Donald Trump has always seemed to be a little “off” in the head, but he does seem to have gotten even worse since he caught the COVID-19. Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institute said of his recent turn toward third-rate Mussolini, “He’s deteriorating. His irrationality is more extreme. His arrogance: he just said he is a perfect physical specimen. What 74-year-old fat man is a perfect physical specimen? Give me a break.” And then there was his interview with Fox Business News’ Maria Bartiromo:
"I'm back because I'm a perfect physical specimen and I'm extremely young. And so I'm lucky in that way.
"Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we're going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we'll just have to go, because I won't forget it."
"If you were running for office, and if you see thousands and thousands of ballots being thrown into rivers, and they have your name on it in some cases, in other words people -- we had military ballots where people voted for me, military, the military's going to vote for me because I -- I rebuilt the military." The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal reported that this claim by far-right sources was wildly false six ways from Sunday--some mail was found in a ditch outside of Appleton, but none of which were voter ballots.
"He (Biden) is not mentally capable. He's not mentally capable of being president. You know that. Everybody knows that. Everybody that knows him, he can't be president."
"And this monster that was on stage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night by the way, but this monster, she says, no, no, there won't be fracking."
"I don't believe the polls because we've never had this much support. They have a vote thing, they have 5,000 votes. They have thousands of trucks all over the country."
On Sunday to an audience in support of “Blexit”--black conservative activist Candace Owens’ term for blacks leaving the Democratic Party, to which she had to fly in and house at her own expense enough black participants so that it didn’t look like the lilly-white audience it otherwise was to the naked eye--Trump continued to make ridiculous claims that are easily debunked:
Tremendous problems with the ballots. Fifty thousand in Ohio. Twenty-five thousand — you have to see it. I mean, every day, there’s a story about ballots. Some thrown out; they happen to have the name “Trump.” Military ballots were thrown out with the name “Trump” on them. Okay?
In contrast, the Democrats’ socialist program and platform — and it really is more than socialist. It’s not just socialist; it’s beyond socialism.
It is difficult--nay, impossible--for anyone with a grain of common sense and human decency to understand why anyone would support Trump, but unfortunately there are many millions of people who think only of themselves and their own petty personal grievances. You can also tell a lot about people by the kind of bumper stickers they put on their foreign (i.e. not “Made in America”) cars, such as this one pictured here:
We see here the level of humanity and decency that this person ascribes to in matters of race and immigration, like “Black Rifles Matter,” “Heaven Has A Wall And Strict Immigration Policies. Hell Has Open Borders,” and “Fuck Off, We’re Full.” In matters of gun rights, there is “You Can Have My Guns, Bullets First,” "I'd Rather Be Judged By 12 Than Carried By 6" and “Nobody Needs An AK-47? Nobody Needs A Whiny Little Bitch Either Yet Here You Are”; that was supposed to be “funny.” And of course there was political ideology: “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and Smokey the Bear in a MAGA hat telling us that “Only You Can Prevent Socialism.”
This person is obviously entitled to his opinion, but never let it be said that this country isn’t full of assholes who are actually “proud” to expose themselves as complete morons in public spaces. But at least this guy keeps things down to their lowest common denominator in simple-minded sloganeering. As Jordan Klepper, the roving reporter for “The Daily Show” discovered on his visits to various Trump rallies over the past four years, there is seemingly no bottom deep enough for Trump supporters to eventually land on:
“Barack Obama had a big a part in 9-11”
“Which part?”
“Always on vacation, never in the office.”
“Why do you think Barack Obama wasn’t in the Oval Office on 9-11?”
“That I don’t know. I’d like to get to the bottom of that.”
“Barack Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, and nobody can ever tell me different. Do I have proof? No. Do I have articles? No. My mind is made up.”
“The presidency is a man’s job. A female has more hormones. She can start a war in 10 seconds., if she has hot flashes. Boom!” A blonde white female trailer-trash type, if you are wondering.
“It’s locker room talk. That’s what boys do.”
“Do you have any children. Do they talk like that?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Do you have a husband? Does he talk like that?”
“No.”
This woman spoke for everyone in attendance:
“No matter what he says or does, I will still vote for him.”
A half-dozen people who challenged Klepper to “read the transcript” admitted that, well, they hadn’t actually read the impeachment transcript themselves.
“You can tell he hasn’t done anything wrong by his demeanor. I mean, he would be trying to hide things. He is saying ‘let them see everything.’”
“But Trump is blocking witnesses.”
“I don’t care.”
That “I don’t care” attitude about Trump’s various and sundry crimes against this country pretty much sums up the problem that the anti-Trumpers have to overcome; they have to care at least as much as pro-Trumpers do on election day, or this country is going to hell for the foreseeable future. If Trump wins in November, that means that Republicans will see that catering to the extremist, anti-American right is their ticket to victory. We cannot allow that to happen, or this country will be lost.
Some people you’d think would know better but don’t, do so just because they have to be contrary and don’t like to be told what to do or think, just like Trump doesn't like being "controlled." Take for instance John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten, the former lead singer of the infamous British punk rock group the Sex Pistols, who currently spends most of his time in Los Angeles. No comment here on the Pistol’s status as a “great” rock band, because you never heard a Pistol’s song on the radio even on “alternative” stations in this country. Of their one legitimate studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, I will say that back when it was released I would have preferred to listen to 90 percent of the other music being put out than what was heard on that record (usually loud two-cord jams with screeching vocals about how shitty the world was), but today I prefer it over 90 percent of what passes for “music” now; admittedly that isn’t saying much, but I still prefer natural singing and real instrument-playing over most of today’s computerized and auto-tuned fraudulence.
Anyways, we learn in a recent interview with the 64-year-old Lydon by The Guardian that the time he has spent caring for his wife Nora, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, has neither mellowed him, nor increased his capacity to at least understand--if not empathize--with people who don’t have the one advantage he has despite his “tough” up-bringing: he’s white. In fact, we learn that Lydon is pretty damn defensive about it--and it is enough to drive him to support Donald Trump. According to the Guardian, “Lydon appears to have started supporting Trump when the president was accused of racism. ‘I’ve been accused of the very same thing, so I’m offended for anybody who’s called that.’” Lydon is apparently still smarting about a 2008 incident in which members of his “entourage” were accused of instigating a backstage melee in which racist epithets were deployed unapologetically.
Old Johnny doesn’t seem to like the idea that if Trump can be called a racist, he can be too. But Trump is a racist; his prejudices encompass blacks and Hispanics as a group. He cherry picks his minority “friends” very carefully; they either have to be much better at doing something that he loves to do (i.e. Tiger Woods at playing golf), or they have to be well-known “celebrities” who lavish support on him. Lydon seems to feel “betrayed” by the notion that someone might think he is a racist, having supposedly supported Rock Against Racism and reggae acts; but you know that when someone’ attitude can turn on a dime, that support was very superficial to begin with. There is a serious difference between being someone who expects to be “rewarded” for saying the “right” things, and not actually accepting the reality of it personally.
But even if Lydon isn’t a racist (he insists he isn’t), supporting Trump just because he has been accused of racism seems a damn pathetic reason to support him; Lydon is clearly not thinking of the country, but of his own petty personal gripes. The Guardian continued “When I ask if he’s definitely voting for Trump, he cries: I am!” and produces a MAGA cap.” He goes on to say that “I’d be daft as a brush not to. He’s the only sensible choice now that Biden is up – he’s incapable of being the man at the helm.”
But Trump is, according to newly-minted supporter Lydon, for no better reason that he can’t call things by their right names--an extreme irony for a man who claims that his worldview was formed in the hopelessness of London slums, where the principle pastime was calling things by their real names. Life might be good for him now, but all these protests going on should tell him that the world is still a pretty shitty place for a lot of other people--and Trump has only made things worse, and no one should fool themselves into thinking that things will get better if he is reelected. This is a man itching to unleash his civilian attack dogs, waiting only for the "voters" to give him their go-ahead.
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