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The Battle Of The Crazies: Do Sevco Trump The Republicans On Insanity?

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Click on the picture to begin our look at how the two compare …

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Over the last few months, everyone interested in political issues has watched in jaw-dropping disbelief as the loud-mouthed Donald Trump has dominated the Republican Party primaries. He now looks nearly certain to be the party’s nominee for the Presidential Election in November.

If he wins that dubious honour he might well be the worst candidate for that office ever.

His approval numbers amongst non-Republicans are in the toilet.

It’s almost inconceivable that he would win a general election, but this hasn’t stopped his party’s voters from flocking to his cause in a bid to make him their official standard bearer.

And I realised the other day – as he launched into a sexist tirade against his key rival’s wife – that none of his behaviour would look out of place at Ibrox.

He’s a billionaire, and that’s exactly the kind of thing their fans would love him for, but more than that … so many of his opinions and ideas and so much of his conduct would fit right into their ethos.

It begs a question which forms the basis of this piece; who are the stupider people? Republican Trump supporters or Sevco fans?

What unites these two seemingly disparate groupings?

What points of commonality do they have?

Here are five reasons why they’re pretty similar in outlook … and why choosing which of them is the dumbest has proven to be such a difficult task …

Republicans And Sevco Fans Are Very Good At Denying Reality

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One of the key condemnations of the Republican Party is its ability to deny or bend the truth; whether it’s lying about the records of their political opponents, refusing to accept evidence of global warming, blaming the poor for the banking crisis or continuing to insist that American foreign policy has made the world a better place … no other political party on Earth is quite so inclined towards creating their own version of reality.

Sevco fans have the same problem; everything from pretending they have no problem with sectarianism to their indulgences like the Survival and Victim myths, down to their off-the-wall belief that Scottish football has “suffered in their absence” and that, in fact, Armageddon happened after all, to their view of themselves as a “huge club” with off-the-radar worldwide support … these folk are superb at making the reality they want, rather than living in the world that is.

Much of the American media calls what the Republicans do “living in the bubble.” They get criticism for it and commentators from across the spectrum (except for certain right wing talk show hosts who are impervious to reason) nail them on it time and time again … but they persist with it anyway and tailor their entire political outlook around it.

Obama won two elections because of it, and Hillary Clinton looks like she’ll be President next, with no end in sight to the Democrat’s stranglehold on the Oval Office.

No-one in the Scottish media ever calls Sevco, or its supporters, on their penchant for denying reality; in fact, they encourage the madness and the stupidity and it has cost the club since its inception in 2012, much as it destroyed Rangers.

The media atmosphere both explains, and excuses, the Sevco fans for their continued behaviour.

To the rest of us it seems abnormal and even demented, but “the bubble” they live in encompasses much of our press as well as the governing bodies … so you can hardly hold it against them, surrounded, as they are, by equally stupid people.

The Republicans have no such excuse. They are clearly the dumber in this case.

One point to the GOP.

They Both Have Crazy Leaders & Flat Out Insane Supporters

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The GOP is full of nut-bars.

This is an accepted fact for many Americans and for observers across the world.

Amongst its leadership ranks are full-on crazy people such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Ted Cruz (the other most likely nominee in this race), Mike Huckabee and, of course, The Donald himself. This is not a coincidence; as the party itself has slipped further right, led there by supporters who are, themselves, often drawn from the ranks of southern hick towns and insane asylums, it’s only natural that the leadership should come to resemble that.

From the Tea Party to the NRA to the Christian fundamentalists and everything from climate change deniers to The Birthers, the GOP’s “rational wing” has been shrinking even as the lunatic fringe continues to expand. It’s a dangerous time to be on the left in American politics; a lot of these people, after all, have access to guns and as some of them are possessed with the messianic conviction of suicide bombers it seems like a matter of time before random violence becomes part and parcel of American political discourse.

But it hasn’t happened yet, in spite of a toxic atmosphere.

Trump rallies, where protestors have been assaulted and even members of the press have been man-handled, are the general exception to the rule. Most Republican Party gatherings don’t wind up like that, but that might just be because the rednecks can’t afford the $10,000’s necessary to attend some of them,

Sevco’s leaders have included the likes of David Murray, Charles Green, Craig Whyte and Dodgy Dave King.

All were feted by the media, and others, including Alistair “No Surrender” Johnston still are.

Which is to say nothing for their absolutely insane supporter’s reps, like Chris Graham, who lasted five minutes on the board before his bigoted tweets were brought to the attention of the world at large. This doesn’t even touch on the rank and file, amongst whom are full-on crazy people who have taken their views a step beyond shrieking at the TV.

Whether in the guise of their current club or the old one, these people go to extreme lengths.

Death threats, intimidation of journalists, the sending of bombs to people’s houses, attacks on people they don’t like along with reams and reams and reams of material in fanzines and websites which is of a violent or threatening nature … anything goes, and it has resulted in the passing of laws, football banning orders, arrests and convictions.

Bear in mind, the Republicans are battling the Democrats for the future of their country.

That’s as big a deal as it gets.

Whilst a Democratic Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords, was shot (along with over a dozen others, seven of whom died) by a nutcase called Jared Lee Loughner, who had clearly listened to far too much Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, this kind of thing is rare.

Sevco/Rangers fans, on the other hand, frequently erupt in irrational fury over the future and history of a mere football team.

They have a long history of this stuff going back years.

Rangers are the only club ever to win a European trophy and be unable to celebrate in the appropriate fashion because of rioting supporters, and in 2008 they turned Manchester into a battlefield.

Their outriders, the foot soldiers of Loyalism, riot every year in the Six Counties, during the marching season, and “celebrated” the No vote in the referendum by attacking random individuals on the streets of Glasgow, not to mention fighting with the police in George Square.

Sevco fans, cut from the same cloth, embrace all of this and more.

When it comes to full on craziness, they take some beating.

One point to the Peepul.

Both Sides Have A History Of Bigotry And Racism

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The Republican Party has become the world’s most successful electoral force due to the abhorrent tactics of a small group of people at its core, who made a conscious choice, years ago, to embrace the worst elements of the American electorate.

As difficult as this is to believe for modern political students, it was the Democratic Party who were once the key supporters of segregation in American society.

The Republican Party was actually formed to tackle the issue of slavery, and it was a Republican President who outlawed it.

Democrats, on the other hand, had passed laws making it harder for poor people and minorities to vote … this doesn’t sit well with liberals these days, but it’s a fact.

All that changed under John F Kennedy, and after him Lyndon Johnston, who changed their party’s legacy on these matters and flipped American politics on its head. When Johnston got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, it was actually supported by more Republican legislators than Democrats; it also infuriated the south.

Johnston knew it too, but he did it anyway and seemed to be vindicated when, in the 1964 election he won in a landslide.

Only five states – all of them in the south – voted for his opponent, Barry Goldwater.

But the seed was planted and a new group of Republican strategists, led by Karl Rove, Lee Atwater and a young George W. Bush, saw an opportunity.

Whilst the Civil Rights Act pushed minorities into the Democratic Party tent, these guys saw a way to make the Republican Party the representatives of “white America.”

They grabbed it and the party never looked back.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Their campaigns from then onwards have become increasingly fixated with issues of race, and when Trump made his spectacular and bigoted announcement that he would, if elected President, build a wall across the Mexican border and ban Muslims from entering the US that was music to a certain class of Republican voter’s ears.

Sevco, birthed as it was from the DNA of Rangers, came complete with every issue and defect of character that haunted that club for years.

The latent sectarianism of its own supporters has become one of the defining characteristics of the NewCo; from their love of The Billy Boys to their abhorrent chant of religious and social supremacy We Are the Peepul, some of its fans continue to taint and contaminate the whole brand.

This is a tough one to judge.

But the Republican Party’s embrace of racial attitudes and policies was the work of a few nasty individuals, and is partly maintained out of political expediency.

Rangers was virtually built on an appeal to sectarian attitudes, and Sevco is maintained by the promotion and continuation of the same.

It’s that historical consistency that nails it.

I have to give this one to the Sevconians.

Another point to The Peepul.

They Both Have A History Of Accumulating Power And Using It For Corrupt Ends

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We know that The Republican Party are the absolute lords of corruption, and corruption, like rain, gets everywhere, and finds every crack in the pavement.

With the enormity of the money that flows through Republican Party ranks – their political action committees will spend upwards of $1 billion during this election cycle – it would be hard to keep their hands clean. That cash is coming in from big business, and the top 1% of earners, and it will grease a lot of wheels.

The Republican Party is bought and paid for.

So too is the Democratic Party; both are so dependent on rich donors that it’s unreal.

American politics runs on money, and so everything from the Presidency down, through the Senate, the Congress, even the Supreme Court … all of it has been tainted by cold hard cash, and due to their control of both Houses, and their recent control of the Court, Republican political influence is felt in every corner.

Their political influence comes about partly because of their alliances, even the crazy ones that I mentioned earlier, like the NRA, big pharmaceuticals, tobacco and the arms industry. It enables them to propose and block legislation like few other political parties in the world.

That this legislation usually favours those same groups isn’t really surprising.

If Donald Trump or Ted Cruz wins election to the White House in November they will probably preside over a Congressional and Senate majority, they’ll be able to tip the balance of the Supreme Court and wield the kind of power America hasn’t seen since from the right in decades.

There was a time when Rangers pretty much ran every major institution in Scottish football, from the SFA to the Players Union.

They had massive media support, when the press was still hugely influential and could dictate the level, tone and scope of the debate.

They also had tremendous financial muscle (albeit we now know where it came from.)

This allowed them to dominate the national sport at every single level, and that led to the inevitable corruption which we’re only now beginning to uncover and roll back.

But here’s the thing; none of it saved them.

When the banking crisis came swirling in on the winds it left behind nothing but wreckage in the Murray empire. Lloyds put the pressure on him to sell. The whole club was handed over to Whyte for a quid, and when they were knocked out of Europe and the need for cash became over-riding, no-one came to their rescue.

Although the SFA and the SPL tried to shoehorn their NewCo into first the top flight and then the second tier, they were rebuffed.

The howling media campaign in their favour was ignored as the Internet Bampots grew in strength and influence.

The institution David Murray said was the “second biggest after the church” was liquidated and their reanimated corpse had little real authority or influence, or found that what they had was worthless.

They still struggle with that realisation today, and although the SFA and SPFL are gutless beyond measure they’ve found that influence there isn’t the be all and end all of things, and the limitations of it are clear. With Dodgy Dave King in charge there’s not much appetite out there for letting them get too powerful within the sport, and before long reformers will emerge to make sure they never have the kind of power they once had again.

This one isn’t even close.

The Republican Party won’t win the coming election, so their strength isn’t going to peak this time, but don’t rule out one of their crazy, corrupt candidates winning in 2020. Their influence is still enormous.

Sevco, on the other hand, is about as strong as the Mr Muscle guy.

Real power doesn’t flow through their fingers any more than big money does.

This point definitely belongs to the GOP.

Both Sides Talk A Good Game On Deficit Reduction, But They Can’t Stop Spending Money

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When it comes to talking a good game on spending, The Republican Party have been over the course more often than anyone.

During every single election cycle in the last 30 years they’ve run on a ticket advocating reductions in spending. And every single time but one (George Bush Snr, and he lost office for it) they’ve found pet projects on which to blow the deficit all to Hell and gone.

Whether that’s wars, or tax cuts for the wealthy, or deregulation of the financial markets to let people gamble freely and evade paying their share … the Republicans always find ways to get the money where they think it belongs.

Oh sure, they are perfectly content looking at every social program on the books and trimming them with a chainsaw … Sure Start, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security … all those “liberal obsessions” which actually make a difference to people’s lives and help lift those at the bottom out of the deepest poverty … but for every penny they save another five goes out to their friends, so even as the bottom part of society loses a little something every time the top 1% gets richer.

The most obvious madness is over defence spending.

The United States military is bigger than the next ten countries combined. Yet Republican’s won’t countenance cuts in that area; anyone who tries is accused of unpatriotic behaviour. Indeed, the notion that Obama has “gutted the military” is so universal amongst Republicans that every primary candidate considers it a staple of their campaign. It’s patently false, but the cash continues to be lavished on an area which absolutely does not need it.

Sound familiar?

Yes, because at Ibrox we can also find deficit deniers.

Theirs is the second biggest budget in the country. Theirs is the second highest turnover. They have a playing squad worth something like four or five times that of their nearest rival aside from us. And they’ve already seen their predecessor club die because of debts.

But at Ibrox they are simply addicted to spending money.

They run up deficits like Victoria Beckham loose with a Gold Amex card, and every single year they publish a set of accounts where the chairman, whomever that is, speaks about how the objective is to “run on a sustainable basis” … yet always with the caveat that they’ll spend to get there.

Their current level of debt is £30 million and rising again, but they are still promising “war chests” to Warburton.

They have to borrow to keep on the lights, but still they call it “investment”.

They tell the press constantly that their players are good enough to “challenge for the title” but always the fans and the manager want more, and King keeps on promising them they’ll get it.

Rangers was the club that entered administration and, on the very same day, tried to sign a player!

I mean, that sums up the sheer institutional insanity that killed them, and the one that’s DNA was allowed to infect the NewCo by virtue of having the name.

Walter Smith brazenly said that the club would always make a loss, and Dave King took the reigns at Sevco talking about “over investment” in a manner that suggests no lessons have been learned.

This is a tough one.

Sevco and the Republicans are both victim to this same madness, but there’s one crucial difference.

No matter what I think of their politics, and the choices they make, the Republicans do, at least, try and balance spending with spending cuts … at Sevco they never do.

The taps are always on, and no-one has the good sense to turn them off.

The point goes to Sevco.

So Sevco Is Crazier Than The Republican Party, Then?

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In a word, yes.

Between historical bigotry, crazy people with a tendency towards violence and their deficit denial they’re streets ahead.

Even when it comes to the concept of “living in the bubble” they only lost that point because our media encourages their madness.

The only area where the GOP has a clear advantage now is in the area of power, and their ability to use that power for their own corrupt ends.

The SFA might still bow and scrape to the Ibrox operation, but when Sevco runs into the rocks, as Rangers did, no-one is going to write them a cheque to bail them out. In fact, the SFA’s attitude towards Sevco is what allowed men like Whyte, Green, Ashley and now King, to get their hands on the club in the first place.

And in the long run, that’s not helped them, has it?

When it comes to the Battle of the Crazies …

It’s game, set and match to the lunatic fringe at Ibrox.

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