TRUMP LIES

 

There is an almost pristine copy of the January 6th Report in my Critter Corral living room. I’ve read it cover-to-cover. (A lot of it is footnoted, so it isn’t quite the slog it appears to be when you look at its size, so there is no need to be impressed by this “feat”. It only took me about eight hours to read, if that.)

 

I find myself going back to it and just opening it to any page.

 

On every page, the proof is there in black and white, documented by Trump Administration officials, staffers and even family members, from Attorney General Barr to Mark Meadows’ former aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

 

Trump knowingly lied about a stolen election, and he summoned an armed mob to attack the Capitol.

 

He summoned the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and other far-right white supremacist miscreants, and they came.

 

And they stood down as soon as Trump decided (hours too late) to tell them to go home “and remember this day forever.” “We love you, you’re very special.”  Again repeating the lie that the election was stolen from the American people.

 

What I recognize most starkly in all this is a case of arrested development (in Trump for starters, but in his white supremacist far-right followers , too), a petulant Manchild who never left the Terrible Twos. He believed, and continues to believe, that the world revolves around him, “as well it should!”

 

WARNER BROS. INCIDENT

 

I can’t help thinking of an incident at Warner Bros. when I worked there. One of the database programmers had an adorable (but stubborn!) little girl who visited our offices one day. She was about two and a half or three years old at the time.

 

I was watching her for a few moments while her mom tended to business.  We were in my boss’s office alone (the boss was in the same meeting as her mom), where there was a small potted cactus within easy reach.

 

At some point, the little girl took an enormous, laser-focused interest in the cactus. She stuck out her pointer finger to touch it.  I cautioned her, “Oh, Mariah!  Don’t do that! It will hurt you!”  Defiant (“not my mother, not my boss!”), she screwed her little face into a display of defiance and — before I could react and get close enough to her to stop what was about to happen– she jabbed her finger into the cactus — and of course immediately pulled it away, surprised and sharply yowling.

 

But then she looked at me accusingly, as though I had caused her injury!

 

That’s Donald Trump in a nutshell.  He wreaks havoc everywhere he goes -jabbing his finger into prickly matters left and right — and then howls piteously when things don’t go the way he expects them to. It’s always someone’s else’s fault that he’s in the pickle he is in.

 

My friend’s little girl grew up and matured. Donald Trump never has and never will.  (He simply cannot. It’s tragic, but true.) If he had never been in a position of power, I would feel genuinely sorry for him and the way he was raised by a psychopathic father wo wanted a “killer.” But because he has been in a position of enormous power and influence, he remains a very dangerous man (as long as the GOP continues to bow down to him and his voters)  and we must make sure that he and his cohorts never gain access to executive power again. I still don’t understand why his insurrection supporters/election deniers were re-seated in this recent Congress. There is a law against that! 

 

THE GOP COMPLIES

 

The problem here is that the vast majority of the GOP defers to him, even now, after it has been shown, time after time for decades, that he’s an amoral tyrant with no ability (or proclivity) to do the right thing whenever doing the right thing doesn’t get him the result he wants.  The GOP is afraid not only of Trump, but of losing their base of support — because they have the same odious appetites and proclivities that he has, and they need the malcontents in his thrall to advance their aims.

 

So they continue to lie, to steal votes, and to disenfranchise Democratic and Independent voters. 144 members of Congress voted NOT  to certfiy Biden’s election victory even on the heels, within hours, of a failed insurrection.  And their voters defeated Lynn Cheney and other GOP members of the January 6th committee because they dared defend their oath to the Constitution of the United  States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  It is a sad — a truly tragic — states of affairs.

 

THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY DIES

 

 

“To the last, I grapple with thee;

From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee;

For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

 

Herman Melville wrote those words in MOBY DICK.  In STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN, Khan repeats them with vengeance born of the insanity caused by unmitigated hatred.  Captain Ahab died with this sentiment eating away his soul. And he took his crew right along with him into the depths because no one dared declare a mutiny to stop him.

 

That’s exactly what the GOP is doing to “own the libs.” They are bent on defeating the voices of our democracy.

 

Patriots of all stripes, PLEASE READ THE JANUARY 6TH REPORT. If you’re afraid of what you might find there, you are especially encouraged (urged!) to read it.  The truth will set you free and may even save our nation. But only if you get off the Trump LIE-wagon and look at where following him will lead us all — right off a cliff against the express wishes and hard work of our Founding Fathers.

 

Donald Trump is not your friend. He doesn’t have your back.  He is all in for himself only, and he always has been.

He is playing you.

He is pumping up your fears against fellow Americans, who merely seek a level playing field so their families have the same chance to succeed that yours does.

 

Caucasians are less than ten percent of the world population. We have always been in the minority; this is nothing new.

 

It’s time to realize that the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. You originated in Africa. Your earliest progenitors were black.

 

All people are your brethren. This isn’t about “us and them.”  This is about surviving together and expressing goodwill to your brethren.  Get a DNA test done, if you don’t believe me.

 

STOP BEING SO AFRAID. 

STOP LISTENING TO THE DIVIDERS.

CIVILITY IS WHAT DEFINES CIVIL-IZATION!