Early in his campaign he mused about whether he'd lose any supporters if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York. Over the course of the last several years, it appears as if he's out to prove himself right. If he did indeed shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, how would he handle it?
- Remind us that New York is a liberal city
- Suggest that the victim was a terrorist
- Shout "fake news!"
- Wonder aloud whether NYPD Homicide detectives will be investigating "Crooked Hillary"
- Deny that he did it
- Tweet that it was a public safety measure
- Tweet that the victim was a journalist, and therefore an enemy of the people
- Deny that he denied that he did it
This week's shit show in Helsinki, following closely on the heels of the shit show at the NATO meeting, which featured some of the same people present at the G7 shit show - and don't forget the United Kingdom shit show...was to date the most disgusting behavior by a serving president...and that's saying a lot.
Double negatives? Really? Once upon a time I was involved in a religious group that, among other things, encouraged us to consider the context when reading the Bible. (Not that they consistently did that, but it was good advice nonetheless) In other words you can't pick a verse in isolation and assign a meaning to it that is at odds with all other nearby or otherwise related verses. This is true in real life as well. When considering a politician's position, you can't just look at one speech, one tweet, or even one vote, you have to look at their entire history of public comments, written positions and voting record. Trump's backpedaling on his "I don't see any reason why it would be" [Russia] statement, claiming that he meant to say "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be" [Russia], ignores the context of that statement. In the immediate context it makes no sense. Trump is being very obsequious to Putin, avoiding even the appearance of criticism. This is in vivid contrast to his behavior with our allies, whom he berates and belittles, threatening and bullying, then lying about what he said. Answering that he can't imagine how it could have been Russia that interfered in our election fits right in with his public behavior during his joint appearance with Putin.
In the follow up the next day, when Trump was reading his "explanation" of his "mispeaking", he did what he frequently does when reading one of his walk-back prepared comments: he interrupts himself, "explaining" what he is reading as if we're not operating under the fiction that it's his own words that he's reading. (Often he'll say something like "that's so true" in the middle of his comments). In his would/wouldn't comments he interrupted his prepared words to say "Could be other people, there's lots of people out there". And of course there's the wider context. Trump has on several occasions said that he supports our intelligence agencies and believes their conclusions about Russian interference, yet he has consistently worked to undermine anyone who was investigating that interference and expressed doubt about Russia's role.
Trump has been insisting that his deference to Russia is simply because it is in our best interest to be on good terms with Russia and that it's good "for the world" for us to get along with Russia. Yet he doesn't feel like it's "good for the world" to get along with anyone else, including our closest allies. He hammers them for not spending more on their militaries, and on allegedly unfair trade practices, ostensibly "Putting America First". He's willing to conduct a wide-ranging trade war rather than achieving our aims through negotiation, yet with Russia, he's willing to let bygones be bygones.
Context.
Does he think we're stupid? I have to conclude that he thinks that we are, and in the case of his die-hard supporters, he's right. People who supposedly love the military ignore or explain away his disrespect for "the generals", individual veterans who disagree with him and Gold Star parents; people for whom morality and religion are paramount are okay with his moral stench; working people cheer when he hands billionaires and corporations huge tax cuts in exchange for a paltry cut for them; those who thought a billionaire couldn't be bought are mute while Trump and his cabinet loot the treasury...and on and on.
Yes, you people who continue to support him are stupid. At first you were "merely" okay with his misogyny, bigotry and xenophobia; those things are stupid, but if you were misogynistic, bigoted and xenophobic, then you got what you wanted. But rationalizing and excusing everything else, including the craven subservience of the past week makes you STUPID.
Fuck you.
