RATIONAL

 

To be honest, many people (mainly Trump supporters) will probably dispense with looking at things in a “rational” way after events of the past weekend. Like everything else, the world didn’t used to be quite this way. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was under assault for being a Jewish liberal and the Nixon administration threatened to prosecute him over a “retainer” for legal advice to a financier who happened to be a long-time friend. Fortas chose to resign than continue to be a “problem” for the court in 1969. 

Doing the “right thing” today, is of course only to be seen in “personal”—not institutional—terms. Survival of the person (and his or her power), not the institution, is the only consideration for those on the right. To be “rational” is justify ones “reasons” for self-preservation.

What comes instinctively or “naturally” doesn't need to be "rationalized."  What does the saying “the crows come home to roost” mean? We can say that it means that the minions or words of evil sent out into the world to torment people's souls will eventually come “home” to those who sent them. Maybe they have been out in the world so long, when they return they no longer recognize their “master,” and he is just one more to torment. Such fraudulent leaders who spend their days dehumanizing millions to convince others to do so as well for their own personal ambitions should expect to be dehumanized in the eyes of others.

Unless, of course, they “repent” of their sins because they can no longer “rationalize” the way they spent their lives.. On May 15, 1972 Alabama Governor George Wallace, campaigning again for president, was greeting supporters in Maryland when he was shot by an apparently crazed, attention-seeking assailant who put five bullets into his belly. Wallace survived but was paralyzed for life. Wallace, of course, was the infamous segregationist who allowed dogs to be set against civil rights marchers, stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent the first black students from entering, and closed public schools rather than allow them to become integrated.

Wallace was still preaching his sermon of race hate the night he was shot, but not before winning the Democratic primaries in Maryland and Michigan (Edmund Muskie had previously won all the early primaries and seemed poised to win the Democratic nomination, until Nixon opened his bag of “dirty tricks,” including the forged “Canuck” letter). Many could never forget or forgive, but strangely enough, Wallace had an “epiphany”—having had much time to just sit and think, and dwell on how his God looked upon how he had lived his life—and decided he needed to make a “change.” 

Wallace became a born-again civil rights activist when he won election (again) for governor in 1989, working to double the number of blacks on the voting rolls, and appointing 160 to state governing boards. At the time of his death, civil rights icon John Lewis publicly “forgave” him in a New York Times op-ed.

While Wallace justified his previous beliefs and activities mostly in societal terms—blacks and whites were not socially “compatible” and thus by “nature” that they should remain separate, and any efforts to promote social equality must be opposed at any cost—with Trump his fostering of hate had a more sinister and personal underpinning; unless they could be used, people as individuals meant nothing to him, only as part of  some biomass worthy only of epithets given his whim at the moment. He never has done anything to suggest he has a “human” side unless there was something in it for him.

I have to admit that by the time I checked my phone on the way to work on Sunday I had no clue of what happened on Saturday. I didn’t even see anything unusual on the Google news feed; it wasn’t until I fired-up my laptop I noticed that there was follow-up stories relating to an apparent “assassination attempt” on Trump’s life during a campaign event in Pennsylvania. This turned out not to be a satirical news story courtesy The Onion, but something that actually happened. 

Did I feel “shock”? No, what I did feel is that we didn’t need this to happen, for Trump to receive any kind of “pity.” After all, his violent rhetoric and lies make him responsible for putting other people's lives in danger at that rally. There was no rational reason for Thomas Crooks to do this, there was no "up" side, only a downside. If Trump had died, who would replace him? Ron DeSantis, who already has experience transforming his "democratic" state into a fascist state, where laws are being passed to silence liberal dissent to his rule? 

I have no pity for a psychopath either the shooter or Trump, who at the time he was apparently grazed by a bullet by the ear was busy demonizing and dehumanizing migrants. What really concerned me was how he was going to use this incident to his benefit. Here he is getting back up giving his supporters the white power salute:

 

Trump has been promoting violence against his real and perceived “enemies” for years, not just against those who “stole” the election in 2020. This country’s—and especially that of the right-wing—hypocrisy about gun violence is such that if Trump had actually been killed, how long would this be a “story”? I’m sure the fakers in the mainstream media would feel obliged to wave the hankies, but Trump is no Lincoln or JFK; his “legacy” is what it is, with the feeling that the country dodged the "bullet"; left to its own devices, Trump would be as soon forgotten as the latest mass shooting that is rendered meaningless days after it happens.

Still, this is not something anyone should have wanted. The cowardly bully attacking the vulnerable may be scared now like all bullies are for the moment, but once he is over that, and he (if there really is a “god,” god forbid) is elected, let’s not kid ourselves: Trump will feel even more motivated to carry out his personal vendettas against the world. For now, he is going to be a fake version of the façade his mind dwells in. He’s going to—what?—go make a grand speech at the convention vowing to “bring the country and the world together.” 

It doesn't matter what he says, because it will all be self-serving so we are to feel “sorry” for him and get behind him and his evil Project 2025 agenda. Let’s not forget folks, that nobody said anything about the Republican platform changing, full of Trump’s campaign lies and demonizing and power-madness. There is no “epiphany” to be had here.

We are told that even Republicans who were once queasy about backing Trump are now rushing to his side to save their skins, including JD Vance, his choice for VP now that Vance has gone full circle from Hitler references to fully embracing Trump's stolen election lies. Trump's idea of "bringing the country together" can only mean that he wishes to take away the votes of anyone against him, so that elections in this country can be like those in Russia, where opposition candidates are routinely banned from running by Putin-controlled courts for being "unpatriotic."

No one has learned anything from Saturday's events, least of all Republicans, who are accusing Democrats of fomenting “hate” against Trump while ignoring the fact the Trump has been fomenting hate against half the country and its representatives. Of course special hatred is reserved for migrants on the southern border; it seems that Trump expects migrants can be the distraction that "everyone" to hate on while he is busy undermining democracy in this country. 

An ABC News story in 2020 indicated that Trump took no responsibility for his violent rhetoric against migrants:

"I think my rhetoric brings people together," he said last year, four days after a 21-year-old allegedly posted an anti-immigrant screed online and then allegedly opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others.

But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.

How can a man like that have an “epiphany”? He didn’t “change” then and he won’t now. Remember when that assailant looking for Nancy Pelosi to knee-cap her broke into her San Francisco home, only to find her husband alone there, and cracked his skull with a hammer instead? What did Trump do? Initially he just repeated the quickly debunked conspiracy theories about the assailant being Paul Pelosi’s “gay lover” having a “spat” with him, and then back on the campaign trail joked about it: “We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco — how’s her husband doing, anybody know? And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.” 

How did the crowd respond to that "joke" about an the act of violence against the husband of a political “enemy”? With laughter. Don’t tell me to feel any “sympathy” for Trump or feel anything but contempt for his supporters. They feel no “sympathy” or contrition for the victims of Trump’s violent impulses--even when it puts their own lives in danger, as it did on Saturday.

In his book Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost reporter Michael Bender, then of the Wall Street Journal, wrote of how Trump’s use of language became “increasingly violent” in regard to the George Floyd protests. He seemed to be “thrilled” to see acts of violence against the protesters by law enforcement and wished to see more of it. Trump exclaimed “That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people, Crack their skulls!” Bender wrote of how Trump wanted the military to go in and “beat the fuck out of” protestors—or “Just shoot them.”

Trump never shows any contrition for his failings, in fact denies everything and claims to be the true “victim.” He and his allies claim Saturday’s shooting was the fault of the “other side,” or that of “society” in general, and not once look upon themselves as the ones feeding into the conspiracies—particularly on election “security” and migrants—that create paranoia, hatred and fear. Mike Johnson and others paraded in support of Trump at his hush money trial, never showing any inclination of any disturbance even over his cheating on his wife with a porn actress and trying to cover it up. Why should we take anything they say at all seriously, seeing they are hypocrites, including the right-wing media that never finds anything to criticize about the violent rhetoric of Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others like them? You don’t need to be a cynic to see that.

And the result of that hypocrisy? As Reuters reported, “Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution.” You don’t hear the “left” talking that way as a matter of “acceptable” public discourse. Republicans would rather engage in “whataboutisms” than face the truth about themselves. How many times has Greene used terms of direct physical violence against the “opposition,” but we are supposed to ignore that because, well, she doesn’t really mean that?

Meanwhile, Aileen Cannon took advantage of the shooting to use as cover to complete her subversion of law in this country by declaring that not just Jack Smith’s special counsel appointment was “unconstitutional,” but essentially implying all such appointments (hell, John Durham’s too) are “illegal.” Just throw out everything including the kitchen sink to protect Trump. She based her “opinion” entirely on that of Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the presidential immunity case, which the other right-wing justices apparently ignored because it had nothing to do with the case at hand.

Thomas is the most corrupt and intellectually-bankrupt justice the Supreme Court ever seated; What? You don’t remember “natural law”? Thomas probably doesn’t either, but that is what he claimed was his “judicial philosophy” during his confirmation hearings. Apparently his judicial “philosophy” has "evolved" from its primitive beginnings to its hyper-partisan extremism today; this is what the law has been degraded to in the era of Trump: he is “immune” from it. If Trump is elected again he will no doubt fill judgeships with more Cannons; soon, classified information will be up to the highest bidder or best “deal” Trump can get, presumably from his dictator friends like Vladimir Putin.

Elsewhere, we have polls claiming that people think they will be “better off” under Trump. How to explain this? Besides making this country more divided than ever, but as noted in the previous post, the only people who “benefited” from Trump’s tax and anti-regulation policies were the rich and wealthiest corporations, padding their pocketbooks while making the world a less safe place to live in for everyone else. There was an actual net loss in manufacturing jobs and jobs in general during the Trump administration, but I suppose those who still had jobs “thanked” him for that.

Trump supporters clearly cannot rationalize this support any more than a dog follows its owner, because it has no other place to go because of its dependencies, following anyone that will feed it. When they “think” at all, Republican voters are filled with conspiracies that if you point out the lack of logic in their thinking it just doesn’t matter. It’s amazing the kind of people Trump attracts; he had to have a black person speak on his behalf at the convention, and so there was a former Kanye West associate, Amber Rose—a “model” and “Internet celebrity.” Well, this current Jada Pinkett hairstyle-wannabe isn’t just a “model”…

 

…but like another Amber (Heard) started out in a career as a stripper. Nothing wrong with that, but should we be surprised by the kind of women Trump seems most fond of, the way he “sees” them? Rose got on the podium and proclaimed to the throng of 99 percent whiteness that “These are my people. This is where I belong!” What “racism?” These people “love” my large token behind because I will not call them out on their hypocrisy, or Trump and his father’s past race discrimination against black tenants, or Trump calling for the death penalty the Central Park Five who were exonerated of the crime they were accused of, or calling for police to shoot people in the George Floyd protests, or calling migrant children criminals and rapists while locking them up in concentration camps. He’s not a "bad" person or a “racist,” because “dad” says he isn’t one. I dink for myself.

Remember the “Tea Party Movement”? Are you dumb enough to think it was just a “coincidence” that it suddenly materialized a day after Obama’s election? No, it was already concocted, paid for and supplied with slogans by billionaire PACS like those of the Koch Brothers to undermine the new “black” president. Yet the mainstream media treated “ordinary” members of the “movement” like they were “real” people with “real” problems just like they do Trump supporters now. Cut the bullshit; everyone has “problems,” but they don’t all go running around like 

 

In an interview the other day, Kellyanne Conway tells us that Trump was given a “second lease on life.” That doesn’t mean Trump will become a “changed man,” unless change for the worse is in store for the country. I wouldn’t put any stock in any kind of self-evaluation from Trump or anyone else at the Republican convention. You already have Greene not learning anything by using her flamethrower breath on the LGBTQ crowd. It is pointless to give these people an inch, because they will take that and as much as you are dumb enough to let them have, because when they break through the barrier of your weakness to give them what they won’t give you, you can’t stop them then.

Oh wait, were we supposed to be talking about being rational? What does being rational have to do with this election if you persist in being “sorry” for something only one person did? 235 years of democratic government is on the line, and now Trump and his supporters think they have this in their hands to mold like putty into a shapeless mass.