Freak Out Friday – July 3, 2020

Even as I write this, the population of South Dakota must be preparing itself for a new massive spike in the Coronavirus.  This evening Donald Trump is hosting a fireworks display at Mount Rushmore, and has made a point of saying that social distancing and masking will not be required.  Let us put aside that there have been no fireworks at Mount Rushmore for years because of fears that it will set off forest fires and contaminate groundwater.  It is expected that a crowd of around 7500 is going to be attending (unless K-Pop fans inflated the numbers again) and the Republican governor has stated that none of the procedures required to restrict the Coronavirus will be followed.  Meanwhile, as I write this, Herman Cain—who attended Trump’s Tulsa gathering—has been hospitalized with the Coronavirus.  But hey, he’s only a seventy-four year old black man; it’s not like there’s any threat of his dying from it, right?

Meanwhile Trump continues to help politicize wearing a mask, although he’s oddly presenting conflicting signals.  His determination to remain bare-faced inspires his idiot Trumpies to follow the lead of their moronic cult leader, except I’m reasonably sure that actor George Takei has postulated the real reason that Trump refuses to mask up.  Remember when he returned from his busted Tulsa rally looking like five miles of bad road?  Close up photos revealed streaks of his tan make-up on the inside of his collar.  Takei pointed out that that was likely why he refused to wear a mask:  Because make-up stains would be visible all over the edge of the mask, and when he took it off, the outline of the mask would be right there on his face.  His vanity won’t stop him from spray-tanning his face, and his ego will not risk him looking ridiculous as it smears visibly all over him.   So instead he insists on going maskless, millions of followers imitate him, and thousands upon thousands of people die.  

That is the mindset of the man who is sitting behind the typically clutter free Resolute desk.  Nothing matters more than his ego.  Not lives of Americans.  Nothing.

Yet curiously enough on Thursday he seemed to reverse course and claim that he was in favor of Americans wearing masks.  It’s obvious why:  enough members of the GOP must have come to him and basically said, “Dude, what the hëll?!” Trump’s relentless politicizing of something that just makes good health sense is absolutely ridiculous, and is becoming impossible for even the most devoted of his quislings to get behind.  “I’m all for masks,” he surprisingly said to Fox News, even as he continues to go maskless. 

Indeed, we are actually seeing his latest lack of priority as far as American lives are concerned as he furiously tries to deny the dámņìņg New York Times article that reports Russia offered bounties to the Taliban for any who killed American soldiers.  Trump’s response was to claim that he hadn’t been told, which is a crock of šhìŧ that absolutely nobody except his most devoted followers believes.  Does anyone think the intelligence agencies wouldn’t go to him immediately with this information?  Of course not.  Yet he asserts they didn’t tell him.  

Let us put aside the question of whether or not they did (they did.). The only reasonable response he should put forward is, Now that I know, here’s what I’m going to do about it.  Except as near as we can determine, his response to it is to deny it.   Because of course he does:  He still wants Russia to be included in the G7, and continues to maintain the insane theory that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the 2016 election.  

You may wonder what is going through the man’s brain.  Based on his recent interviews, that remains an open question:  even he doesn’t know.  In the past week, he was asked by two friendly Fox anchors what he wanted to do in a second term.  

Now I will admit that it’s not the easiest question to answer.  Even Jeb Bartlet, arguably the best president in American history, couldn’t come up with a good response when C.J. asked him that very question.  But one would think that Trump’s people would have come up with a response and then pounded it into him with a baseball bat.  No such luck.  Instead of answering, he rambled on for five minutes, claiming that talent was more important than experience, that he’d never slept over in Washington before, and that “What we’ve done nobody’s been able to do. But we have more to do,” without describing what he’s done or what more needed to be done.

In short, he Trumped it.  Naming speech oddities after people who display it is certainly commonplace.  Malapropisms come from Mrs. Malaprop, a character in a 1775 play, “The Rivals.  Spoonerisms come from the Reverend Spooner who would switch consonants on words.  Freudian slips are naturally after Sigmund Freud.  So I believe Trumping something is going to become a new word meaning “speaking in word salad” or providing nonsensical responses.  “Boy, he really Trumped that answer.”  “I knew what I wanted to say, but I just Trumped it up.”  

In his inability to give a reasonable, understandable response to any question, Trump will finally make the mark he’s been desperate to achieve:  His name will be remembered.  Just not in the way he anticipated.

PAD