The term Gaslight which has existed in the popular lexicon since the 1944 movie, of the same name, is used to the pop culture exclusion of millennials and maybe even baby boomers although both are familiar with its meaning but possibly unaware of its origins. I suppose we can either thank or curse Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Donald Trump has become the modern-day director of a farce we live daily, he has become the modern day George Cukor, yelling lights, camera, set up the illusions (SNAP!). After what charitably can be called tumultuous but was substantively a disastrous European trip, Donald Trump told us yesterday, to literally not believe your lying ears. President Trump is adjusting the gas line regulator for not only America but the world. After saying in every way possible that he believed Putin’s claims that Russia had no hand in the attack on the American election process, Trump said to his fans and critics yesterday, it is not me, it is you, and he really believes Dan Coats and U.S. Intelligence
Would and Wouldn’t…
Reading from a pre-written statement in an attempt to excuse his intolerable anti-American behavior, Trump said his misplacement of the word ‘would for wouldn’t should explain it all. I am old enough to remember hostage videos from Vietnam and Iran and Trump looked as if bamboo shoots were under his finger nails to make him even appear to apologize. I understand why he hates to apologize because his insincerity leaks from him like an old rusted out crankcase.
The last three Republican administrations and one attempt have been highlighted by three characteristics; wrong, stupid or evil. Reagan ended up raising taxes eleven times during his 8 years in office. His idea of a tax-free, union-less, trickle down society of only the strong surviving was just plain wrong. George W. Bush’s strategery (sic) a word ascribed to him from a Saturday Night Live skit, based on his penchant for mispronunciation, was only obscured by the evil of his Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Former presidential candidate and current Senator John McCain who tried to bring back civility and fair play got dragged down by his own stupid mistake, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. The danger of the current President is that he has borrowed the faults of all his predecessors; Wrong, Stupid and Evil. His wrong-headedness is constantly on display, from withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord to entertaining Vladimir Putin’s offer to bring Russian spies to America to work with Robert Mueller, [insert double take here] … Trump has proudly shown off his stupidity from his surprise that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican to his confusion over whether Frederick Douglass was still alive. He all but admitted this ignorance during the White House’s recognition of Black History Month in February of 2017.
The scary part of Trump world is that he has incorporated that wrong-headed stupidity into his evil. Despite his open courting of hate groups, anti-environmental policy in pursuit of profit, no more need be said than his deliberately cruel policy of caging babies. The glee he and people like his adviser Steven Miller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions take in the separating of babies from their mothers is the epitome of evil. Do not be mistaken, Trump is not the final passenger of a pickup that is driving into the abyss. In 1980 Ronald Reagan came down to the home (Neshoba County, Mississippi) of the most notorious murders of the civil rights era, to announce his run for President. Trump used the modern convenience of an escalator but he too came down on people of color for his announcement. Reagan began with wrong ideas, Bush was usefully stupid in furthering the decline, but Trump has brought all the elements together, Wrong, Stupid and Evil.
Vote in ’18 for Change.