Look, I sort of like this. It's silly and vainglorious--sure. It's ripe with ego, of course, but show me a politician who doesn't suffer some kind of ego problem, and I'll show you a loser. For a July 4 greeting to the nation, the meme is cute--in its own stupid way. I'd like to think it bespeaks a man with a wholesome dash of irony--"Look at me, America, I'm today's George Washington." Yuk, yuk.
The problem is, Trump is not yukking. The man believes the hype, the meme. He sees himself as leading a rebel nation to victory over a repressive and criminal "deep state." It's a bloody horror he's taking on to keep his disciples (actual disciples, mind you), the throng hungrily awaiting freedom from evil. Trump isn't putting this George Washington meme up to be cute. He wants his MAGA elites to see him as the last great American patriot, the last hope.
It's nuts. Not long at all after pleading not guilty in court, ex-President Donald J. Trump told some lame-brained admirers just outside his Bedminster, New Jersey, that Biden, “together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy.”
Biden, a Marxist? Trump is not an idiot. He wants to awaken a century-old fear of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" being destroyed by communism, by communists, as if Biden and all the Democrats in the country are closet commies. Meanwhile, in his estimation, his buddy Vlad is "a brilliant man." In Trump's madness, Putin is not a communist, Biden is.
Welcome to the upside-down world of the Republican's out-front candidate for the Presidency.
Trump's red baiting is old as the hills of the Missouri. My dad caught a good strong whiff of it 75 years ago when a Wisconsin senator named McCarthy made wild and phony accusations about all kind of people--communists, in films and in governments, who, behind closed doors, together plotted the end of American democracy. Fear works. It sells tickets and hungrily gathers contributions. Trump is our latest peddler of McCarthyism.
But the great sadness is the fact that people like Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and Randy Feenstra don't raise a voice against Trump's evil madness. They don't want to lose. They know President Joe Biden is no commie. But they keep still, and the whole American political scene begins to stink to high heaven.
Both Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon finally lost credibility when fellow Republicans came out of hiding, when conservatives couldn't help but note the evil behind the lunacy. That as yet hasn't happened. Ernst/Grassley/Feenstra all are steadfast in their silence.
Meanwhile, yesterday, for the Fourth of July, Trump himself celebrated his glory by passing along this meme. Isn't it a beauty? Isn't he a great man?
The problem is, Trump is not yukking. The man believes the hype, the meme. He sees himself as leading a rebel nation to victory over a repressive and criminal "deep state." It's a bloody horror he's taking on to keep his disciples (actual disciples, mind you), the throng hungrily awaiting freedom from evil. Trump isn't putting this George Washington meme up to be cute. He wants his MAGA elites to see him as the last great American patriot, the last hope.
It's nuts. Not long at all after pleading not guilty in court, ex-President Donald J. Trump told some lame-brained admirers just outside his Bedminster, New Jersey, that Biden, “together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy.”
Biden, a Marxist? Trump is not an idiot. He wants to awaken a century-old fear of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" being destroyed by communism, by communists, as if Biden and all the Democrats in the country are closet commies. Meanwhile, in his estimation, his buddy Vlad is "a brilliant man." In Trump's madness, Putin is not a communist, Biden is.
Welcome to the upside-down world of the Republican's out-front candidate for the Presidency.
Trump's red baiting is old as the hills of the Missouri. My dad caught a good strong whiff of it 75 years ago when a Wisconsin senator named McCarthy made wild and phony accusations about all kind of people--communists, in films and in governments, who, behind closed doors, together plotted the end of American democracy. Fear works. It sells tickets and hungrily gathers contributions. Trump is our latest peddler of McCarthyism.
But the great sadness is the fact that people like Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and Randy Feenstra don't raise a voice against Trump's evil madness. They don't want to lose. They know President Joe Biden is no commie. But they keep still, and the whole American political scene begins to stink to high heaven.
Both Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon finally lost credibility when fellow Republicans came out of hiding, when conservatives couldn't help but note the evil behind the lunacy. That as yet hasn't happened. Ernst/Grassley/Feenstra all are steadfast in their silence.
Meanwhile, yesterday, for the Fourth of July, Trump himself celebrated his glory by passing along this meme. Isn't it a beauty? Isn't he a great man?
4 comments:
In the case, of President Nixon, Arizona was the source of two gentlemen, Senator Barry Goldwater and Rep. John Rhodes, both Republicans, who were willing to go to Nixon and tell him that his time was up. Later I had a chance to meet Senator Goldwater in my work in Arizona and found him to be a decent and honorable man. Where are such men and women today?
jdb,
Agreed. Where are they?
I'm not much of a Republican, but I don't understand how the party
can continue to support such a loser. Look at all the elections
he's lost for them in the last few years. Amazing! Sad.
Forrestal. I shall forever remember his answer. He said, ‘McCarthy, consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If they were merely stupid they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor.’
This was Forrestal's comment to St Joe b4 he got thrown out 16th floor window of Bethesda Naval Hospital,
thanks,
Jerry
Truthweed
9 July, 2019 6:39 pm
As I recall it, the New York Constitutional Education Society offered a large sum of money to anyone who could demonstrate that McCarthy had falsely accused them of being a communist. The money was not claimed (see Epperson’s ‘The Unseen Hand’).
Post a Comment