Idiots of the World, Unite.

It's 2016. That's Sarah Palin on stage with Donald Trump. He's leading a major party's nomination battle for President. She is still a relevant endorsement to help him get there. He says she will have a role in his administration. This is real life. This actually happened yesterday in beautiful little Ames, Iowa (I've been there, it really is a nice town).

My head hurts.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand what her supporters hear when she speaks. I hear the ramblings of a lunatic, and it defies any logic I have as to how she ran a state for half of a term. She has publicly discredited herself with crazy statements, and shown both a lack of knowledge and desire to learn about the world. Her presence on the 2008 Republican ticket discredited John McCain, and put the final nail into his political coffin in his lifetime quest to be President. Her speeches make my head hurt. I can't believe people listen to her and think they hear a national leader.

I guess in some ways, this is full circle for the GOP. In 2008, John McCain's advisors apparently didn't like the Lindsey Grahams, Tom Ridges, or Joe Liebermans of the world that McCain wanted to consider for Vice-President, and so the fateful decision was made to put this woman on the national ticket as a "viable" option to be a heartbeat from the Presidency. We got such gems as "drill baby, drill," and other intellectual gold from her, and she unleashed a wave of anti-intellectualism that lead to the Tea Party, to the entire 2012 primary mess the Republicans had, and now a 2016 Presidential race where Donald Trump and Ted Cruz spend every day trying to "out crazy" each other. Of course we would see Sarah re-emerge less than two weeks before Iowa, the Godmother of the GOP's crazy movement wishing to endorse the ring leader of the 2016 circus. It is fitting that in a race where a reality-TV star and billionaire is leading, Palin would endorse him, and he would say she has a role in his future White House. This is how that is supposed to end. You unleash a Palin, you end up with a Trump. You unleash the Tea Party, you end up with a Cruz. This is real world consequences for real world actions.

At this point, it's hard to describe the Republican Party as much more than a circus freak-show, a place where anti-intellectualism is now thriving. "Caribou Barbie" is back on the scene, reminding us of how the GOP found a way to get worse than it was in the days of Dick Cheney. That didn't seem possible then. I think we all wish it hadn't been possible, now.