Donald Trump has stooped to a new low. On June 1, our platinum-blond, orange-skinned, reality TV president cleared peaceful protestors from an area in front of a church in Washington, D.C., for a photo op with a Bible. If this wasn’t the most overt and ridiculous example of a person trying to keep his base of followers in line, I don’t know what is.
The more I watch Trump, the more disgusted I get. He’s the ultimate hypocrite: a draft-dodger who says he supports the military; a supposed patriot who says he supports American business, but bought his construction steel in China; a businessman who rails incessantly about the Democrats and proclaims his love of rural Americans, but only builds his hotels in blue cities; a charlatan who screams “Fake News!” every chance he gets, but has made more than 18,000 false or misleading claims during his time in office, according to the Washington Post.
Trump is the classic snake-oil salesman who’s figured out how to appeal to America’s undereducated. Like all Wall Street Republicans, his main goal is lower taxes for rich, white men, and to that end, no amount of dishonesty or lies are off limits.
He boasts that he’s “done more for the Black Community than any president since Abraham Lincoln” but insists there were “very fine people, on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Virginia that left one young woman dead. And don’t forget that Trump’s racist business practices first came to light in the 1970s when he was prosecuted for discrimination by the Justice Department.
Trump projects himself as a tough guy, but he cowered in a bunker because he was scared of protestors near the White House and used the excuse of his feet hurting to dodge the Vietnam draft. To this day, he refuses to show his tax returns. He brags about donating his presidential salary, but bilks the American taxpayers for millions through his resorts and golf courses.
The problem is that as goofy, cowardly and corny as he is, he holds a tremendous amount of power, and he’s managed to scare a lot of folks who should know better into being spineless ass-kissers, like Senator Lindsay Graham and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
We’re finally seeing some real heroes like General James Mattis and other top military brass speak out. Deep down inside, they all know Trump is a bumbling, egotistical fool who’s in way over his head. Wasn’t it Rex Tillerson who called Trump a moron before being fired as secretary of state?
What strikes me as completely bizarre is that the president’s diehard supporters have maintained their inability to read between the lines. For example, we know Russia has been the United States’ No. 1 adversary since World War II; we know Russia has done everything in its power to disrupt and hurt U.S. interests around the world; we know Russia backs Cuba, Venezuela and other enemies of the U.S. With these facts in mind, it should be obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin would throw his support behind a weak, easily compromised, inexperienced presidential candidate in a U.S. election. And he did. Putin, our enemy, backed Trump, the most unqualified president in our nation’s history. Russia played a significant role in getting our dictator-in-training elected, and despite evidence of Putin’s meddling, the two have had a cozy relationship since Trump took office. This simple but telling fact flew right over the head of our brain-dead far-right. They’ve seemingly been brainwashed to believe the true enemy of America is the Democrats, the media and the political system Trump’s manipulating for his own gain.
Trump has already proven himself an incompetent leader. He has botched the response to the coronavirus pandemic, showing no remorse for the 125,000 and counting who have died and allowing the American economy to spin into freefall. He has shriveled in the face of social unrest. He has alienated America’s long-standing allies and damaged our nation’s reputation on the global stage.
We cannot allow him to do further damage to our democracy.
Greg James
Publisher