To start with somthing calm, this photo belongs at the end but I put it here because it's where I hope America isn't going.
I was unsure what to call this blog entry. It's a rant, it's anti-Trump and it's anti-hate but is it for anything? To Anyway, here's what I wrote:
It’s so called ‘Super Tuesday” when a number of states hold their presidential nominating primaries. In all likelihood Donald Trump, convicted of civil fraud and sexual abuse and defamation in NY State and is in the hole for half a billion dollars will move closer to being nominated as the Republican candidate for president. This doesn’t say much for the Republican party nor the staunch supporters of a man who tried to lie his way through a coup in 2021, who is reality challenged and here I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he believes his lies regarding the election he clearly lost. Standing behind a man who has stood only for himself and his so called brand, a man who clearly cannot tell fact from fiction when it comes to himself, a man who flips and flops like a fish out of water – please picture a fish with Donald’s head here – and here are a couple of examples: he pushed the Covid-19 vaccine hard until he realized a substantial part of his base was anti-vax, so he flip flopped himself into coming out against the most substantial achievement of his administration ,and when it comes to a policy regarding personal reproductive choice, doesn’t know which way to turn – a large portion of his base seems to be in favor of no abortions ever even if it kills the mother or the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape yet he knows, and this is evidence that he isn’t as stupid as some make him out to be, that it’s a losing position at the polls, so the dying fish flips and flops and hopes it can make it back to the water. So, what will it be, Flip-Flop Donald? Can you make up your mind? Go ahead, eat that cake, you already have a weight problem so what’s a few more ounces? Oh, you want to keep it too? Well, you figure that one out because I’m not the unsubtle genius that you claim to be.
Donald Trump reminds me of the propagandists of the Stalinist Soviet Union who claimed they invented everything. Donald makes claims about the things he’s done that don’t stand up to scrutiny. I am sure if there’s a cure for cancer, he’ll claim he thought of it years before. He claims to be a great businessman. Tell me then why has he been into bankruptcy six times, fronted a scam university, and managed to build a failed casino? What can I say? Saved by reality TV. When he fails, it’s never his fault. There’s something wrong with that.
Donald Trump has fooled a lot of people into thinking he’s somebody’s gift from god to America. This puts me in mind of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” It is obvious Trump manages to fool some of the people all of the time, but are there enough fools to get him elected again? Possible, which doesn’t say much for America. For the sake of our country and the world let us hope some of those fooled open their eyes and see just how much of a con artist he is, and how they’ve been conned and, like Howard, in “Network” get mad as hell and stop taking it from a man who only thinks of himself.
Trump didn’t invent the culture war, I’m not sure who the evil minds behind that one are but he sure is taking advantage of it. Out of one side of his mouth his claims he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, out of the other he spews hate toward Latin Americans, Moslems everywhere, and he doesn’t seem to have much use for Jews despite his daughter being one, Blacks unless he can con them into buying his sneakers, and anyone else the culture warriors deem other, including LGBT+ folk, environmentalists, and people who want reasonable controls placed on firearms. Most irrationally, he calls these people Socialists. Does he even know what that means. I will quote Vizzini here, with irony, “inconceivable.”
Over the years, it seemed America made progress toward learning to live and let live. Nobody would call out a racist who kept their mouth shut, so being polite was a better policy than spewing hate. Trump changed that, giving permission to people to be their worst, coddling the haters, the racists, the homophobes, the xenophobes, the psychotics and the sociopaths. Instead of the better angels, he plays to those whose mouths exude sulfurous fumes.
So, what happened to rationality? What happened to live and let live? Why has it become permissible to spew this hate in public and then blame those who find it offensive for being the hater? And why are these lies magnified, turning our nation into one that hates half of itself?
It is obvious that when those in power give permission to act on their worst impulses, people will believe they will be rewarded for their actions. I won’t say Donald Trump is evil though he may be. I will say he’s tapped into the worst instincts of the people and by magnifying them, by exemplifying them and shouting them from his bully pulpit he takes the politics of resentment and entitlement to the greatest depths.
When will people wake up and see how he’s using them? When will people see that he’s turning people against each other, creating hate where there was none before, all the while playing the victim? For most of his life he’s been a victimizer, a man who despises the common person, all the while playing the innocent. He’s been a thief who, when caught claims not that he’s innocent but that everyone does it so why should he be punished? He wants people to imagine they are him, feeling it’s ok to steal from someone you don’t like, to deride and silence people who don’t agree with you or worse, call you out, to threaten physical violence, to even carry it out on people you think are less worthy than you, all the while following your false god.
Look in the mirror and decide if these are the things you want to be.
And think about who is making money off of convincing you to be this sort of hater.
On a less angry but equally emotional topic. Tomorrow evening is the first Yahrzeit of one of my best friends. I was his friend for longer than anyone else in my life. He died not long after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was a very good man, someone who was both loved and who loved. A year later, I still miss him. I will never forget him.
These are a few of the photos I took at his funeral last March.
