Are you surprised at the staying power of Donald Trump?
I am. I thought he was going to be a one-trick pony who blitzed the talk shows and fired a few insults and faded into reality TV bliss.
But after winning in New Hampshire and South Carolina - a political double-dip on par with winning the lottery and "Jeopardy!" in back-to-back weeks - Trump is clearly here to stay.
Jay GreesonChiefly among the reasons for Trump's static-cling stickiness in the political landscape is our populace's exhaustion with our current government.
Period.
Trump offers very little in the way of solutions, but he offers a smorgasbord in terms of different.
Rightly or wrongly, we are in a place where most voters believe different is better, the grass over there is greener and change is needed.
Want an example?
OK, this newspaper reported Saturday that two female Democratic state lawmakers proposed a bill that would require men to meet a number of thresholds to get a prescription for medication to help them with erectile dysfunction. It has been called the "Viagra bill" by certain circles of the media, and well, that sounds fair.
At this point, we'll allow everyone to clear their heads and giggle at whatever joke pops to mind. (Yes, we are going to try to play this straight. That said, our editor asked us to keep this short. Wait, is that out of bounds?)
So the bill - pitched by Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, and Sen. Sara Kyle, D-Memphis - would put in a variety of hurdles before men in the state could get a little blue pill to help with what has to be more than a little problem on the embarrassing scale.
The crazy checklist is long. (Sorry.)
Folks wanting the medication would have to get multiple letters from their doctor on a variety of items, wait 48 hours before getting the prescription filled, have a notarized testimony from a previous partner that the condition exists, and undergo a heart test to make sure there are no dangers.
So it doesn't take that long to see through the ruse presented by Jones and Kyle.
The checklist is not that different from a lot of the abortion restrictions put forth by the hard-charging right-wing conservatives. In truth, as crazy as this bill seems, the Tennessee duo deserves some creative points for spinning the narrative in a different direction.
But that pandering and utter waste of taxpayers' time and money completely re-enforces and rekindles the flame driving the Trump engine.
Yes, in the political sphere, candidates are supposed to be everything to everyone, but lost in the background noise is the simple fact that very real problems affect huge portions of the country.
Maybe Jones and Kyle are the Butch and Sundance of political social commentary. Maybe they have decided a long solution to a societal problem is not as important as an emotional one. Maybe the depths with which our county, state and country have fallen are unsolvable without a checklist for a governmental intrusion between patient and doctor.
And maybe that's the point.
So it goes. If you wonder how we got to the point that Donald Trump is frontrunner on the ballot to lead the free world come November, well, it's not as hard a question as it may seem.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com. His "Right to the Point" column runs on A2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.