We Wanted A Street Fighter; We Got Our Wish!

Several times over the past decade I have derided the gentlemanly manner in which Republican candidates have approached campaigning, whether it is on a local, state or national level.

I see politics as a blood sport, not a gentlemanly – or ladylike – contest, whether the candidates are running for president or alternate for a municipal commission. I understand human nature and at some level in all of our psyches we want to win, regardless of how "nice" we try to be in public.

But the Republican Party for some time now has been enforcing a "nice guy" mantra where GOP candidates are to refrain from taking off the gloves and smacking the daylights out of their opponents, regardless of how vicious that opponent may be. Somewhere along the line the general public was supposed to attach itself to the anti-bullying point of view that has made total wimps out of generations of school kids who are blindsided by reality when they get out in the working world and don't know how to defend themselves.

The nice guy approach didn't work and I am not the only person who feels this way. In fact I was reminded of some of my earlier columns recently when conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh brought the subject up on his show. Limbaugh made the point that out here in the real world some of us had been calling for street fighters and brawlers and now we have it.

For instance, when John McCain was getting slapped around by Barack Obama in 2008 I decried his Marquis de Queensbury approach writing about it here.

Four years later, I wrote about it here when Mitt Romney was facing off against Obama in 2012.

Unfortunately my predictions came true in both races and when all was said and done the GOP "nice guys" were down on the pavement, crying about their opponent being "unfair," while Obama and his cronies were dancing over them singing "I won, I won, I won," and taking the country right down the proverbial drain.

In both cases the GOP candidates put up a clean and "gentlemanly" fight, and in both cases they got their asses kicked. In Romney's case, he lost because Republicans didn't come out to vote for him, even though Obama amassed about 4 million fewer votes in 2012 than he had in his 2008 victory over McCain.

Donald J. Trump

Then came Donald J. Trump. He let the world and the political establishment know from the very start that he wasn't playing games and he would not fight clean or even fair. He started out his first debate telling Rand Paul that he didn't even belong on the same stage and that was one of gentlest things he said in the primary season.

He spent the next several months kicking his opponents, numbering 16 at the beginning, off the stage, one by one. In the end, he stood alone, victorious, ready to take on Democrat Hillary Clinton and her behind-the-scene partners, establishment Republicans who are outraged that the rank-and-file haven't toed the party line and selected their fair-haired candidate, as well as the entirety of the US media establishment.

Throughout the primaries there was not one television network or major print news outlet that covered his campaign fairly or accurately. Even before he vanquished his last Republican primary opponent, the media was trumpeting alleged "polls" that showed he would be far behind Hillary Clinton if she was successful in stealing the Democrat nomination.

From the beginning the media – through use of their fake polls – attempted to direct the primary voters to their preferred candidates – Clinton and Jeb Bush – and from the beginning Republican and Independent voters told the media and the establishment to pound sand and voted overwhelmingly for Trump. It has since been proven that those "polls" were as bogus as the current crop of garbage that form the core for any print article or electronic segment.

Trump, for his part, led his supporters from the front, telling the unified media and GOP establishment lackeys that he wasn't taking their crap, wasn't knuckling under to their threats and attacks and was going to do his own campaign, his way. And here we are, a week from the election with even the bogus pollsters cracking and reporting that the race is "tightening," and that in many states Trump is even ahead.

What a pant load, Trump has been ahead all along.

Trump got to this point by sticking steadfastly to the street fighters' credo, that of continuing the fight and never backing down, even when you get hit hard, even when you get bloodied, even when you get knocked down. Whatever the other side throws at you, you take it, shake it off and keep fighting.

Because to a true street fighter, the only real loss comes from backing down, wimping out, begging for mercy when you still had fight left in you.

Trump has of course been bloodied, what with the combined forces of the media, the Democrats, and the so-called "elitist" Republican establishment aligned against him and launching coordinated assaults against his candidacy. But each time he came back swinging, and therein lies the 'secret' to his overwhelming popularity.

He didn't wimp out, he took the shots and even on the rare occasions when he was rocked, he came right back. Joe Biden can talk all he wants about being a bad ass but he can only dream of possessing a fraction of Trump's true toughness.

In less than a week most Americans will go to the polls and it will surprise no one if Trump comes out the victor. The Clinton machine is still trying to find something, anything, that will halt the Trump juggernaut, but time is preciously short and they have shot all their ammo.

The elitists called for Trump to step down in early October when a putrid little media ass kisser who secretly taped Trump making some unflattering comments more than a decade ago, released the tape to the Clinton campaign. He did it in the summer, but Clinton held on to it and used it for her "October surprise."

However, the real surprise came when Trump stood up, apologized for his past indiscretion and kept right on swinging. And his popularity grew.

The total lack of understanding of the real nature of the beast was never more apparent than the drivel emanating from GOP establishment types who believed Trump would meekly step down. That is what they would have done, but that's also why wimps of that nature never actually run for anything because their precious little feelings would get hurt in the first moments of the engagement, and they'd run home crying, jump into bed and pull the covers over their head until the monsters went away.

But Trump? He hung tough and sure enough, the media was finally forced to confront the fact that their attacks only made Trump stronger.

Now, Hillary Clinton is backed into a corner, taking massive shot after massive shot. Her legs are buckling, her supporters are trying to help her by attacking Trump from outside the ring, and yet, every day she sags a bit closer to the deck. I seriously doubt that she has the wherewithal to find some kind of inner strength to mount one last successful counterattack.

Should Trump win it all next Tuesday, and I believe he will, there is one thing his enemies should remember. Street fighters will fight all alone if necessary, because that is what street fighters do.

But they also remember who backed them up and who stood against them when the fight was on. Trump will make good on his promises to reunite America in an atmosphere of greatness. But at the same time, he won't forget the candy asses who stabbed him in the back from the day he declared his candidacy to this very moment.

Frankly, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.