Someone once told me that if you reveal your dreams they won’t come true.
I don’t really and truly believe that, but it sounds logical. I wonder, though, if the same thing applies to fantasies that race through one’s mind.
Well, in this political season — and given that I’m something of a political junkie — I’ve been having this recurring fantasy about Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Will it come true if I disclose it here? Aww, what the hey. I’ll do it anyway and hope for the best, whatever that turns out to be.
The fantasy goes something like this:
Trump is going to limp into the GOP convention in a couple of weeks. He’ll have named his vice-presidential running mate. They will have made a few campaign stops together, hoisting each other’s arms in the air and proclaiming their desire to beat the daylights out of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
Then it dawns on Trump: His poll numbers stink. He can’t keep any senior campaign staffers. No one with any standing wants to speak at his convention. Many of the party luminaries are staying away. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus cannot stand him. Neither can House Speaker Paul Ryan. Or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
He’s out of money. The big donors are keeping their hands on their wallets. Hillary Clinton has tons of cash in the bank and she’s savaging this guy like he’s never been savaged in his life.
Trump is facing the prospect of losing big this fall.
Then he decides, why do I want to plunder what’s left of my reputation?
He bails out. He quits.
He says, “I’ve had enough of this betrayal. I’ve tried to take the Republican Party into a new direction, but the ‘special interests’ are having none of it. And I get it: They run the show.”
Once you stop laughing at this scenario, I shall remind you that this campaign — particularly on the Republican side — has defied every logical theory imaginable. Trump never should have been a serious candidate, let alone the frontrunner and now presumptive nominee. But here he is — on the cusp of a major-party presidential nomination.
He brings not a scintilla of public service experience to this campaign.
What’s more, Trump is about to get trounced by a woman, of all people, in the race for the presidency. We know pretty well — yes? — what he thinks of women.
Will any of this happen? Oh, probably not.
Then again …