mind is to either dodge them as fast as you can or start throwing some of your own.  Donald Trump is throwing punches, and he’s throwing them at America.  And, just like the little runt at the bar, we all laughed at first; until we realized he was serious, and the punches started to land.  And now, I don’t care if he’s a Republican or a Democrat or from outer space; he’s a bully, and a jerk, and I want him thrown out of the bar.  Donald Trump is not a problem because he is a Republican.  I’ve listened to Marco Rubio speak and I don’t agree with him, wouldn’t vote for him, but if he won, I’d shake his hand and say “good game”.  Marco Rubio represents a genuine viewpoint; one I respect even as I respectfully disagree.

Donald Trump is not a viewpoint any more than a thrown punch is a viewpoint.  He is just raw physical violence.  His own expression is a big middle finger to the United States of America.  Oddly, nothing has ever made me feel as patriotic as Donald Trump.  Much in the way that you might criticize your brother in private, but you’d jump into the fray if anybody tried anything, I feel - for the first time in my life - compelled to throw my hat into the ring of politics, just to make sure that guy is a sideline to history.  I don’t care anymore if it’s Hillary or Bernie or even Michael Bloomberg - it just cannot, cannot be Trump.

And it’s not because I’m afraid of the policies he would institute if he was president.  I’m afraid of what the presidency would become.  This is not a fictional TV show.  We are not the West Wing, or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Donald Trump is not Zaphod Beeblebrox.  This is real life.  We laugh at other countries with ridiculous puppet dictators and goofballs in charge; now we might become one.  I am afraid for the death of reasonable discourse.  It worries me greatly that we are changing our decision-making process.  You know, as sure as we sit here, that if he was to win - honestly, even if he came close but lost - we would see a bunch of idiot copycats, with no message except “I hate everything except you, dear voter.”  I’m sure you have all heard the advice that, when you’re on a first date, or at a first business meeting, you should look at how the other person treats the waitstaff.  People who are jerks are jerks all the time.  They don’t turn it on and off.  Donald Trump would be a jerk to other world leaders, to other Senators and Representatives.  He would appoint jerks to his cabinet, and a jerk to the Supreme Court.  Ideology aside, he surrounds himself with idiots.  He is the Lance Armstrong of politics; there’s a veneer of respectability, but underneath it turns out all there is at the center is a coward and a bully.  Except that the consequences are so much higher than a bike race.

The time will come, soon, when it will become obvious who the best challenger is to Trump’s idiotic rise.  When that moment happens, it is absolutely incumbent on every free-thinking, right-thinking American to come together to support that person, and to educate people that we do not want a bully as President.