Fool me once, shame on… shame on you.
Fool me, ummm, you can’t get fooled again. – George W. Bush
Michael Tomasky wrote this for the Daily Beast.
Just an excerpt from a longer piece but you are expected to pay for the rest and I’m just not doing that. Got a bad case of impecuniosis.
Title was America Has No Excuse For Backing Trump’s GOP This Time.
There were five things we didn’t understand that made him president in 2016.
Now, we all understand everything, and there are no excuses this time.
Don’t know what the five things are; like I said, not a paid subscriber. But the first couple of things go like this:.
First, we didn’t realize there was enough rage in this country to elect a man like that, a demagogue who encourages hatred, as president.
We knew there was a lot, just not enough to elect a president.
Some of that anger, the economic sort, is basically valid, although a massive right-wing propaganda campaign ensures that the rage is directed at the wrong people. It should be directed at the corporate and capitalist classes that have gotten rich while they stripped this country bare over the last 30 years like a salvage shop strips an old car for parts, and at their political hench-people, virtually all of them Republicans. But instead it’s directed at liberal “elitists.”
Then of course a lot of the anger, the racial and ethnic and misogynistic sorts, is not valid at all.
Second, we didn’t grasp how many millions of people would overlook what a disgusting and dishonest pig of a human being Trump is; indeed, would revel in his disgustingness because it pissed us off. Put a man like Trump in any other aspect of their lives—their boss, say—and they’d hate the guy and see him for the liar and cheater that he is.
A man auditioning to be a bank president or a school principal or manager of a 7-Eleven who made fun of a physically handicapped person would be eliminated from the competition in five seconds.
But Trump did that and 100 other disgusting things, and they loved him more and more with each one.
Those people, the ones who reveled in this act, should be ashamed of themselves.
I predict President Trump will make the national mood a living nightmare twenty-four-seven for the next two years at a minimum.
I hope you’re happy.
Meanwhile, I am old and this whole Uncivil War scene is sad. So so sad.
Vote. Restore glamour to the Presidency.
Maybe somebody like Macron or that Justin Trudeau guy.
Somebody who looks like a real American.
Vote.
I am as nervous as a balloon in a porcupine factory. Good luck, Freedom. Praying for you, Truth. We can do better.