Tag Archives: Donald J. Trump

POPS ON TRUMP, SORT OF.

My grandfather, Pops we call him, asked me to write this post on account of he is too upset to say the things he wants to say.

First thing he would tell you, if he wasn’t too upset to talk, is that Vladimir Putin won.  By that, Pops means that Mr. Putin, the dictator of Russia, set certain forces in motion that have resulted in a seriously weakened and humbled American adversary. 

An America divided as it has never been divided before.

By that he means an America that has lost its way, lost its north star as the moral leader of the free world, only to fall beneath the shadow of greed, hate and self-adulation as they morphed into the earthbound guise of morally bankrupt Donald J. Trump. 

“How did Americans become so dumb?” Pops repeatedly asks of anyone who will listen. “And when will the 40% that foolishly believe in Trump, who stupidly believe he cares about anyone other than himself—When will they get wise?” 

What he means, is when will Trump’s supporters see that it was all a lie? From the smallest detail of Trump’s fabricated legend as a business genius, to the traitorous porkers he told when he and his Republican co-conspirators tried to steal an election and kill our constitution? Lies they are still repeating!

“Yes, Putin won!” Pops likes to repeatedly point out. “How many Americans died unnecessarily because Putin helped elect Trump? How many died because Trump and his Republican cohorts grievously mishandled Covid-19? How many still have to die because Republican governors and politicians will carry Trump’s water and stupidly treat Covid like something to be ignored?

Pops is too upset, like I said, and so he cannot say the one thing that makes him really crazy.

“What the hell is Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice waiting for, goddammit?” Pops would say, spittle flying everywhere. “The longer they delay in charging Trump and Company with sedition for their failed coup d’etat, the more trouble, division, lies and overall bad behavior Trump and crew will stir up.”

Which means it’s a bad idea not to quickly punish Trump for turning the presidency of the United States into a shoddy favors-for-pay clearinghouse and sub-agent of both Russia and the Trump Organization.

If you ask me, my Pops knows what he’s talking about.

AND A GOLDEN STATUE TO WORSHIP HIM BY

Trump’s Big Boy Rolls Into CPAC

As I watched CPAC convention workers roll in a life-sized golden statue of Donald J. Trump, I once again questioned how so many sane and sensible people could have closed their eyes to the events of the last four years and so eagerly swallowed the Trump Kool Aid? 

What is it they see that I cannot see? Why would a majority of those in attendance favor Trump for Republican presidential candidate in 2024? How can they so easily forget a Covid-19 death toll that saw hundreds of thousands of unnecessary American deaths? Or a foreign policy that embraced Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un at the expense of our best and most important allies? 

How can they forget the bottomless fount of lies with which the man drowned out the truth, and those voices that would speak the truth? 

And, more than anything, how can they forget—or forgive—Donald J Trump’s refusal to accept his election loss, and his ensuing attempt at the first coup d’etat in American history?

There is much Donald J. Trump has done for our country, I will admit that. I look upon our 45th president as a test pilot of sorts, the man we called upon to test our nation’s most important institutions to help identify its cracks, stress points and unmanifest weaknesses. Flaws that, if left undiscovered, could easily lead to system failure or total implosion under the rule of someone just like Donald J. Trump. 

Or someone worse. If that’s possible.

Now, thanks to Donald J. Trump, we know our democracy is more fragile than we ever thought. Its treasured institutions more subject to abuse and desecration than we ever believed possible. 

Yes, the founders’ vision remains intact, but at what cost? Their much-debated safeguards and power balancing act have proven a poor defense to an autocrat who holds a majority in the Senate. An autocrat with the political power of a demagogue and the non-existent conscience of a snake oil salesman. Yes, the Constitution still stands, even after Trump, but how close did we come to its collapse? 

How close did we come to a successful coup d’etat on January 6, 2021? How many more Republican lawmakers would the coup have required to successfully reject the certified and court-tested results of the 2020 election? How many more armed rioters would Trump’s coup have needed to more quickly breach the capital and thus more successfully catch or kill the leaders of our government? 

How much more vulnerable would our armed forces have been to being commandeered for a coup had Trump not signaled his malign intentions by installing lackeys in place of the civilian leadership of the Defense Department within days of his November defeat?

Yes, Donald J. Trump left much behind as he ended his muddy boot rampage across our nation’s capital and its 245 years of peaceful transitions and civil polity. In addition to testing the strength of our constitution, he dismantled or destabilized many functions of our Federal government. He left behind a $3.1 trillion deficit unparalleled in modern times. And he left behind a nation polarized and schism-cized like never before.

And, oh yes, now there’s a golden statue.

A NATIONAL HOLIDAY TO HONOR DONALD J. TRUMP

The Scoundrel in Question.

Welcome to NATIONAL SCOUNDREL’S DAY. On January 6th of every year, Americans should gather in civic assemblies, high school auditoriums and American Legion Halls to honor the only president  in United States history to attempt a coup d’etat. 

Also notable as the only a coup d’etat in American history that failed, or was so poorly conceived that it never had a chance to succeed. A political power grab unlike any coup d’etat ever seen in this modern era. Not a swift military tactical movement, nor an unexpected detention of authorities in power, but a painfully protracted, 5-hour coup d’etat planned by the three stooges of the Donald J. Trump presidency—Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone.

A coup d’etat noticeably absent of battlefield commanders, or any set of detailed plans or clearly communicated objectives. A coup d’etat carried out by a ragtag army of hoodwinked malcontents, Halloween-garbed Viking imitators and hundreds of right-wing tourists lured to the nation’s capital for what they believed would be a political rally and a Make America Great Again Festival, hopefully featuring free beer. 

Fear not, if you worry that there aren’t enough political figures whose infamy and stupidity qualifies them to also be celebrated and scorned on NATIONAL SCOUNDREL’S DAY. The rolls of the January 6th accomplices, whether before or after the fact, reads like a Who’s Who of Trump’s Republican bootlickers: Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and dozens of others who either refused to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory or voted for acquittal in Trump’s senate impeachment trial.

And what would a NATIONAL SCOUNDREL’S DAY be if it failed to honor and ridicule those titans of the right-wing media, those fabled curators of the President’s lies and malfeasances—Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, among many others, including Rupert Murdoch—whose daily serving of lies, rumors and conspiracies fed, fostered and festered discontent and outrage throughout America’s heartland?

Yes, it’s way past time we set aside a single day in our crowded calendar every year to honor those whose misconduct and sociopathic behavior put at risk those values and hallowed traditions we honor as loyal, god-fearing Americans.

At long last Benedict Arnold and Joseph McCarthy can rest easily in their graves, knowing they will never be forgotten. Not as long as we have a holiday to celebrate NATIONAL SCOUNDRELS’ DAY. 

Not as long as Donald J. Trump will be remembered for all his accomplishments as a National Disgrace.

TRUMPED, THUMPED AND DUMPED, REDUX

A man and his toys.

In a blog post from last April, I predicted that with Trump Past would always prove to be Prologue, and that his history of grabbing for anything he wanted, like a toddler on a playroom floor, had repeatedly resulted in his destroying or severely damaging those playthings before finally letting go.

When something or someone has been Trumped, Thumped and Dumped, you know it and they know it. it’s as devastating and unforgiving as a tornado moving through a trailer park. 

Trump’s record of serial bankruptcies in business, six in all, and a similar history as an unrestrained libertine, with 23 women claiming sexual grievances that range from groping to rape, only adds to his legend as a man who damages almost everything he puts his hands on. 

Now, as I watch history being made with Trump’s second impeachment trial, I recall that I also predicted in that eerily prescient essay that Trump would damage and possibly destroy the Republican Party. An achievement he will soon accomplish, I expect, with the unwitting assistance of sycophants like Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham.

What I did not foresee was the massive damage, if not destruction, Trump would inflict on our country. On America. On our values, our institutions, our traditions and, most seriously, on our sense of ourselves. 

Trump took charge of an America with immense power to lead and benefit the world, and twisted its institutions to serve himself—always himself! Nothing you can point to has more importance, in Trump’s ever-lusting mind, than his bloated ego and selfish appetites. It was never America First; but always Trump First, even when that put America Last. 

In the end, Trump could not accept the American voters taking back the power they had temporarily granted him four years ago. He would ultimately trample on the Constitution, his oath of office, his duties within that office, and his vow to protect and defend America and its citizens. All in service to his own outsized dreams of rarified privilege and entitlement. 

And so as we watch the House impeachment managers make their irrefutable case for Trump’s impeachment, we know they are fighting in a losing cause. In a Senate half-filled with politicians who cannot see beyond their fear of Trump’s reprisals, Truth and Justice will never prevail.

They don’t know it yet, but these Senators of lilliputian courage, in sacrificing their honor and integrity, have already been Trumped and Thumped.

And judging by the lessons of history, it won’t be long before they are rudely Dumped.

Just ask Mike Pence.

As I mentioned, this essay is a revisit of a blog post from last April, titled “TRUMPED, THUMPED AND DUMPED.” Click here if you would like to read that essay.

TRUMP’S PRODIGAL CHILDREN

Like most of America, I was sickened at the site of our capital being stormed and desecrated by a riotous mob incited to lynching fever by a sociopathic president so crippled by narcissism he could not admit or accept his own defeat. 

And since that defeat, he has neglected the duties of his office to sing callous lies to his base. “I was cheated,” he wailed repeatedly, like a country western singer bemoaning his woes. “Your vote was stolen,” his sad song continued. “The election was rigged, the country taken over by socialists parading as Democrats.” 

“And it’s time to fight back,” went the final deadly refrain.

All the while, since the election, he’s been backed up in the halls of Congress, the very building his rioters stormed, by sycophants who so fear his power and popularity they’ve turned their backs on everything they once believed in—America, democracy, integrity, perhaps even the teachings of Jesus. 

Yes, Jesus, a man who, just like their president, was crucified unjustly, they would have you believe.  

Most of the crowd that fateful day were out to show their rage. A few, I suspect, had more pernicious aims in mind. Aims like murder, violence, destruction and anarchy.

And now we are left to clean up the mess. Not just the excrement smeared on the walls of the capital, but the excrement smeared on the institutions of our democracy, which I fear has left an indelible stain. 

Trump will be tried for his perfidy. Tried and judged for so trampling the vows he made four years ago, to protect and defend the constitution, that no excuse will be large enough to hide his dishonor, nor any lie strong enough to withstand the truth that American lives were lost because of his actions. 

In pitting his own lust for power against the will of the electorate, he has stained the office of the presidency with the blood of those lives. 

History will so judge him for these crimes, even if his fellow Republicans refuse to do so.

And now we must also look to try and judge those who were swept up in Trump’s lies and who, in their zeal to fight for a phony cause, made a mess of our nation’s capital and of their own lives. 

How should we judge those who were sold a phony cause by a consummate con man? A cause manufactured to manipulate them, to harvest their love of their country, and to use them as instruments of one’s man’s insatiable lust for power? 

I have no doubt about the judgement we should rain upon those who came to the capital to kill, destroy or violently disrupt the nation’s business. There are laws that fittingly apply to their misdeeds.

But for those who were drawn like acolytes to a false prophet, who are still trying to process exactly what they were drawn into, I would like to see leniency and compassion applied to their cases, as I would like to see all victims of con men so tenderly treated.

So many of that riotous crowd were drawn to Washington as victims. Victims of Trump’s lies, victim’s of Trump’s Republican bootlickers who echoed those lies, victim’s of the right-wing media that repeated and validated Trump’s lies.

They are our brothers and sisters who have been led astray. And I pray for the time when we can welcome them back safely to our community and to our humble embrace.

Only then will justice truly prevail.