Some viral video that has the Trump crime family reaching for their rhetorical machine guns shows a Southwest Airlines representative responding to complaints by flight attendants about a man who refused to put on the required mask that everyone else on the plane is wearing. This man, who happened to be black, was wearing a blue cap announcing that he is one of the “Black Voices For Trump,” and as if you need any more convincing about his “preference” in this year’s election, the face mask he was no longer wearing read “Trump 2020.” The “reason” why he wasn’t wearing his mask was because he was eating, or at least that was the convenient excuse for not wearing his mask. Everyone else was complying with the regulation, so why did he feel it necessary to be contrary? Need we ask?
This man insisted that he had “complied” when it was “requested” to put on his mask when he got on the plane. There was no “request” involved here--it was “required.” A white woman can be heard in the background insisting that the rep “Tell us the policy that says he cannot eat with his mask off. It’s the hat and the mask — it’s not the eating.”Sorry, lady, you don’t understand asinine Trump supporters; every time they ignore rules they don’t like, it is to make a political “statement.” This man who you can smell his Trump support a mile away is telling you he doesn’t have to obey the rules because Trump tells him he doesn’t have to. It isn’t the hat or the face mask, it is the jerk underneath or behind it who doesn’t give a damn about fellow passengers. The fact that he is advertising that he is an in-your-face Trump supporter should only be seen as more reason to be appalled by Trump’s brand of “leadership.”
This appalling lack of leadership and plenitude of inhumanity and the calling on his supporters to flout civilized behavior was on display during another one of Trump’s small-town rallies, this time in Muskegon, Michigan, population 38,000 or so. Why Trump has his rallies in such places is obvious; they have a higher per-capita number of Trump supporters, and less likely to attract protesters. There, Trump put on his domestic terrorist cap and attacked Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who just days earlier was the target of a kidnapping scheme by people very much like these in the Associated Press photo here:
Commentary from the kidnappers hoping to start an insurrection included “Snatch and grab man. Grab the fucking governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point it’s over.” Another kidnapper went a little further: “Knock on the door and when she answers it just cap her.” Trump in his desperate effort to demonize his opponents--he is even supposedly “taking names” of Republican senators who have crossed him--simply cannot understand that his words mean something to the most dangerous people in his “base”--lording like a third-rate Mussolini as the “good” people of Muskegon chanted “Lock Her Up!”
Trump predictably changed the subject, warning the attendees that they should "Be careful of her and her attorney general because you know they're like in charge of the ballot stuff. How the hell do I put my political and our country's political life in the hands of a pure partisan like that?" Of course it takes one to know one; but the question people should be asking themselves is if they prefer Trump’s increasingly insane, dehumanizing brand of partisanship over Whitmer’s “partisan” attempts to control the COVID-19 in her state--partisan because it “hurts” Trump’s reelection chances if people are reminded of his efforts to undermine state efforts because it just makes his non-leadership on the issue that more shameful and dangerous.
Naturally some people simply refuse to open their eyes at the truth. Take for instance has-been actress Kirstie Alley, who apparently hasn’t lost enough weight to remove the flab covering her eyeballs or ears:
"I'm voting for @realDonaldTrump because he's NOT a politician. I voted for him years ago for this reason and shall vote for him again for this reason. He gets things done quickly and he will turn the economy around quickly. There you have it folks there you have it."
Georgetown University professor Don Moynihan pointed out to her that “The President of the United States is, in fact, a politician. Granted, not one with basic skills of coalition-building or managing a government, but he is a politician in the worst possible meaning of the term: empty promises, exploiting fear and sowing hatred.” It is also worth pointing out that the economy isn’t necessarily getting better, thanks to Trump’s leadership failures; the most recent numbers for new unemployment claims was near 900,000--the highest number in nearly two months and suggesting a still sluggish recovery. It also should be pointed out “getting things done quickly” by executive order is what Trump has done to skirt the law on issues like immigration, the environment and health care. It is much easier to be destructive (like Trump) than it is to be constructive.
Meanwhile, I note that on May 20, 2019 I wrote a post entitled “Only the rich and privileged can afford to be ‘patriotic’ in Trump’s world,” in which I mentioned that “there was a time when many musicians felt it was their responsibility to provide a ‘voice’ for their generation that was otherwise denied to them by the prevailing political, economic and social order, with a directness that still resonates after so many years.” The song that I mentioned that spoke to the title of the post was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” and by coincidence that song and its writer and singer, John Fogerty, is in the news.
Fogerty is reportedly outraged that the song is being used at Trump rallies, in support of a message he does not endorse. He went on to post that “Therefore, I am issuing a ‘cease and desist’ order. I wrote this song because, as a veteran, I was disgusted that some people were allowed to be excluded from serving our country because they had access to political and financial privilege. I also wrote about wealthy people not paying their fair share of taxes. Mr. Trump is a prime example of both of these issues. The fact that Mr. Trump also fans the flames of hatred, racism and fear while rewriting recent history, is even more reason to be troubled by his use of my song.”
Fogerty is doubtless concerned that Trump supporters are not only blind to the truth about Trump, but they are willing to believe in a fraudulent alternative universe which allows Trump to impersonate the one who is not a "fortunate son," which is about as bald a lie as can be imagined; Trump has never been and never will be like "us" who are not "fortunate sons." The truth of the matter is that Trump is like a giant leech which survives by gorging itself not just on the enormous tax loopholes that his business incompetence allows him to take advantage of, but on the mindless adulation of millions of fanatics who don’t realize that in so many ways this man is draining this country of its moral and ethical credibility, and its ability to recover from it.
This country may very well not survive a second Trump term, because the blindness of his supporters to his brand of mindless, personalized extremism can be expected to become permanent, and expected of all those Republican presidential candidates who come after him.
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