Saturday, August 22, 2020

Something to Know - 22 August

Where in the World is J-Q Republican?  We are coming up next week with the whack-a-mole GeeOpie conventions (popping up in Charlotte, Jacksonville, and a Washington DC backdrop).   How far down the rabbit hole are the delegates willing to go?   The sleazy wrapping material from which the republican nominee cannot shake from himself cannot be denied.  HCR sets the scene for you.   You may have heard, or you may know a lot about this QAnon thing.   It seems to be enveloping the Republican Party at the moment.   It exists in the political shadow that is being cast by Trump, especially as he talks so much about losing.  If Trump loses, what becomes of the Republican Party brand?   There are the Trumpers and the Never-Trumpers.   Let them fight it out.   Let's just work to take back our Democracy.



There are some moments you can't forget. And others that make you sick.
It was 1960 at Howard University, where I was a government major in my junior year. Sen. Hubert Humphrey was campaigning in the D.C. Democratic primary and had come to pitch his candidacy. But the big race of the year was the upcoming West Virginia primary in which Humphrey's opponent, John F. Kennedy, was being attacked for his Catholic faith.

When the floor was opened for questions, I asked Humphrey how he felt about the bigoted onslaught against JFK. Without missing a beat, Humphrey said that although he was seeking a victory in West Virginia, he didn't want to win with anti-Catholic votes.

I have told this story before. It's worth repeating in light of President Trump's response during a Wednesday news briefing to questions about far-right QAnon adherents — an online cabal of conspiracy theorists who believe Satan-worshipping pedophiles have infiltrated deeply into the government and, with the assistance of left-wing elitist Democrats and leftist media, are out to undermine Trump.

QAnon is hardly a network of harmless kooks. QAnon followers, reports the Daily Beast, have allegedly been tied to kidnappings and violent crimes, including at least one killing. In 2019, the FBI classified QAnon as a domestic terrorism threat.
The president was tossed a question similar to my query to Humphrey, but Trump's answer was sickening.

He started with the dodge that he didn't know much about QAnon, except "they like me very much" — which is the standard by which Trump measures all of his relationships, both official and personal.

"I heard," Trump said, "that these are people who love our country." A comment in keeping with his judgment that Charlottesville's neo-Nazis and white supremacists were "very fine people."

Told by a reporter that QAnon believes Trump is waging war on pedophiles, cannibals and satanic worshippers, Trump asked: "Is that supposed to be a bad thing?" Trump added: "If I can help save the world from problems, I'm willing to do it."


No Hubert Humphrey there, for whom it was a matter of standing up for what's right.

From Trump, no judgment about the rightness and wrongness, the decency, dishonesty or viciousness of QAnon. Only an assessment about what would do him the most good. From Trump, the very definition of moral bankruptcy.
That was also on display in Trump's warm embrace of Laura Loomer, a right-wing darling of national conservative extremists who won the GOP primary in the Florida congressional district that is home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
Loomer's claims to fame are billing herself as a #ProudIslamophobe and her labeling of Muslims as "savages" and Islam as a "cancer on society."
Loomer also managed, according to the Daily Beast, to get apparently undocumented migrants to trespass with her onto House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's California property at the risk of possible deportation.

For her labors, Loomer earned at least four retweets by Trump about her victory, plus one new tweet from him: "Great going Laura. You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!"
Trump seems as drawn to QAnon conspiracy theorists as sycophants are to him.
Comes now Marjorie Taylor Greene, winner of the GOP nomination for a House seat in a conservative Georgia district.
Greene has also expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory and has thoughts about Muslims, Jews and Blacks.
The 2018 election of the first two Muslim women to Congress was "an Islamic invasion," she said. Jewish mega-donor George Soros, Greene said, turned Jews over to the Nazis. Blacks, she said, ought to feel "proud" when they come upon a Confederate monument. Greene sees the rebel statue as a sign of progress achieved since the Civil War.

Of the Georgia primary winner, Trump tweeted that Greene was a "future Republican Star" who was "strong on everything and never gives up — a real WINNER!"
My contrast between the characters of Trump and Humphrey draws into sharp relief the remarks of former president Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention about Trump's reverence for the democracy placed in his care.
"For close to four years now, [Trump] has shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends," Obama said. Trump treats the presidency, Obama insightfully observed, "as . . . one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves."

So, Trump consorts with knaves and fools, plays around with dumb ideas and gives little thought to the safety and welfare of 330 million Americans. He lives to indulge in cheap tricks that make him look good and thus worthy of adulation.

He sickens.
Donald Trump is not now, nor will he ever be, right for this country.
Vote, as Obama declared, "like never before."


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Juan

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

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