If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering how normal everyday Americans can support Republican politicians who lie on a daily basis. Not only lie, but are so protective of those lies they feel compelled to punish their GOP colleagues who have the courage not to lie.
Republican politicians, once the standard bearers of law and order, have today become, under the feckless and dishonest leadership of Donald Trump, the standard bearers of sophistry and sycophancy, better known as lying and ass-kissing. It is not enough to abandon their principles, or conveniently forget the oaths they took to honor and defend the Constitution, but now they must twist themselves and the words they speak to conform to “The Truth as espoused by Donald Trump.”
They cannot see the irony in the slogan “Stop The Steal,” even when it’s used in a violent attempt to steal the 2020 election from the man who actually won the contest. Nor can they see the dangers inherent when political leaders attack the very institutions they were elected to serve.
No, their guiding star is frighteningly easy to follow. Trump is powerful enough to threaten their political survival. Thus, no matter what Trump says or does, no matter how vile or damaging his words and actions, they will stand by him as long as they have a shred of honor or pride left to sacrifice.
Witness the impromptu Hall of Shame set up this week by Republican officeholders outside the Manhattan courtroom where Donald Trump is on trial. It is not for them to worry about the wrongs or rights of Trump falsifying legal documents to hide his violation of federal and state election laws. Of far more significance is Trump’s quest for vice presidential candidates who will show mindless subjugation and fealty to their president, even when the Constitution says they shouldn’t.
Senators J.D. Vance, Rick Scott and Tommy Tuberville; Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,; Congressmen Matt Gaetz, Byron Donalds and Jason Miller; and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgun— SHAME ON YOU!
SHAME ON ALL OF YOU! You have shown yourselves unfit for any duties defined or proscribed by the United States Constitution.
But be careful, you who sell your souls so cheaply!
You are riding the momentary winds of shortsighted political favor. Woe to you when those winds shift.
For then, without truth, honor or principles to cling to, you will only have Trump’s hollow lies and empty promises to keep you afloat.
M heard a knock on his office door. A knock followed by a short pause, then two brief staccato taps of a knuckle.
“Come in, 007!” M called. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
James Bond walked in and gingerly stepped up to the leather chair in front of M’s desk, slowly lowering his handsome, well-dressed 6 foot, two inch frame onto the well-padded seat.
“You know, sir,” Bond, half-apologetic, started to say, “I was scheduled to begin a two-week holiday today…”
M abruptly cut him off. “Sorry 007, but no holiday for you this week. Nor for anyone. That sound you cannot hear—because this is His Majesty’s Secret Service, after all—would be alarm bells sounding ‘All hands on deck, battle stations!’
Rubbing his weary face with both hands, M continued, “I’m sorry to inform you all leaves and holidays have been cancelled, because quite seriously the fate of Western Civilization is hanging in the balance, once again. And your bloody holiday will just have to wait.”
“Understood, sir,” Bond said, softly backing away from any hint of annoyance. “But, please, M, tell me what is going on?” he probed delicately, “Not the Russians again?”
“Nail on the head, 007!” M answered. “Bloody Putin has set loose the most devastating of all known modern weapons, and the entire Western Alliance is under threat.”
“Virus?” Bond queried.
“No, far more deadly than that, if you can imagine.”
“Anthrax?” Bond continued to probe. “Nuclear radiation? Space lasers? Killer Bees?”
“Stupidity!” M finally offered. “Stupidity fueled by greed, petulance, narcissism, racism and self-aggrandizement on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the days of Adolph Hitler.”
“You mean…” Bond gasped, the answer rising to the surface of his consciousness.
“Yes,” M answered with bitter distaste, “Orangefinger!”
Orangefinger, the name given by the British Secret Service to the arch fool and blundering former American president, Donald J. Trump. Long suspected by Western intelligence services of being a Russian stooge, President Trump had wrecked havoc within the Western Alliance in his historically chaotic term as the 45th American president. If not a Putin plant, then a useful idiot, as the Russians like to call them; a man so inept and self-absorbed that, when placed in a position of power, he automatically made the worst decisions, focused as he usually was on his own best interests and inclinations rather than the need of the moment.
“Yes, but after one disastrous Trump term wouldn’t the Americans see Orangefinger for exactly what he is?” Bond asked. “A liar, a thief, a traitor, a serial sexual predator? After all that, how much damage can one man do?”
“Heaps!” M grimaced, with his briar pipe clenched in his teeth, and a gold-plated butane lighter poised to ignite it. “More damage than we can afford,” he added, firing the bowl while sucking in lungs full of his custom blended Amphora Gold and Brown pipe tobacco, available exclusively at Harrod’s.
Poking the air with the stem of his pipe, M pressed the point. “Recall how quickly Orangefinger disabled the Paris Accords and quashed the nuclear agreement with Iran,” he reminded Bond.
“Within months of taking office,” M. continued, “by those two acts alone, Orangefinger inflamed global warming and set back the control of nuclear weapons by a full generation at least.
“God only knows what mischief he’ll create should he win back the Oval Office.” M concluded. “He’s already talking about suspending the American Constitution, arresting political enemies, replacing federal employees with political sycophants, erecting concentration camps… And, if he’s a really useful idiot to Putin, he’ll act on his threat to shut down NATO, and thereby de-stabilize the entire Western Alliance.
“Make no mistake, 007, the world can ill-afford a second Orangefinger presidential term.
“My word!” Bond gasped, quickly seeing the threat in its full entirety. “It would be like offering Putin an invitation to reap havoc anywhere on the planet he so wishes,” he concluded.
“Truly frightening, M,” Bond frowned, “but what can I do? Frankly, this problem seems above my pay grade.”
“It won’t all be on your shoulders, 007, I promise. We’ve brought in a specialist.” M picked up a slip of paper from his desk and read aloud, “Agent 008! Excellent chap, he’s been assigned to serve as your lead agent on the case. He’s an American, very skillful I’m told. Brought over specifically because of prior experience he’s had successfully fighting Orangefinger and Putin in the field.”
M folded the slip of paper and said, almost as though reminding himself, “No need talking about the man when I can introduce him just as easily.”
He pressed a button hidden beneath his desk and, simultaneously, Bond heard a buzzer sounding outside in Miss Moneypenny’s office.
M stood to an almost military stance as his office door swung open once again.
“James,” M said almost formally, “please say hello to Agent…”
Upon seeing his visitor standing in the door, M left the sentence incomplete while rereading the slip of paper in his hand.
“Excuse me,” M continued, “I seem to have misspoke. Not Agent 008, but Agent 0081.”
Bond looked over to see, standing square in the frame, an elderly gentleman wearing aviator sunglasses, a navy blue baseball cap and a wide bright smile.
Taking off his glasses, the stranger winked and said, “0081 at your service, gentlemen.”
Then, restoring the sunglasses, he added, “But you can call me Dark Brandon. “
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Excuse me if the subject of this essay proves indelicate—if not odoriferous.
Donald Trump smells. And not in a pleasant way. Over the last few months there have been reports of a strange odor that appears to cloak the ex-president, and cling to him like a second shadow. Some speculate the odor comes from an unhappy combination of personal care products.
Orange skin toner plus exotic cologne plus extra hold hair spray plus a rich diet of unhealthy foods equals a night out in a toxic brownfield site.
More recently, as the ex-president begins his walk of shame through the nation’s courtrooms, starting in the city he once called home, the odor appears to have taken a seat at the defendant’s table alongside him. Rachel Maddow, sitting in the back of the crowded courtroom, commented on the stink, saying “It smells like old soup and stale breath,” which proves a lot kinder than other voices have been.
Farting has been mentioned, oh yes. Even sharting, whose definition you can easily discern for yourself. Meanwhile “Odor In The Court!” is trending on on social media as word of Donald’s gas problems quietly leak out (pun intended).
Ben Meiselas of The Meidas Touch Network, commented on the foulness, saying “I hear it from credible sources …that Donald Trump is actually farting in the courtroom.”
Whether or not The Donald is actually responsible for the foul odor, nobody can say. Silent-but-deadly rarely leaves fingerprints. I’ve been reviewing photos that reveal how closely his lawyers choose to sit next to him. And it ain’t close.
For me, what’s really radiating out from Trump is an overflow from his soul. The stench of all Donald’s foul deeds finally catching up with him. All the tradesmen he stiffed, the lawyers he never paid, the woman he raped in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room, the peekaboo raids in women’s changing rooms, the country he dishonored in refusing to accept the will of the voters.
And don’t forget how he destroyed the fabric of our sense of community in America. The sense that we are all members of the same family. Well we are no longer members of the same family. Those of us who believe Trump’s lies have been taught to hate and revile those who don’t.
Yes, there is something rotten in the state of New York. I for one, pray that it will soon be removed. Even if we can never remove the stain it leaves behind.
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