Hiding Behind Patriotism

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Mr. Trump, Politics, United States

Members of the New England Patriots kneel during the national anthem Sunday. Photo: Billie Weiss/Getty Images

Well, once again the covfefe has hit the fan, courtesy of Mr. Trump, our fearless leader. All of you have seen and heard by now his staunch defense of the national anthem and his urging of sports team owners to fire any player who takes a knee while the anthem is playing. But here’s the thing. Have you all noticed a pattern emerging in Mr. Trump’s more outrageous and divisive words and actions? Every single time he creates a controversy there are other things going on. If he’s a master of anything, it’s manipulation and misdirection. So, whatever could he trying to deflect attention from this time?

1. The imminent demise of the Republicans’ second attempt, since Mr. Trump took office, to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Trump has been cajoling and threatening Congress to give him any kind of legislation to sign, no matter how many millions of people lose their insurance, yet once again it looks like this will be an epic fail. (Fingers crossed)

2. The the war of words between Mr. Trump and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. His unhinged insults and cavalier threats to annihilate another country which has over 25 million people, plays well with his base, but not the majority of Americans. 

3. The candidate he’s supporting, Luther Strange, in Alabama’s Senate primary is poised to lose tomorrow which will be quite the embarrassment to Mr. Trump.

4. There’s been a lot of new revelations in the past week regarding the Russia investigation, including the fact that Russian operatives used ads (at last count 3,000) on Facebook to exploit the racial divisions in the U.S. There’s also been new allegations against Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager. 

5. Remember Mr. Trump railing about Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers for government business? Well, yesterday Politico reported that there’s now a bipartisan congressional investigation into Jared Kushner’s occasional use of a private email account to conduct government business. And it seems like he’s not the only one. Senior aides such as Economic Advisor Gary Cohn, Ivanka Trump, former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon have all used personal devices and email accounts for official business. 

6. Mr. Trump’s travel ban 2.0 was rolled out Sunday with surprisingly little fanfare. With this new version entry into the country by foreign nationals from Chad, Syria, Libya, Iran, North Korea and Somalia, will for the most part be suspended. Iraqi nationals are to undergo intensive screening. This will take effect October 18.

I have a short wishlist of things I’d love to see Mr. Trump doing instead of cynically using patriotism to attack sports players 1st amendment rights and further dividing the country. I know this is futile, but I can dream.

1. Stop insulting the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un and engaging in what amounts to a childish schoolyard taunting match. It’s not only embarrassing, it’s bringing us to the brink of war. Let the diplomats who know what they’re doing, try to find some sort of compromise.

2. Instead of remaining on your determined path to annihilate President Obama’s legacy, learn from this latest healthcare debacle. Echo Senator John McCain’s call for bipartisan teamwork to fix the parts of the Affordable Care Act that aren’t working.

3. Stop denying that there was Russian interference in our election. At this point, you’re just embarrassing yourself. There is no “deep state” conspiracy to overturn the legitimacy of your presidency. Let Robert Mueller and the Senate committees who are investigating do their job instead of attacking them and crying “fake news!” all the time. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

4. Puerto Rico needs you. After being devastated by Hurricane Maria, our fellow Americans need to know they’re not being forgotten. With 16 dead so far, no electricity, running water, fuel, or cell phone service, they are in dire straits, yet until singer Marc Anthony called you out on Twitter today, you’ve remained silent about their suffering. Right now you need to be “Comforter-in-Chief” and that includes not sending out tweets like today, finally acknowledging the work that needs to be done, while at the same time bringing up Puerto Rico’s debt to “Wall Street and the banks”. 

5. Stop using divisive rhetoric with racist undertones to tear apart our country just so you can rally your base which is filled with white supremacists. And, when you do make comments like you did this weekend and after Charlottesville, stop denying that these involve race. You’re fooling no one. Not even your supporters.

6. No more cries of “fake news” every time there’s a report that you don’t like. Yes, the media needs to be held accountable for truthfulness, but to accuse them of things like not showing your crowd sizes is ridiculous. Your continual heated attacks on them are also dangerous. It was bad enough when MSNBC’s Katy Tur, a well respected journalist had to be escorted from one of your campaign rallies last summer when the crowd of your supporters turned on her after you pointed her out, and called her a liar and a third rate reporter. Your attacks on journalists have only gotten worse and I am truly afraid that one of your less mentally stable supporters is going take things too far someday as a result of your words.

I have quite a few other wishes as well, including one involving time travel, but it’s getting late and I’m giving myself a headache. So I’m going to end this post by again sharing what sends me to my Happy Place.

C’mon! It just never gets old, does it?!