Donald Trump, Insurrectionist
We’ve never seen a day like this. The real-time media is a powerful force, Trump its Vader.
It would be hard to think of a stranger day in American political history than Friday, when Donald Trump invoked the possibility of insurrection against an elected President of the United States of America.
In an interview with The New York Times, when asked if he would stand by his pledge on Monday to respect the outcome of the election before the largest audience to watch a presidential debate, Trump said: “We’re going to have to see. We’re going to see what happens. We’re going to have to see.”
By rescinding his oath to support the results of the election, he fails to uphold the Oath of Office for the job he wants. He is disqualified from the Presidency.
Given the background of Trump’s frequent dog-whistles to the extreme White Nationalists with which he surrounds himself, as well as to “Second Amendment People” to act against Secretary Clinton, Trump’s words constitute a threat of insurrection against an elected President of the United States.
We call that treason.
Unfortunately, the treasonous part of the story will be lost amid the gutter-scraping, utterly irrelevant topic of Bill Clinton’s infidelities and alleged assaults that Trump is pitching against all the best advice he’s received. The argument Trump makes for bringing this “issue” into the debate, that his well-publicized infidelities and plain old misogynist womanizing do not reach the same level as President Clinton’s because he “never discusse[s] it,” plainly contradicts his call to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s personal lives. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t reach for the stones, nor an iPhone, at 3 AM.
People running for President should talk about policy, not just personality. This isn’t high school, though you couldn’t tell by watching Donald Trump. His opponents are stupid losers, his critics disgruntled employees or contractors, so high school it is. Anyone with a question is negative. The Donald says so.
Back to the important information that makes today unique, a genuine low, in American political history.
Trump started the day about 3 AM, proving that he should not be presented with any crisis at that hour, with a bizarre tweet storm about a former Miss Universe that led to his calling for people to watch a sex tape. By late evening, Trump had escalated Clinton’s personal life above all the important issues and huge, beautiful plans for walls and righteous isolationism based on a nuclear triad of Trump’s finger poised ominously on the button. He’s abandoned political debate. The strategy isn’t “tough,” it’s ridiculous in the face of the real challenges the United States faces today.
He knows he’s losing on every dimension of the policy debate, because he can’t master the topics, so he’s all-in on non-political, personal attack. He’s following the same tired strategy that started his campaign in July 2015 on a golden down-escalator. Trump’s campaign is apolitical nonsense and personal abuse.
This is not a man who learned from his mistakes. He cannot imagine his mistakes, instead he complains his microphone is to blame for his awful debate performance. What would he do if Vladimir Putin provided a poor translator for Trump during a negotiation? That will happen, and there’s no excuse for a president choking under those circumstances, or in any situation.
At the end of the day, Trump dropped the insurrection bomb, suggesting he would have to decide for himself and, consequently for all of us, whether the election was legitimate before accepting defeat. He, not the rule of law, will call down his supporters. Putsch-talk.
The cognitive dissonance involved in Trump’s retracting a promise he just made Monday in front of a television audience of 80+ million boggles anyone trying to pay attention to the election. Trump will surely claim he never said it. But we all saw and heard it. Defiantly, like a three-year-old holding his breath, Trump stands apart in his own reality where every probing intelligent question is an attack upon his dignity.
We know that Trump has endorsed and been endorsed by Vladimir Putin, the leader of the Unfree World, the “illiberal democracies” Trump and his team so clearly want the United States to join. We know Trump has the manic stamina to do it, if he can complete the kind of “con” he constantly invokes to describe critics. Only con men see cons everywhere.
Why isn’t Donald Trump asked: Are you suggesting insurrection is a direction you are willing to take if the election does not go your way? And if he does not answer authoritatively in the negative, why is he not in prison for calling people to participate in treason? Aaron Burr was ultimately exiled for similar public calls to insurrection at various times in his career.
Clearly, Donald Trump doesn’t actually think about all this. He’s too simple-minded.
Watch the tape of his deposition in a case concerning the financial damage to his company that his political positions have caused. It was released this afternoon. In that video, Trump has the body language of a liar or he has a bad back. We know it cannot be the latter, per his doctor’s statement that the oldest person elected President would also be the healthiest, Adonis-like god-man. Huge, Trump assures, pointing today to a sex tape, not of his critic — even if it was, who cares except a slut-shaming would-be Mussolini — as evidence a woman he verbally harassed is a “con.”
We aren’t allowed the time to take in the deposition, the tweet storm, the NYT interview in which he threatens to contest the election. In one day.
Republicans, history is watching. Pull this guy out or back away and let him have his last stand. George Armstrong Custer, if he’d become president instead of dying at Little Big Horn, might have rivaled Trump in the crazy-narcissist race. Otherwise, America has steered clear of this kind of rabid candidate for the most part.
We’ve never seen a day like this. The real-time media is a powerful force, Trump its Vader.
Friday was a day like WWE Summer Slam or the recent Republican convention, purposeless except to distract us from the real world, which faces a growing nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan over water. What would Trump tweet about that, if he paid attention to such things?
But why isn’t this guy in jail? What about the phony foundation and the taxes? Thirty-nine days is too much more of this. The damage we’ve caused to our political system by entertaining this self-convinced savior has gone on long enough.
Where is the Off button? In our own hands.
Today, Donald Trump turned a corner no one should. He started talking insurrection. He did it as a dictator would, saying he would decide for all. It’s un-American. Why hasn’t the Department of Justice served him a warrant? Why isn’t he being grilled by Congress for this rhetoric? Remember that we began this election with speculation among Republican candidates about which had the guts to kill baby Hitler. So naïve, we watched with horror and enthusiasm. Well, this is what we got.
Let’s end our huge national nightmare now
Donald Trump is dangerously unqualified to be President of the United States. He disrespects our votes by deciding whether to honor the results of an election.
Let’s look away. The first battle front is Twitter. Let’s let him know by tweeting him “@therealdonald #tuneouttrump” Then, all of us should block him on Twitter and turn off the electronic media coverage of Trump. Turn the channel, turn off the feeds. There’s some great baseball right now.
The networks will figure out fast enough Trump isn’t a draw anymore.
Let’s read the rest of the election at the speed of newspapers. Trump’s shtick doesn’t work there, as demonstrated by several consistently Republican editorial boards that broke with tradition to condemn the Trump campaign this week.
It’s time to turn off Trump, to get back to some semblance of a serious political debate. We need that debate, not the vitriol Trump spouts daily to distract from his utter lack of a plan or command of the facts about being president. If you’ve made your decision, tune him out and see how the election changes for you when not drinking from the firehose of nonsense.
Please act. “@therealdonald #tuneouttrump” Then, block him. He will go away if we don’t reward him with our attention. He’s that shallow a candidate, who puts his own well-being and ego ahead of family and country.
