Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump, his press secretary and his director of social media accused Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, both of whom are Democrats, of misrepresenting the reception Trump received from shooting victims during his visit to a Dayton hospital.
Facts First: This is false. While both Brown and Whaley criticized Trump's past rhetoric, they were only complimentary about his visit to the hospital.
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump, his press secretary and his director of social media accused Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, both of whom are Democrats, of misrepresenting the reception Trump received from shooting victims during his visit to a Dayton hospital.
Facts First: This is false. While both Brown and Whaley criticized Trump's past rhetoric, they were only complimentary about his visit to the hospital.
The world is very bizarre right now. We have a president who is, for all practical purposes, a baby. He cannot handle any criticism, and needs constant praise.
And the entire nation has had to take on the role of parents. Half of us see what's going on and how insane it is and are saying, "This is crazy, we can't have an infant as a leader," and the other half is going, "SHHHHHH! Don't say that, you'll upset the baby!" and are falling all over themselves to appease this... thing.
Speaking of the Twilight Zone, there's a very specific Twilight Zone moment that the whole thing reminds me of: the "It's A GOOD Life" episode based on the Jerome Bixby story, where this bratty kid with supernatural powers keeps killing people and "sending them to the cornfield." And everybody around him, out of terror that he'll kill them, has to keep appeasing him, approving of everything he does, no matter how horrible. "It's a good thing you did that, a very good thing."
(You can watch the whole episode in segments, starting here)
It's like Trump's that kid. But Trump doesn't really have any power that people don't give him. He's just a tyrranical brat.
I guess people are dismissing how crazy and abnormal this all is because our politics got so contentious. George Dubya was a bad president... but he acted like an adult human. He had a heart in there somewhere, despite some really horrible things he did (Iraq, Katrina, etc.). Dubya's not much of a guy, but you did get the feeling that he actually cared when people were hurting.
Then Obama, who was damn near Mr. Rogers, but the right-wing were so embarrassed and ashamed that they'd elected such a dud that they just had to not let him be followed up by a successful Democrat, so they projected all kinds of horribleness on Obama, turning every molehill into a mountain, attributing every vile thing they could think of onto him just so they wouldn't have to admit that the other side elected far better and more competent people than they do.
Then the Republicans compounded on their mistake by electing somebody who makes Dubya look like a statesman. They admittedly didn't have a very good field, but they crawled over a bunch of more-competent, grown-up candidates for the bright-shiny-object who made them laugh and who said the most hateful stuff. Basically, they were so mad at Democrats that they let whoever-would-make-Democrats-the-most-angry pick their president for them. Yeah, they hated Hillary, I get that, they were trained like a bunch of circus dogs for decades to do that, and conservatives don't resist training worth a damn, they always gonna do what daddy done done... but hating Hillary doesn't explain why they didn't pick somebody more boring but at least grown-up. Kasich, Jeb!, Mitt (he would've come in with encouragement), whatever. Instead they went with the circus-peanut because he called people names and hated minorities, and they like that shit. Let's not even pretend they don't anymore. Anybody still on board with Trump doesn't deserve benefit of the doubt anymore about bigotry. Ya coulda gotten fooled going in, but if you're sticking with it, that's you, kid, you're co-signing all that murdery-kids-in-cages-Jews-will-not-replace-us shit. The jackboot fits, so goosestep in it.
And the whole cycle of embarrassment's started over. Conservatives humiliate themselves by electing an incompetent nitwit even worse than their last one... and that embarrassment just makes them hate everyone else even more. They don't learn from their mistakes -- instead they just make bigger ones -- and they resent everyone for not pretending that "that's a good thing, a very good thing. At this point the only reason they're trying to defend Trump any more is because they're humiliated and trying to convince themselves that they're still adults who are capable of making decisions. Nobody else is buying it anymore. And they're panicking that they're not getting away with it. They're saying it's the media being mean for reporting the truth, they're saying people are just unreasonable, whatever, but all they're doing is trying to polish a turd and it ain't workin' and there they stand, grown-up adults with a turd in their hands, pissed off at people for laughing at 'em.
We do not have a leader. We're one nation under daycare, taking care of a sensitive baby who can't handle criticism and needs praise, constantly, or he throws tantrums... and everyone around him is terrified of those tantrums. The world's expected to tiptoe around this guy and create a fantasy world of "success" to keep him pacified. We're resented if we don't play along with the illusion. And it's just fucking weird.
Mayor Pete nailed it: https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1159261925735317505
Pete Buttigieg Verified account @PeteButtigieg
At times like this, it would be helpful if our country had a president.
The president's supposed to serve the people. Instead, it seems like the people are expected to serve the president. Even people who are victims of a shooter his rhetoric inspired were expected to make him feel better.
Meanwhile, the FBI's being discouraged from going after white supremacist terrorists because "that makes Trump uncomfortable." https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-white-nationalism-violence-el-paso-dayton-shootings-2019-8 And we're lax on doing anything about Russian election interference because that, too, makes Cheeto Mousse-ilini colicky. The workings of the United States of America are put on hold because people are worried about upsetting a needy 70-some-year-old child. And Republicans are okay with this. Appeasing Trump is more important than running a country.
I have a feeling they had those tweets locked and loaded before Brown and the mayor even spoke.
They are that thin-skinned.
And not without good reason - they had to keep the press away from any interactions in Dayton and zip, zero, nada of the victims who remained hospitalized in El Paso agreed to meet with him.
And, when he met with the staff in El Paso, he started bullshit-bragging about crowd sizes again - he's that neurotic.
Most dangerously, President Trump is serving up to our adversaries an ever more divided and weakened America, one that is animated by suspicion, rived by hatred of the “other” and increasingly incapable of uniting in the face of external threats. Russia, above all, continues to exploit and exacerbate these divisions.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russian trolls stoked American white nationalism while amplifying black anger about police brutality in an effort to suppress the African-American vote. Today, President Vladimir Putin of Russia continues to use social media to undermine our democracy and provoke internal conflict. Other adversaries may seek to do the same, knowing that their efforts will be aided and abetted by our divider in chief with his twitchy Twitter fingers and a bastardized view of how to use the bully pulpit.
Our domestic fault lines remain our greatest national security vulnerability, and race is our oldest and deepest rift. When the president deliberately and repeatedly rubs salt in those wounds, while coddling the authoritarian opponents who exploit them, we must reluctantly ask ourselves: Is he playing on America’s team?
He clearly isn't, but people who can't face the enormity of the mistake they made voting for him will likely vote for him again, rather than have to admit that they're that damned stupid.
I've said it before: if Trump isn't a Russian asset, then it's hard to imagine what he'd do differently if he was. As far as "collusion" goes, I don't know how much contact he actually had with Russia, but given the condition of Trump's unique mental illnesses, I don't think contact with them was even necessary: Putin knows how to play this guy like a fiddle. Maybe he has a "pee tape" or some other compromat over him, and maybe he doesn't, but I don't think it even matters, because... look at Kim Jung Un. Kim has no compromising material on Trump, I'm sure, but Trump still makes all kinds of excuse for him, because Kim sent him letters saying "nice things." That's all you have to do with this dope. He's so needy for approval that he'll spread 'em for anybody who fills that need.
Trump's impressed with Putin and neeeeeeds him to "like him," so Putin pretends to... and Trump obligingly draws us out of trade deals and lets Russia step in and take 'em to help fatten up their formerly-failing economy. Trump obligingly starts up a new arms race that benefits Putin, so he has a free hand to build more weapons to take on the world. Trump obligingly gives Russia a pass on election meddling and makes his own agencies afraid to really investigate it since they'll make him mad if they do... as well as discrediting those agencies to his crazy conspiracy-theory-driven base. Trump obligingly sets American against American and stokes up racial hatred so we won't be unified and will, in fact, hate each other and be wrapped up in a cold civil war that could always turn even worse. Trump obligingly emboldens white nationalists so they turn into a terrorist threat, killing our people. Trump obligingly is cruel to immigrants and put their kids in cages so our image overseas is no longer a "shining city on a hill" but a fascist Klan of hateful, mean-spirited idiots. Trump obligingly tries to enact "Muslim bans" which leaves ISIS-type groups a valuable "see, we told you so!" recruiting tool. Trump obligingly alienates our allies to benefit Russia, weakening our defense against Putin. Trump obligingly creates a trade war to encourage our former partners to form new alliances that work around America and basically cut us out. Trump obligingly slanders the press so his cultish base won't trust anyone who could wise them up to his lies, and the only source of "news" they get is state propaganda, full with even crazier, more divisive lies. Trump obligingly lies so much that nothing he says can be trusted by anyone, and America has no credibility anymore, either internally or on the world stage. Trump obligingly kills off belief in what America stands for and replaces it with a brand idiot "stop asking questions" nationalism that stops anyone from trying to halt our decline.
And on and on and on. I'm sure I missed a few dozen. But the bottom line is: what else could Russia even ask for?
Trump's not on America's team. Nor are his apologists.
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