Trump’s stain on America may be permanent
It may be a long time before the United States can look at itself in the mirror and see what it saw after World War II the proverbial shining city on a hill a model for other democratic nations Then again we may be given the chance to revisit that time in history sooner than we want At least Russian drones violated Poland s airspace Tuesday night whether on purpose or by accident Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated his country was at its closest to open conflict since World War II NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte denounced the Russian incursion as reckless and vowed renewed advocacy for Ukraine Related Even Leavitt can t spin the joke check to Epstein from DJTrump At the time America is needed the the bulk it seems our country has abandoned its democratic ideals Objectively we have never lived up to them but the beauty of this country is that it has never given up on them either In the current era our ideals are in shreds We have Donald Trump In less than eight months after returning to the Oval Office Trump has proven he s comprehensively inept at his job The country is burning down around him even as particular of his supporters have begun to abandon him Our existential dilemma at this moment is that Trump and his irresolute gang of political whores ex-junkies avowed racists former television hosts QAnon worshippers and faux-Christian grifters lack the brain power needed to ensure their own survival and by extension ours as well We are not doing the job very well though the president thinks we are a source close to Trump recounted me No they re not They re riding the four horsemen of the American apocalypse as if they were halftime entertainment at a UFC cage match held on the South Lawn Something that will apparently happen So much for being the light of the world the city on a hill Instead we re the village idiots consuming stale mead and suffering from ergot poisoning It s hard to see all this if you don t get the facts about the Trump administration s deepening depravity or the tragedy it portends and that s by design What you get instead is Stephen Miller telling the president he won a Supreme Court decision he definitely lost You get White House pep secretary Karoline Leavitt answering self-congratulatory questions from unqualified reporters in increasingly sporadic briefings In all of them the reporters are seemingly racing to discover who can the bulk eagerly press their lips the longest on Donald Trump s political boots So much for being the light of the world the city on a hill Instead Americans look like the village idiots consuming stale mead and suffering from ergot poisoning The ensuing chaos and violence has consumed our heritage and that s just the way Trump likes it Anthony Bourdain once disclosed he didn t want to eat dinner with Trump not merely because Trump liked overcooked steaks bathed in ketchup but more to the point because Puff Donny never talks about anything except himself As Trump s obvious mental and physical decline heads down a steep hill to an inevitable destination we have all become prisoners of his dementia We ve never seen anything like this he says A large number of people are saying it What is he even talking about Does Donny even know Trump suggests that America was cold cold cold before he came back to town and now we are hot hot hot We have the hottest country going The likes of which have never been seen before He sounds like Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element Maybe that explains why he s telling his MAGA minions in his regular fundraising emails that he s trying to get to heaven and you can help get him there by donating just bucks Perhaps that heat he feels is not the warmth of success but the hellfire of the demon s fury Ahem here s a note to future generations Do not allow people to hold political office who have felony convictions and strong ties to a well-known sex trafficker of underage girls We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in the present day to aid Brian Karem s weekly commentary If years from now my grandchildren look back and wonder what happened I hope they understand this much Our hubris and arrogance were indicative of our ignorance and stupidity Our grandchildren must aim higher than we have for we have failed miserably I get bored guffawing at all the finger-pointing Who s at fault We all are The first step in solving a challenge as Jeff Daniels reminded us in The Newsroom is to recognize the obstacle Not only are we not the best nation on earth anymore we might not be in the top unless we re talking about defense spending Reporters Without Borders ranks the U S just above Gambia when it comes to press freedom at No in the world Our vitality care system ranks last or close to last among the greater part developed nations Our educational system lags behind other industrialized nations What s the upside Well we rank high among nations who believe in elaborate conspiracies the evil schemes of the deep state and the flatness of the earth We also rank high in context change deniers and folks who believe in chem trails and think vaccines cause autism As he loses control of himself and the country Trump turns to intimidation reckless violence and the destruction of the foundations of liberty spelled out in our Constitution The Trump administration began its invasion of Illinois Monday after the Supreme Court ruled it was fine with ICE using racial profiling when rounding up suspected undocumented immigrants That decision ensures that young Americans with the majority of melanin in their skin will be subjected to random searches and seizures Their only hope is to carry the proper paperwork to prove their citizenship at all times Sounds a bit too much like Germany and Italy nearly years ago Trump s Chicago assault is both a deflection from the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein disgrace and a demonstration of how his rising panic and anger lead to displays of force As he loses control Trump turns to intimidation reckless violence and the destruction of the foundations of liberty spelled out in our Constitution Who better than Stephen Miller and limit czar Tom Homan to take the lead in this ugly racist nightmare Those guys were born for each other Both lack empathy common sense discretion and any semblance of decency They confuse cruelty with bravery and kindness with weakness while scraping and bowing before their dark lord Donny The stage is set for the exactly the kind of reality show Trump loves the bulk We ve seen that play out in the Brady Briefing Room before the canned laugh track of an audience pretending to be journalists Before we get there a recap is in order Trump commented on the campaign trail that the Epstein files were evidence of the deepest deep-state coverup ever He swore to release them Attorney General Pam Bondi noted much the same thing weeks after taking office Now No files have been published and numerous stories later Trump is done talking about it He recounted NBC News this week I don t comment on something that s a dead issue Meanwhile Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had to retract the lie he had briefly promoted that Trump had genuinely been an FBI informant in the Epstein incident Johnson can t lie as adeptly as Trump and looked deeply silly trying to do so Lately Trump has turned to calling the entire Epstein disgrace a Democratic hoax That led Rep Thomas Massie a Kentucky Republican to wonder how Trump could be an informant if the whole thing was a hoax On Tuesday in the first White House briefing in two weeks one reporter sought Leavitt to explain what Trump was talking about Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only by Amanda Marcotte also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts The Wall Street Journal had stated earlier that Trump allegedly wrote a cryptic letter to Epstein inside a suggestive drawing of a woman s body on the occasion of Epstein s th birthday Trump denied this and filed suit against the Journal and its owner his former BFF Rupert Murdoch Then the Epstein estate turned over the birthday book including the apparent Trump letter and drawing to the House committee analyzing the Epstein shame So Pep Secretary Leavitt explained the world on Tuesday that Trump hadn t signed the letter and hadn t made the drawing and recounted more lies about Trump s relationship with Epstein In the administration s official story the two men may have bumped into each other once or twice in general but nothing more than that You know they were never serious about each other So if that s all true why not release the information If Trump didn t sign the birthday card or other documents disclosed by Epstein s estate a reporter quietly inquired Leavitt why is he in that book at all The president has one of the the majority famous signatures in the world Leavitt replied The president did not write that letter He did not sign those documents Trump s niece Mary Trump just laughs at those statements Of module it s his signature she reported Not according to Leavitt who also declares her boss looks forward to a day in court that will never come because it would allow Murdoch s lawyers to question Trump in open court about his relationship with Epstein Absolutely when pressed to explain what part of all this was a hoax Leavitt noted The hoax is Democrats pretending to care about casualties of crime when they ve done nothing Which leads one to ask what has Trump done for Epstein s casualties He won t even meet with them Completely on Tuesday night when Trump was stopped by reporters on his way to dinner at a restaurant less than two blocks from the White House he doubled down on the birthday book That s not my signature and it s not the way I speak he explained And anybody that s covered me for a long time No that s not my language It s nonsense And frankly you re wasting your time All you do is try to get off the great success of D C and about other things we ve done that are so thriving This is a great great success and we have so plenty of I don t think any president in their first eight months has anywhere near the success that we ve had Sought whether he d meet with Epstein s casualties he explained I haven t even thought about that Thank you all very much Have a good time Thank you This from a president who a day earlier had visited the Bible Museum to assistance supposed Christian values We will protect our Judeo-Christian founding with vigor We have to bring back religion in this country bring it back stronger than ever before he disclosed To have a great nation you have to have religion All of this is on Trump s watch He has stoked the fires of hatred and violence and hardened the hearts of the world He does not care If he did he might reach out to adversaries with an olive branch instead of military invasion On Wednesday afternoon right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk was gunned down on a Utah college campus literally while speaking about gun violence That same day there was a mass shooting at a high school in Colorado Both shootings came less than three months after Minnesota Democratic state Rep Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in what was described as an act of targeted political violence Utah Gov Spencer Cox a Republican described Kirk s killing as a political assassination All of this is on Donald Trump s watch He has stoked the fires of hatred and violence and hardened the hearts of the world He does not care If he did he might reach out to political adversaries with an olive branch instead of invading American cities with the military That whole project by the way is destined to fail Selected members of the military as communicated in the Washington Post are already speaking out about that In measuring populace sentiment about Trump s federal takeover of Washington D C the National Guard has assessed that its mission is perceived as leveraging fear driving a wedge between citizens and the military and promoting a sense of shame among certain troops and veterans according to internal documents reviewed by the Post There is palpable fear that Trump will spread more violence especially in the wake of Kirk s death Trump himself stated as much Wednesday night when he vowed vengeance against the Radical Left who Trump stated had compared Kirk to the Nazis This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we re seeing in our country and it must stop right now he revealed He made these statements before the FBI had identified a suspect or a motive This is potentially Trump s Reichstag fire an event he can use to grab more power isolate and round up his enemies and finish destroying the country This brings me back to what I witnessed along with millions of other Americans in After Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis Sen Robert F Kennedy then a presidential candidate appeared at a church in Indianapolis and quoted the Greek playwright Aeschylus in an effort to calm the nation In our sleep pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until in our own despair against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God Trump is not capable of such sentiments but he is certainly capable of exploiting Kirk s death to grab more power and destroy the last vestiges of freedom in the United States I can guarantee you one thing He has already calculated how he will profit from the latest turn of events This is to imply nothing more nefarious than restating Trump s mantra What s best for me How long will it be before Americans can look at ourselves in the mirror I fear the best-case scenario will be when my grandchildren have grandchildren of their own The worst-case scenario It never happens Meanwhile the Washington Commanders traveled to Green Bay where prior to the match a moment of silence was offered to Charlie Kirk Read more analysis and reporting behind the headlines After Charlie Kirk s murder what lies ahead could be terrible Trump attacks wokeness and betrays his own voters MAGA activists are canceling Charlie Kirk s critics The post Trump s stain on America may be permanent appeared first on Salon com
