Person, woman, man, camera, TV....and Elvis

I largely stopped writing about Donald Trump because I was running out of ways to call him an asshole. But I must admit that finding the right words can be good for the spleen.

Lately he’s been spewing more non-sensical gibberish than ever to rile up the grievance-addicted bros and broettes who make up his relentlessly obtuse base. His latest scumbaggery involves suggesting that his Russian man-crush could and should act with impunity against any NATO nation (you know, the ones that rushed to our aid after 9/11) that hadn’t fully paid its tab (even though that’s not a thing. He made it up. NATO is not like a club with membership fees). “Do whatever the hell you want” is how Trump put it, a comment that sent shock waves through Europe. Here was the potential next President of the United States INVITING Russia to attack a NATO country, and promising to stand down while they do so. While the US media, the ones who traded in actual reporting for stenography back in 2016 as a way to increase ratings, stick to the same “it’s just Trump being Trump” narrative that allowed such a vile creature to slither into the White House in the first place, Europe watches in worried fascination, both embarrassed for us, and terrified of us. We’re this close to electing a convicted sex offender and felon who is in the tank for the former head of the KGB. Trump’s latest incendiary remark is on the front page of every paper overseas. Meanwhile, the lead story on Fox News this morning is throwing racist shade over the Black National Anthem sung before last night’s Super Bowl.

Europe has every right to be fucking terrified.

Trump then pivoted and mocked Nikki Haley’s husband, who is currently deployed, sans bone spurs, and serving his nation. Trump snidely suggested that he’s only doing so to get away from his harpy wife. Trump of course has a history of attacking US service men and women (and indeed, any strong woman), whom he has called “losers” and “suckers”. He bailed on a D-Day remembrance ceremony because it was raining and he didn’t want the sprayed ferret on his head to become undone. He suggested that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley be tried for treason and shot for insufficient fealty, and infamously attacked Sen. John McCain during the 2016 campaign. “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Pretty ballsy stuff from a draft dodger.

The current GOP, who once cancelled one of their own for misspelling the word “potato”, simply shrug at ALL of this. As do Trump supporters, whom I have long since stopped trying to understand. Everybody surely had their reasons for lining up to drink kool-aid in Guyana. Fear. Peer pressure. Puppy love. Maybe they were just really thirsty? It’s not my job to divine your intentions, nor am I willing to wade through the garbled syntax and creative spelling featured in your online ripostes. I mean, how to reason with those who don’t believe in climate change suddenly complaining about Taylor Swift’s carbon footprint? Engaging is a bit like trying to explain the plot of Ulysses to a toddler. These people are why the block user button (and Truth Social) was created.

Before the Super Bowl, Trump just about begged Ms. Swift to not endorse Joe Biden…

Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will. There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money. Besides that, I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!

When I first heard this I was sure it was parody. The same way a post he made requesting validation from his followers that he looked like Elvis had to be parody.

Neither was parody.

As a person who writes under the eyes of a framed portrait of Abraham Lincoln on my office wall, it remains bonkers to me that Trump was elected to the same office, mostly by people who retroactively root for the south to re-engage and win the Civil War. This alone should be the biggest news story of all time. How a nation that was held together by the better angels of a single genius could be led to the precipice 150+ years later by a dumb reality TV grifter who communicates at the level of a 4th grader and buried one of his ex-wives on his golf course for a tax dodge.

Has democracy been this fragile all along?

Alas, for the most part the media has been busy with the ball of yarn given to them by some MAGA dolt who, in exonerating Biden in the classified documents case, dropped a few sentences of red meat amidst its 350 pages, suggesting that Biden is old and thus forgetful at times….the President even once forgetting the death date of his own son. Meanwhile, the man who has suggested, among other things, that George Washington’s Continental Army bombed airports, and that Nikki Haley was speaker of the house on January 6th…..the man who needs 2 hands to drink a bottle of water , suggested we inject bleach to cure a “hoax” the almost killed him, and once looked dead into a solar eclipse…..the man who when shown a picture of his rape accuser at a deposition mistook her for his wife….the man who bragged that he “aced” a cognitive test because he could recall the words “Person, woman, man, camera, TV” in order…..gets a pass. Can anybody imagine the explosion of New York Times headlines if Biden had said this…..

“‘Can you do it?’ And you go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV,’” Trump said. “They say, ‘That’s amazing, how did you do that?’ I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.”

You gotta wonder what poor Dan Quayle is thinking these days.

I think Joe Biden can be as temporarily confused as any other 80 year old man. I think he has slipped quite a bit over the last 4 years. And he’ll slip more. But that’s what you get for electing 80 year old’s to office. I’m not convinced he’s the best choice to lead the country, but I’d vote for the dead ferret on Trump’s head to keep Donald Trump himself out of the White House. Biden is old and forgetful. Trump is old, forgetful, stupid, and evil.

And if we’re going to talk about cognition, there’s plenty of 40 year old’s in Congress who couldn’t build a toy wall with 6 blocks.

In a bit…

—tf