Tag Archives: Charlottesville

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Amusing or disgusting?

I am trying to decide whether Donald Trump’s assorted campaign strategies amuse me or disgust me.

I’ll say it’s possibly a bit of both … but mostly disgusting.

I watched Trump try to suggest the other day that Joseph R. Biden is intent on destroying the “suburbs.” To which I raised my eyebrows and thought, “Huh? What in the world is the Demagogue in Chief saying?” Then it dawned on me.

He accuses the former vice president, as I understand what passes for logic in POTUS’s noggin, of creating a lawless inner city, which will drive people out of the city and into the ‘burbs. Thus, we have a situation, according to the No. 1 demagogue, where suburbs are populated by those who formerly lived in the inner city.

It’s a thinly disguised code for racial politics, my friends.

It ain’t funny, so I’ll cease being amused by that tactic. It’s downright disgusting, vile, venal and vicious. It is precisely the kind of trait that Trump demonstrates routinely, such as when he called the Klansmen and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville “fine people.” Or how about when he continued to insist that the nation’s first black president wasn’t born in the United States and that he was constitutionally ineligible to campaign for the nation’s highest office?

You get the idea, yes?

So now Donald Trump says Joe Biden is going to destroy the ‘burbs.

Disgraceful.

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Trump demonstrates he is utterly without hope

I have admitted already that I am an eternal optimist. I tend to assume the best in people until they reveal themselves to be something I don’t expect.

That eternal optimism has prompted me to write on this blog that perhaps someday Donald Trump will learn to “act presidential,” that he would keep the promise he made upon being elected.

What does he do? He proves me wrong time and again.

Charlottesville gave him a chance to reveal his presidential chops. Then in the wake of the riot in which a white supremacist allegedly ran down a counter protester he said “there were fine people … on both sides!” Yes, he elevated Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists to the same level of those who protested against them.

Then he went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria savaged the island territory and engaged in arguably the weirdest photo op anyone’s ever seen: The president tossed rolls of paper towels at a crowd assembled in front of him. Then he got into a public pis**** match with the San Juan mayor over whether the federal government was doing enough to help the stricken island.

Time and again he has failed to rise to the occasion laid before him. He demonstrates a profound lack of empathy, of compassion, of caring for the needs of others.

Still, I hung to the faintest of hope that he would learn how to act and sound like the president of the United States of America.

Now we have a case of bombs being sent to Democratic politicians, a major news outlet, a major Democratic campaign financial donor and two former Democratic presidents of the United States, a former vice president and a former CIA director. Trump hasn’t called the two former presidents — Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — or former VP Joe Biden to offer words of support to them or their families. How do I know that? Because if he had, Trump would tell us!

He now blames Democrats for the anger that has engulfed the nation. He blames the media for their reporting of “fake news.” He tosses out blame and takes not an ounce of responsibility for what he has done to contribute to the toxic climate that infects our public discourse.

He has failed … again to demonstrate the qualities of leadership we expect in our president.

I no longer am going to wish that he will find it within himself. Yes, I know others gave up on this individual long ago, that I am late to the party. However, I have arrived.

The man no longer deserves the benefit of any doubt at all. I am officially convinced the president is a political reprobate.