More Adventures in Reno

The campaign hounds have long fled Nevada, though Trump likes to use his performance here among Hispanic voters as evidence of his appeal to Latinos.
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The campaign hounds have long fled Nevada, though Trump likes to use his performance here among Hispanic voters as evidence of his appeal to Latinos. Any analysts worth his salt could tell you that this is because most Latinos don't caucus for Republicans, but cognitive dissonance and Trump are a real thing, if you haven't noticed. Reliance upon reason doesn't appear to be the way of the world of late, and the following will illuminate a couple of things relating to just this idea. If you would, dear reader, give me a moment for the following dog and pony show.

I went to get a gauge on the local feelings of Republicans in Nevada the other day during caucus. Most people weren't willing to go on record, but the basic message was, "I'm just sick and tired of being lied to" and "we haven't had a real conservative since Reagan and everyone is blowing smoke up our asses. Enough is enough."

Quit yer lyin' and get off my damned lawn.

I took the time to visit Cruz's office. There was a guy, about my age, with a cell phone and his lackey partner in the office. They appeared to be running the show. And it's not like I'm a qualified journalism major -- and I did indicate that I was non-partisan . . . but I was met with silence and derision, despite my smart-looking suit and tie. Looking around the office I saw kids that couldn't have been older than 11 making political cold calls and reading from a script, apparently for all the free pizza and 7-up stacked in the corner. What I saw inside was a sad and desperate pledge drive rivaling that of perhaps a public school bake-off or a tupperware party. I might have been more sensitive to their plight if any one of those frat boys or their moms or kids would've given me even one quote with real attribution, but they stonewalled me -- so screw 'em anyway. When it comes to political druthers and the intellectual atomic weight of that office, I may somehow have more sensibilities in my penis. I can talk about that now, thanks to The Donald.

So I went to the Republican Party headquarters, just around the corner. There were in fact some earnest elderly ladies who wished not be named. I asked why Washoe County has a propensity to switch from red to blue, but they didn't seem to know. There was a cardboard cutout of The Gipper, smiling that carved-from-driftwood smile. No one went on record. It was indicated, however, that people are often uneducated when it comes to politics and just don't understand what true Conservatism means. When asked, they were unable to elaborate on what exactly that meant and I could tell I had overstayed my welcome. So I left.

Feeling like I'd wasted my afternoon, I went directly next door, to a bar. The barkeep was affable enough but didn't like my suit and briefcase. Looking around, I noticed signed photos and uniforms of different football teams.

I noticed that Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys was right on top of a photo of the San Francisco 49ers' Steve Young. Here, we couldn't have two more rivaled teams, and it seemed they were both red and blue - though backwards. I was reaching for straws at this point but I figured I'd stretch the metaphor as far as it would take me. My associate, Zach Caruso and I, finished our Budweisers and left the dive for our car, feeling a bit underwhelmed -- until we peeked into the wide-open dumpster between the HQ and a military recruiting office.

Here's where it gets weird. Inside, there was a topless trophy, red, white and blue, with a ton of folders around it -- and undried, untrimmed marijuana. This broken trophy surrounded by dope in the parking lot that's shared by the Republican HQ and the army recruiting center also held the trophy holder's medical records and over one hundred recruits' social security numbers. There was a lot of personal information, up to and including medical records. Some jackass forgot to shred it or bother to lock or even close the dumpster -- allowing two ne're do wells such as myself and Caruso to just idle by and discover all the nuts and bolts we'd ever need to either blackmail or altogether steal the identity of any number of our soldiers.

Now, I spent some time in the Middle East and understand perhaps a little more than your average war-mongering, hate-filled Orientalist. Whatever the case, I support our troops. And I get to wondering, why would the shared dumpster between a recruiting office and the Republican HQ drop the ball on their boys so miserably? I'll editorialize here and say that I think Trump is a hammered piece of dog shit and I would shed no tears if he were to just disappear. But it may well be that in their wild attempts at stopping such an anti-establishment ass like Trump, The Party and even the military lost site, leaving an open dumpster of information that could have so easily harmed the very people they prop up and praise.

Maybe the whole country has dropped the ball. Maybe we're just getting what we deserve, as "democracies" do -- save those soldiers, of course.

I called the local paper to get someone on the story, but I haven't heard anything about it. I figured as much. So I went ahead and saw to it that some proof was preserved, far away. I'm waiting for them to get back to me on this one.

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