Todd Courser boasted about his lead
 in last year’s 82nd District state House
 race, which he eventually won.

In his clownish attempt to defend his actions by ignoring
iron-clad evidence against him, state Rep. Todd Courser has become the Donald Trump of the Michigan Republican Party.
Courser (R-Lapeer) was caught on tape plotting a
ridiculous scheme featuring allegations of gay sex in order to hide his
extramarital affair with fellow “family values” legislator Rep. Cindy Gamrat
(R-Plainwell). Yet, he claims now that a “ring” of blackmailing Republicans –
the Lansing “mafia”, including his three former aides — were out to destroy
his political career.

In his rambling, 27-minute audio response to the sex
scandal and cover-up released today, Courser seems oblivious to the fact that
his attempted smokescreen suggests a detachment from reality. In Trump-like
fashion, Courser ignores the obvious – his taped conversation with an aide that
is filled with self-incrimination – and he weaves a story out of whole cloth that
attempts to victimize himself.

Much like Trump, Courser betrays and berates his allies
when the tables turn and he is holding a losing hand. In this case, Courser
claims that his aides – Ben Graham, Keith Allard and Joshua Cline – were using
their knowledge of the affair to engage in a plot to blackmail him and force
him to resign. The lawmaker also said on today’s taped message that the aides
were “incompetent.” Trump probably would have added the word “losers.”

The staffers, working jointly for Courser and Gamrat, were
loyal aides and two had received the maximum pay raise allowed shortly before
the professional relationships fell apart and eventually they quit or were
forced out. If they were traitors, why were they drawn in to participate in the
Courser-created cover-up?

The audio tape created by Graham clearly sounds like a
cornered Courser trying to justify the over-the-top coverup to a sympathetic though
skeptical ally, as the lawmaker speaks in father-figure tones to the young
aide.

“Work with me, Benjamin,” Courser said at one point.

He crassly described the plan as a slow “controlled burn,”
designed to jumble up facts and fiction.

The parallels to Trump’s stabs at downplaying his crude
remarks and flip-flops of the past are undeniable. Many of the GOP presidential
frontrunner’s controversial comments are available on audio or video tape, yet
he claims now that the media has targeted him, or that political correctness is
being foisted upon him.

Trump has trouble with the truth. And when facts are
presented to him, he doubles down and lashes out. (i.e. birtherism, praise for
the Clintons, Mexican “rapists,” McCain’s heroism, his current feud with Fox
News and Megyn Kelly).
His rationalizations make no sense. Unless
you have a following that believes anything and everything you say.

Similarly, Courser talked on tape about “inoculating the
herd” of tea party followers by creating a so-called “false flag” diversion
that would make his supporters believe that he was targeted by outrageous
rumors. On the audio recording, when an incredulous aide objects to the phony
email Courser created, claiming the legislator was a drug-addicted pervert who
engaged in sex with a male prostitute, the lawmaker admitted that the wording
of the diversionary email was “ridiculous.”  

“This is the best we came up with,” he said, referring to himself and Gamrat.

Anyone who listens to both the conversation taped by Graham
and today’s taped response delivered by Courser would surely conclude that the
freshman lawmaker is desperately – and stupidly – trying to devise yet another far-fetched deflection to divert attention among the herd from his
hypocritical adultery.

Given his penchant for religious pontificating, I’m
surprised Courser didn’t borrow a line from the late comedian Flip Wilson: “The
devil made me do it.”

Of course, that would raise the prospect of Courser going
to hell – and spending the rest of eternity in a slow burn.

 

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