Donald Trump spoke to a gathering of police officers yesterday. He returned to two themes which he rode all the way to the White House -- encouraging violence and trashing immigrants. He told the police officers not to go easy on those they arrested:
When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don't be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over. Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody. Don't hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?
With his usual rambling incoherence, he stood enraptured by the good old days when immigrants had white skins:
You say what happened to the old days where people came into this country, they worked and they worked and they worked and they had families and they paid taxes and they did all sorts of things, and their families got stronger and they were closely knit. We don't see that. Failure to enforce our immigration laws had predictable results. Drugs, gangs, and violence.
He did not mention the various ethnic mafias with whom he has done business over the years. These days it's all about keeping "them" out. Dara Lind writes:
Trump’s concern with immigration has always primarily been with crime. He won early political allies in Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona and the “Angel Moms” whose children were killed by unauthorized immigrants. The vision of America promulgated in his most important speeches — his more-Nixonian-than-Nixon speech accepting the Republican nomination, his “American carnage” inauguration address — is unusually dark for a successful politician in this country. In Trump’s rhetoric, America was no longer great not because it was in some graceful decline, but because it was under siege from the forces of disorder: unlawful immigrants and lawless protesters.
All the tough talk is a mask for a man who is powerless. The man who likes to suggest that his testosterone levels are higher than anybody else's can't get anything done. Pundits have suggested that, while John McCain delivered the final blow to Trump's asinine health care legislation, it was two women senators -- Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins -- who possessed more testosterone than anyone else in the Republican Party.
Truth be told, when Trump speaks these days -- whether it's to the Boy Scouts or to police officers -- it's the barking of an impotent man.
Image: CNN
16 comments:
Trump's speech on Long Island is much worse when viewed in context; context that the media omits. His speech encouraging police to crack heads was given before a police force whose former chief "is serving a federal prison sentence for beating a prisoner and orchestrating a cover-up." Meanwhile, roughly 70% of the community's population is Hispanic, and Trump tarred them all with the reputation of MS-13.
Cap
More proof that Trump is a bully, Cap. Bullies lash out at the weak to assuage their impotence.
Owen, you wrote that "it's the barking of an impotent man." May I add "and completely unhinged"?
2020 Dems should put 'Outlawing the Death Penalty' on the ballot. Watch heads explode.
And, it's the right thing to do.
The Republicans would howl like wolves, lovingit. And it would certainly distinguish the parties from each other. But I suspect that Democrats in consevative districts wouldn't buy in.
A frighteningly true addendum, Lorne. I read that the American Psychoanalytic Association has recently rescinded its "Goldwater Rule," which forbade its members from analyzing political figures in public. Sometimes calling someone crazy is a public service.
Listening to CBC news on the radio while driving home a while ago. I must say they're doing a bang-up job of normalizing the Trump presidency. In much the way they ham handedly pandered to the ignorant bigot crowd over the Khadr award. Pretty soon I'm going to start resenting the public expenditure if this Fox light shit keeps up...
But I digress...
I suspect the democrats are going to have to lose at least one more election before the right wing reactionaries of the party are recognized as the dinosaurs they are.
I worry that might be the case, Dana -- and I keep hoping Trump won't make it through his first full term.
If someone like Booker would put healthcare and justice reform...ah, who's kidding who? The ratio of indictments now- to black/brown/poor people being killed? I thought I learned, somewhere along the line...it's how we treat the least of us, that we'll be judged on. They have such a long way to go, as a country. I had many a debate with my mum on the death penalty. She eventually agreed- after 20 years in the US. I read that the executioners and the staff are becoming mentally ill.
The normalizing of Trumpalooza? It's making me, and many others, ill.
If Americans finally normalize Trump, lovingit, they'll be irredeemable.
The apocalyptic madmen seem to be in charge. It's got me kicking sideways, like a mule. I'm still back at the watch-party, wandering around with my non-alcoholic wine in hand, waiting for the last results...what? They're in? No. Way. Six months in, for love of God, Owen. I have Schlesinger's 1000 Days sitting on my coffee table- Pulitzer Prize- and I cannot tear myself away from the carnage.
You can judge a civilization by the repair of its public toilets. You can judge a legal system by its treatment of criminals. People who say we should behead terrorists are in fact terrorists.
Justin should take on Scheer over the Khdar issue and rub his nose in what it means to be Canadian.
Trump was a master of Circus TV, lovingit. Now his government is a circus.
I suspect that there will always be those on the Religious Right who will howl about the Khadr settlement, Steve. But if the Conservatives throw in their lot with them, they'll never form another government.
True, Steve. Fighting terrorism with terrorism is doomed to fail.
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