We are living in a land where fate supposes the possibility of a con artist like Trump could become President of the United States.
In spite of his many sins. In spite of his open hostility to minorities and women. In spite of his failures regarding foreign and financial policies. There is still going to be enough of our fellow Americans who will buy this con game. Worse, there are enough of our fellow Americans who KNOW - who have whispered among themselves in dark dreary corners away from the cameras - how dangerous and reckless this Trump could be but who STILL close their eyes and blind themselves all because they cannot accept any alternative: Because of their partisan habits to back Republican ideology at all hazards, because of the likelihood they themselves could profit from a Trump victory, because of their foolish hope that "maybe" Trump could be controlled.
But have we ever had a Presidential nominee be so openly toxic?
Yoni Appelbaum, on Trump's narcissism:
In 2016, Donald J. Trump mounted the stage, and told America that the nation is in crisis. That attacks on police and terrorism threaten the American way of life. That the United States suffers from domestic disaster, and international humiliation. That it is full of shuttered factories and crushed communities. That it is beset by “poverty and violence at home” and “war and destruction abroad.”
And he offered them a solution.
I am your voice, said Trump. I alone can fix it. I will restore law and order. He did not appeal to prayer, or to God. He did not ask Americans to measure him against their values, or to hold him responsible for living up to them. He did not ask for their help. He asked them to place their faith in him.
Does that not echo the cults of personality that have haunted nations scarred by dictatorships and tyrannies? Trump did not appeal to a broad, optimistic view of the nation that nearly every other Presidential nominee has offered on that stage. He did not appeal to the party, actually. Trump appealed to the fears, he appealed to the anger, he appealed to the delusions. And he offered himself up as the Great Savior for all these problems he claims besets us, as though no one else can do this.
Does not Trump's speech ignore the real world? He claims the United States is suffering at home and abroad despite evidence to the contrary. From Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee at the Washington Post:
The dark portrait of America that Donald J. Trump sketched in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention is a compendium of doomsday stats that fall apart upon close scrutiny. Numbers are taken out of context, data is manipulated, and sometimes the facts are wrong.
When facts are inconveniently positive — such as rising incomes and an unemployment rate under 5 percent — Trump simply declines to mention them. He describes an exceedingly violent nation, flooded with murders, when in reality, the violent-crime rate has been cut in half since the crack cocaine epidemic hit its peak in 1991...
Throughout Kessler and Hee Lee's article they pick apart each of Trump's accusations and claims, spotting anecdote for what it is, and highlighting how Trump is getting the numbers on tax rates, immigration, and employment wrong. But Trump won't care. He will keep shilling those statements because he needs to keep convincing voters that things are worse than they are and that HE can save us.
It's been said before that the Republicans do not live in the real world. In RepublicanLand, the liberals are destroying everything and Obama is a Secret Muslim selling us out to terrorists and corporations need tax cuts and deregulations before they can hire everybody back (without any healthcare benefits or minimum wage requirements). Now, they have Trump putting his trademark name on that property, without caring how Trump's brand never really sells and collapses into bankruptcy before any buildings are even started.
And this isn't even getting into the shitshow Trump threatens to bring to our foreign policy needs and what he threatens to do with our existing alliances that have STABILIZED - in spite of the War on Terror - our world for more than a half-century. Adam Silverman's article linked here should wake people up to the danger Trump presents.
And of course, the media elites will swarm and applaud because they have to, lest Trump and the Far Right throw another conniption about how "biased" and "unfair" the "liberal media" will be. So of course the pundits will line up and say "well that wasn't TOO EVIL a speech" or will argue that Trump has finally pivoted to the Center and can actually win in Nove... cough cough BLLLAARRRRRGGGG... Jesus, I can't even write that without vomiting in disgust.
No. Just no. Not ever. Not Trump. NOT TRUMP.
How the HELL is Trump even polling above 35 percent? How the HELL IS TRUMP EVEN POLLING ABOVE THE CRAZIFICATION MARK AT 27 PERCENT?!?!
/despair
GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, DEMOCRATS. Every single registered Democrat in the nation needs to show up this November 8th and VOTE against Trump. I don't care if you've got a grudge against Hillary. Half that shit about her isn't even REAL, so why the hell are those lies bothering you? JUST VOTE FOR HER DAMMIT.
GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, NO-PARTY AFFILIATES. Every single one of us in the nation needs to show up this November 8th and VOTE against Trump. I'd prefer it was a vote FOR Hillary, but the key thing here is FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE TRUMP.
GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, LIBERTARIANS. Christ, I can't believe I'm asking you guys to show up. But damn, your guy Gary Johnson is at LEAST reasonable and sane compared to Trump.
GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, GREENS. I'd rather you vote for Hillary, because your demographic pulls away votes from Dems more than Republicans, but the key thing again is DAMMIT DO NOT VOTE TRUMP.
And Republicans? I'D RATHER YOU STAY AT HOME THIS NOVEMBER 8TH. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING, VOTING THIS CON ARTIST INTO THE RACE?! DAMN YOU. If you have the nerve to show up to vote, fine, so be it. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SANE AND HOLY AND REAL PLEASE DO NOT VOTE TRUMP. Vote Johnson, if anything. Just please NOT TRUMP. Not ever Trump.
This shit is insane and scary and wrong.
1 comment:
He has to lie to try and scare people into voting for him because, get this: things are getting better (slowly), have been for a long time, and are one hell of a lot better than they were in 2008. This is his version of the "red scare" of McCarthyism as practiced by Joe's attack dog and Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn. Crime is out of control and there are 17 known communists in the state department...
-Doug in Oakland
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