I honestly intended to write about something this week besides Donald Trump.
For example, we have a wonderfully interesting Lieutenant Governor in Pennsylvania named John Fetterman who looks more like a biker than a politician.
But when he opens his mouth, the most intelligent thoughts come out. (For those of you old enough to remember, it’s like the first time you heard Jerry Garcia sing and said to yourself, “I can’t believe that came out of that.”)
But it’s tough to talk about anything else while the nation is being run – and the world is being menaced – by Donald Trump.
His latest assault on decency, cutting off humanitarian aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – the three “Mexican Countries” referenced by Fox News – will all-but guarantee he will get his long sought “crisis at the border” as millions more Central Americans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation.
Despite the appearance, this is not a case of the tail wagging the dog.
This is a situation in which the tail and the dog are being wagged by a festering turd they can’t seem to shake off.
A hard mass of poorly digested fast food that seems to believe everything stinks but it.
I suspect when we are ultimately permitted to see the reality of what has occurred on our southern border since Trump’s assault on decency and humanity began, we will be far more shocked than we will be by the Mueller report. (Considering it took about fifty years before we were “permitted” to know Lyndon Johnson lied about the attack on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin in order to get the country behind a full-scale invasion of Vietnam, we could well be waiting a very long time.)
But despite the negative press the image of human beings living in cages has produced, that assault continues and intensifies. We might ask why, but the answer is far too obvious.
Trump needs a crisis and he needs it now.
The Giuliani “Slow Accidental Leak” legal strategy – designed to expose the public to Trump’s malfeasance in tiny, palatable morsels – has been effectively countered by the Barr approach (intentional or not) which has left the impression nothing of much consequence is in the report.
And the public will be shocked, once again, when it is released – just as we would have been without Rudy’s leaks.
Trump needs something like his own 9/11 to serve as a distraction. Images of tens of thousands of angry, starving “Mexicans” charging the border will play quite well on Fox News.
And don’t forget – George W. Bush was, justifiably, one of the least popular Presidents in American history before Osama bin Laden made him a national hero, overnight.
Ronald Reagan would have never been elected without the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
When Americans feel threatened, they vote for assholes.
Donald Trump is counting on it.
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