May Day, May Day

One of the many things for which I was thankful last week is that the American public seem to be catching on.

Two prominent campaign promises remain unfulfilled. Food prices are still sky high, and the Epstein files are still not released.

To that we can add continuing to do Russia’s bidding in the War in Ukraine, invading our cities with storm troopers to arrest our hard-working neighbors, hiring inexperienced prosecutors to indict political enemies without cause, desecrating the oval office, the living quarters, and the East Wing to fulfill a buffoonish imperial self-image, suggesting the death sentence for brave American warriors who reminded the troops of the law, unleashing an unbalanced Secretary of Defense to commit war crimes on the high seas, and pardoning the man singularly responsible for the majority of cocaine on American streets during a deadly period in our history.

Along the way we call women reporters "pigs", an American governor "retarded", and blame “Sleepy Joe” for all our sins while nodding off and drooling into our Thanksgiving meal at Mar-a-Lago.

This week we undergo an MRI and can’t name the body part that it was for. But it damn sure wasn’t for my brain, because I passed a cognitive test with flying colors. If they had done an MRI for his brain, it likely wouldn’t have shown anything. Not even the shadow of an organ.

But it was the most recent abomination that led me to the keyboard today. Using the tragic death of a member of the West Virginia National Guard at the hands of one lone soul to attack and punish all his countrymen and women.

Think of the mayhem of 9-11. All the death, destruction and destabilization caused by those hijackers. And amid the rubble, President George W. Bush reminded Americans that they should not blame a religion for this attack. It was them, but not all of them. Intelligent people understood. Families of the victims understood. Other law-abiding Muslims understood.

But even back in 2016, Candidate Donald Trump fabricated post 9-11 New Jersey celebrations in the Muslim communities. They were easily debunked. They were false. They were made up. They were designed to paint an entire faith with sins of a small militant minority.

And in the famous debate-stage words of Ronald Reagan aimed at another opponent, "There you go again.” All citizens of Afghanistan are presumed guilty because one deranged soul pulled the trigger.

Never mind the West Virginia National Guard should not have been on 17^th Street in Washington, DC that day. Never mind, had the mayor received the requested funding from the Trump administration for additional police officers, the invasion of the Nation’s Capital by the Guard would not have been necessary. Never mind this illegal deployment to quell a fabricated emergency will be an infamous cautionary tale in our future history books.

In my opinion, it is not one thing that is turning the tide, but the accumulation of cruelty, overreach, lawlessness, and daily displays of arrogance that have tanked the President’s approval rating and started to divide the MAGA movement.

Not even the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green could stand it anymore. The President's continued protection of child molesters, rapists, and enablers sent her around the bend. The “release the Epstein files” chant was not the playbook of progressive Democrats, but of Fox News commentators and disciples. It was the nightly drumbeat of Kash Patel and others that locked in the release of the files as a Trump campaign promise. The collective wisdom, right or wrong, is that Pam Bondi’s review of the files showed enough Trump appearances to make the release troubling to say the least.

It is funny that when things become conventional wisdom, it can spell the end. People are asking themselves, Obama eventually held his nose and showed the world his birth certificate. Why won’t the Donald show us the files?

If they showed his innocence, he’d be handing them out in front of the White House.

The reason that this is a dead stick dive to the hardpack is that this leopard can’t change his own spots. He will never get rid of Stephen Miller, he will never get rid of Susie Wiles, he will never stop hiring good-looking men and blond women for public roles no matter their brains or qualifications. Disaster is baked into the cake.

I thought about this today when I heard Karl Rove, longtime Republican advisor and savant (read my blog Turd Blossom https://www.constancelyhoping.com/post/turd-blossom ), say that Jim Carville had it right some years back when he famously said, “it’s the economy stupid.” On that and health care America is laser focused.

Not killing narco-traffickers on the high seas, not starting an unnecessary war with Venezuela, and not tackling the guy blowing leaves off the church lawn and throwing him in the back of an unmarked paddy wagon.

Those things the President can do with a phone call to one of his knuckle-dragging apologists. What is infinitely more difficult is bringing down the cost of that $7 bag of potato chips, or that $6 box of frozen beef bones, but that is the current job description of the President and his Republican congress, and they better wake up to that fact.

But will they wake up from their slumber? Will they have the means or the skills to turn things around? Will they admit to their tanking numbers?

The old traffic warnings said, "Speed Kills.” In politics, so does arrogance. Stay tuned.