America is Burning

What’s on my mind? The old expression used to be that if someone’s behavior tipped toward the dangerous and bizarre, “the men in the white coats” would haul that person away. Where are they now, those men in the white coats? 

This has not been a good week for President Donald Trump. In interviews advance-publicizing author John Bolton’s forthcoming 592-page book (The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir), Bolton has been singing like a canary freed from its cage. 

“Memoir”? A legal dodge, I’m sure: “That’s how I remember it …” Bolton - by all reports an assiduous note-taker - remembers a great deal.

As Trump’s handpicked former national security adviser, Bolton remembers that Trump didn’t know if Finland was an autonomous country or part of Russia; that he thought Venezuela was part of the US; that he solicited China’s help in the upcoming US election; that he called China’s concentration-camp incarceration of its persecuted Muslim minority “exactly the right thing to do.”

The cruel, wanna-be dictator who is Donald Trump floated the idea of executing journalists who don’t divulge the identities of their confidential sources. That is breath-taking.

In threatening to sue, Trump calls Bolton’s leaks “highly classified information.” That Donald Trump is a self-serving fool is highly classified? 

The President has yet more problems. 

In a 4-to-5 ruling released this morning, the Supreme Court repudiated Trump’s mean-spirited desire to send America’s 700,00 dreamers home - even though they’ve never broken the law, even though most pay taxes and are gainfully employed, even though “home” is a country they’ve never known. 

Given the news, Trump tweeted this morning: “Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?”

Me-me-me-me-me-me-e-e! Always “me.” In a compassionate consideration of the dreamers’ situation, President Barrack Obama signed an executive order allowing DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) an extension of their stays. Obama did this? Get rid of it - just as Trump has rescinded other Obama executive orders and legislation intended to move the country forward.

People around the world have protested in the streets for the three weeks since Black American George Floyd’s death. The message is loud and clear: Black Lives Matter. This week, the US Supreme Court made it clear LGBT lives matter, too - something with which the Trump administration disagreed. 

Earlier today, Facebook removed Trump campaign ads containing inverted red triangles identical to those the Nazis used to identify political prisoners. The Trump campaign denied doing anything wrong. Is the statement evil, or merely stupid and insensitive? Because those are the only options. Using inverted red triangles can hardly be termed a “coincidence.” 

In recent weeks, Donald Trump criticized the Voice of America for its news coverage of China during the coronavirus crisis: “Voice of America is run in a terrible manner. They’re not the Voice of America. They’re the opposite of the Voice of America.”

The VOA News reported today that the newly appointed chief executive overseeing the Voice of America fired two agency heads and their corporate boards, this week. Their replacements? According to the News: “... unqualified political people, fundamentally undermining the mission and work of the organization. It’s now obvious why the White House wanted (the new appointee) so badly, so they can transform the agency into their own personal mouthpiece.” 

Tuesday, a New York Times editorial stated: “The specter of turning VOA into a propaganda tool of the White House should be frightening to all Americans, regardless of political leanings.” 

It’s not like Donald Trump doesn’t already control the news as he sees it. Until recently, Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump (wife of Trump’s son Eric), hosted the propaganda-style Real News. The YouTube channel recently disappeared - or perhaps I need a subscription and credentials to view it; I don’t know. 

It would be stretch to claim Donald Trump isn’t racist (“I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” - President Donald Trump, July 30, 2019). His comments about Muslims, Mexicans, Jews, Blacks and White Supremacists speak for themselves. His views on women, immigrants, and people with disabilities are despicable.

Wherever he goes, whatever he does, Trump missteps, drawing attention to himself and further dividing the country and the world. 

This weekend’s Tulsa campaign rally was originally scheduled for tomorrow - the day known as “Juneteenth,” marking the 155th anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States. 

Knowingly or unknowingly, Trump’s campaign committee planned the rally in Tulsa, site of one of the worst episodes of racial violence in the US: The 1921 Race Massacre. Using guns and explosives - some dropped from planes - white mobs targeted Black residents, their homes, and their businesses. More than 300 Blacks died; 10,000 were left homeless; no one was charged.

Initially reluctant to change the rally’s June 19th date, Trump is shameless, claiming to The Wall Street Journal that he made Juneteenth “very famous” and that “nobody had ever heard of it before.”

And finally, the coronavirus - the pandemic Trump wants you to forget, and which he scarcely mentions these days. On Saturday, each of the 19,000 Trump supporters packing Tulsa’s Bok Center rally will have signed a waiver, disavowing Trump and his campaign from liability should anyone later develop COVID-19. 

This week, Trump allegedly acknowledged to WSJ White House reporter Michael Bender that “a very small percentage” of rally-goers would get probably develop COVID-19 following their attendance.  

Which is it - a political campaign rally, or the value of human lives - that tip the scale more, in Donald Trump’s me-first world? The President seems not to care. He doesn’t wear a mask. He doesn’t display social-distancing. He promotes phoney “cures.” He false claims the coronavirus is “dying out … We’re very close to a vaccine … It’s fading away …”

Trump claims “more than a million people want to attend …” his rally. Donald Trump is a practiced liar detached from reality. Why should anyone believe him?

So here’s what I believe. I believe there will be riots, this weekend in Tulsa. I believe Trump will flee the stage early. I believe the man who  says COVID testing  is “over-rated” and “makes us look bad” will immediately be tested himself, as he regularly is.

I also believe sanity will prevail and this disgusting, disgraceful, delusional President will be kicked out of office in November.

America is burning: Donald Trump is the pyromaniac who struck the match. Bring on the men in the white coats.

© Nicole Parton, 2020