Well, the shitfest that was the GOP presidential nomination contest is semi-officially over. It started with 16+ candidates who in various ways screwed the pooch, some perhaps literally. Metaphorically in others.

Gone are Scott Walker, Rick Santorum and Dr. Ben Carson, whose Oscar Meyer Wiener performance as a conservative hot dog was given an NR rating for Not Real from the beginning.

The fact that any of these out-of-touch-with-reality losers gained any followers at all is a bad sign for the place we call America. But it is proof that even the worst-smelling pile of shit can attract flies.

That’s right, I called these otherwise human beings running for President piles of shit. That’s no comment on the person behind their persona, because I don’t know any of them personally. But when you put forward a political personality that is so obviously cloying for the votes of various single-voter factions, you deserve to be called a pile of shit. Because metaphorically, it’s true. Shit starts out as single items that we consume. But it comes out stinky and mixed up.

Even the seemingly stinkless Jeb Bush came out smelling like a pile of dung on a hot Florida day. His feckless attempts at confrontational politics made him look like road kill, which is also know to stink. Like death. Which is the template for the entire history of the Bush regime, which began with Prescott supporting the Nazis and hopefully ended with George W. Bush selling his soul to the 9/11 “tragedy” that was more likely a deep inter-governmental conspiracy to set the nation and the world on fire as if it were a buffalo cake.

Bush and Cheney ruined the Republican Party during their eight years in office. But they also ruined a considerable chunk of American virtues. Whenever he was called into the public eye, Dick Cheney squatted and snarled that his brand of shit was nobody’s business but his own. He attempted to rule with impunity and tried to establish the Unitary Executive so that he could pull The Georgie’s puppet strings.

And because of all this shitty behavior, no one really trusts the Republican Party to do anything, anymore. The Republican-led Congress has done nothing to change that image in eight years of racist resistance to President Barack Obama. The “do-nothing” Congress could only vote to Repeal Obamacare. 50+ times they pulled that shit. And they offered no sound or reasonable alternatives. They’re only scheduled to work 129 days in 2016 as well. Perhaps we should thank God for that.

Why does Republican America put up with this shit? Well, that’s explained easily by the fact that when you’ve repeatedly failed in national and state governance, the one remaining option is to double-down. Maybe triple-down. Maybe Triple Dog Dare You Down.

And so we’re faced with the pending potential reign of the Lord of All Shitheads, Donald Trump. That’s who the Republican Party has forwarded as their candidate for the President of the United States. Countries around the world are holding their noses as this Shitpile Roadkill of a Candidate ascends to prominence. They know a stinkfest when they see it. They’ve all been through fascism and all its cousins. Donald Trump lines up with all of those. He is the American Nazi. He’s like an Uber-Fascist, so self- absorbed and self-worshipping that he thinks his own shit doesn’t stink.

And like the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, millions of Americans with shit on their breath are eating this stuff up. They view The Donald as the anti-candidate, the man that can rescue America from its troubles.

His supporters are comprised of out-of-work white blue collar workers. They are women who adore the Donald for his wealth and his panache. They are confused Catholics and angry Lutherans and disenfranchised Jesus People looking for the Second Coming and mistaking Donald’s Golden Glow Hair for a Halo. They are people claiming to be sick of all this political shit even as it threatens to swallow them whole. The shit will only get deeper once the formerly anal-retentive Republican Convention erupts like a blowhole from the ass of the Elephant Party.

But what do I really think? I think the Republicans have gotten exactly what they deserve. With the Shit For Brains actions of conservatives that have taken place, gutting the economy several times over since the Reagan era with its Trickle Down Shit (and isn’t that an image?), it has been impossible to separate Republican shit from reality. Dr. Ben Carson was a Grade A example of that clueless brand of shit.

But you got Donald Trump instead. You chose the Bombast rather than the Iconocolast.

Truth be told, the rest of us just Thank God it wasn’t Ted Cruz. His shit was only ankle deep with that guy, but let’s be honest about all something. He dove in head first.