With Donald Trump sick in the hospital from the coronavirus and there not being a consistent message on how he is doing, Americans are divided into two camps when it comes to his recovery.
There are Trump supporters and others who consider themselves to be basically patriotic in wishing for his recovery. On the other side of the spectrum are folks whose opinions range from indifference to wishing him well for while noting his blame for his own condition to finally those who have thrown all caution to the wind in wishing that he suffers as much as possible. Even to the point of death.
I guess I am leaning a bit in the second camp. I do hope Trump recovers, but I also hope that he doesn't gain sympathy for his condition for two reasons. The first reason has to do with how he put himself in this bind because of his own reckless and selfish behavior. He refused to take this pandemic seriously and undermined efforts to fight it.
The second reason has to do with basic cynicism.
In an idealistic world, Trump would take his bout with the coronavirus as a sign that his behavior needs to change. In an idealistic world, Trump would finally take on the role as president and steer the country in a direction which would lead us out of this situation.
But this is the real world. Therefore, instead of desired leadership, we get tripe like this:
The White House Gift Shop is selling a “Donald J. Trump defeats Covid” commemorative coin. You can pre-order it now for $100. https://t.co/aPQ0vNRHB3
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) October 4, 2020
. The idea of selling coins bragging about a "victory" over the coronavirus is extremely tacky and a slap in the fact to the over seven million who are presently infected. And especially to the over 200,000 who have already died. More than that, it epitomizes Trump's inherent selfishness and basic incompetence. A leader like him makes patriotism so difficult. Even though I hope and pray for Trump's recovery, I fully understand why others are either indifferent to his health or wishes that he suffers. You simply cannot show any sympathy for someone who will exploit it without any sense of shame.
John Hoadley is running as a Democrat for the U.S. House and the Republican super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) is using words from his Live Journal from 2004 to 2007 to imply that he’s a pedophile who takes meth. At the time, Hoadley was in his early 20s, while his Republican opponent was in the U.S. Congress voting for a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.CLF’s ad accuses Hoadley of being “creepy” because, the ad claims, he called women “breeders,” said he wanted to “learn about crystal meth,” admitted to having sex with a “victim,” and wrote the words “four-year-old in a thong.”The blog has already been deleted. In context, though, the quotes are very different. He wrote in June 2005 about going to “straight bars” and he used the word “breeder” to refer to straight people of all genders: “I’m not going to lie: breeder=weird/bad dancers.”CLF’s reference to Hoadley wanting to “learn about crystal meth” is even more outrageous: Hoadley was writing about going to a meeting to literally learn about the dangers of the drug and even told his blog’s readers, “Don’t do meth.”The ad’s claim that Hoadley was a sexual predator with a “victim” is a reference to a poem he wrote about calling a man to discuss hooking up: “I turn to my little black book that’s commonly called a cell phone. My fingers walk as I talk to the latest victim of my sexual conquest.” Poetry criticism aside, the line was not about sexual assault, but about talking with a potential partner before having sex.The last line and the one that has received the most attention is the words “four-year-old wearing a thong.” The phrase is from a 2004 blog post where Hoadley posted a text conversation where one of his friends complained about the over-sexualization of children: “I KNOW! I mean I shudder everytime [sic] I see a four-year-old wearing a thong.”
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| Eric Trump |
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Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes using a dildo on himself to 'own liberals' and prove he wasn't homophobic |
After Tuesday night's debate, Donald Trump is in really big trouble. His overbearing and rude behavior during the debate was enough to draw heat, but the vast majority of the criticism seems to centering on what he didn't do. When asked by moderator Chris Wallace to disavow white supremacist groups, Trump dodged doing it. In fact, when asked to disavow one group in particular, The Proud Boys, Trump instead said “stand back and stand by.”
That comment turned out to be the most memorable moment of the debate because it echoed back to his "very fine people on both sides" comment after Charlottesville, his claim that Obama wasn't an American citizen, and general accusations that he is a racist.
So basically all day Wednesday, Trump and his allies have faced a universal firestorm, even from other Republicans like Sen Tim Scott from South Carolina, because of his refusal to simply disavow white supremacists. It's so bad that even Fox News personalities like Brian Kilmeade, called him out.
As Trump clean up his mess, attention has been focused on The Proud Boys, the group in the center of the storm.. What exactly is this group and who is behind it. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated them to be a hate group and according to People for the American Way:
The Proud Boys . . . has a long history of violence, hateful rhetoric, and coziness with GOP stars and operatives, most notably Trump confidant, Republican fixer, and convicted felon Roger Stone. The group, founded by Canadian media personality Gavin McInnes and currently led by Enrique Tarrio, held a Sept. 26 rally in Portland, Oregon, prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency. Although the rally attracted far fewer attendees than anticipated, the event was spun by Tarrio with expressions of pride in having not incited violence—an effort to make their group more palatable. The group is, of course, better known for its members’ attendance at the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which counterprotester Heather Heyer was murdered by a white supremacist.
A regular media personality appearing in various conservative talk shows, McInnes announced to the world Proud Boys as a secret club for “Western chauvinists,” men (“women are not allowed”) focused on “anti-political correctness” and “anti-white guilt” with meetings that would consist of “drinking, fighting and reading aloud from Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West.” The election of President Trump skyrocketed interest in the group, and by the end of 2017, the Proud Boys Facebook and Twitter pages had over 20,000 members, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, with chapters around the world, and possibly coaxed by McInnes’ inflammatory rhetoric (McInnes admitted he may be Islamophobic and acknowledged being sexist), began to attract the attention of extremist groups.
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| Come on Gavin. It can't hurt that much. I saw you lube it up. |
