It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It -- it kind of broke my heart when I saw it. And I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life.Meryl Streep is my hero, and not for the first time. She said what needed to be said about President-elect Donald Trump in her speech at the Golden Globe Awards. When Trump mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski's physical disability, he should have been shunned by everyone, including sane members of the GOP, and eliminated from the field of candidates.
And this instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.
When the tape of Trump boasting about assaulting women was released, his candidacy should have been finished, over, done, but that did not happen.
Trump invited his friend Putin to hack Hillary Clinton's email, and I don't recall a GOP outcry at the time. The vast majority, if not all, Republican members of Congress endorsed Trump in the end. Putin followed through, hacked the Clinton campaign's email server, and interfered with the election. Now, too little, too late, a few Republican leaders are "concerned". That Trump is unfit to serve as president is obvious, but where were the sane Republicans who should have been speaking out forcefully against Trump for months and months?
Also, now that the election is over, Democrats are far too quiet about Trump's unfitness to suit me. The Democratic leadership, with some exceptions, seems overly focused on a smooth transition of power, but a smooth transition to what? Maybe the focus should be on the disastrous nightmare that will follow the smooth transition. WTF?
The funny thing is, when you read what Ms. Streep said, Trump's reaction is all out of proportion to her words. He really can't withstand any challenge to his identity whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there are the people like Meghan McCain who thinks Ms. Streep poured gasoline on a fire that is going to blowback against Democrats. Her words really couldn't be milder, and yet still they are too harsh?
Has the whole country gone mad?
I'm afraid so. Streep didn't even mention Trump's name. If the shoe fits..., or as we used to say in high school, if the foo shits....
DeleteI'm fairly sure we're in for a long run of insanity. And then I read that DT denied that he was mocking the reporter -- he doesn't see himself as anything but wonderful no matter what is clear on the videotape -- a sure sign of a pathological liar living a self-aggrandizing delusion. Meanwhile, back in the blue collar break rooms where the bully first got his supporters hooked on the delusion, they stubbornly insist that he will do all the right things once he's actually president. It occurs to me now as I listen to the madness and grievances of the white males who feel left behind by the "elites" that what they are really craving is a good war to put everyone back in their proper places: men in charge as heroes of "freedom", minorities returned to bit characters at the fringes of all "important" stories, women in their "natural" roles as obsequious assistants assigned to provide offspring (preferably without any messy talk about the realities of that process), people in other countries irrelevant except as market for goods made by real men in the U S of A. Anger seems to be reason, excuse, justification for every form of nastiness coming out of the mouths of these people ... I'm past being horrified by any of it and have resolved to point out that they got what they wanted when the whole world blows up in the hands of the most incompetent leaders ever assembled in Washington.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Marthe's comment.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marthe and Dave. I shudder to think of what's to come. In truth, I'm terrified. I can't even imagine..., or perhaps I won't allow myself to imagine.
ReplyDeleteI am with Marthe; the most logical outcome of this presidency is putting another war on the credit card. How else can DT carry out his promises of profits to himself and the 1%-ers who are clamoring for still more? After all, war is tremendously profitable (for some of us). And we have all those little people, just waiting to serve... This is sarcasm, and unhappy sarcasm at that; because I think we are headed into a Trumped-up war. God help us.
ReplyDeleteTrump is impetuous, and he changes his mind from one day to the next and sometimes during a single pressconference.
DeleteAs far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.
....
Later: All right, but you know what, it could have been others also.
So does Trump believe the Russians hacked the DNC? It's about clear as mud.
Are we headed for another war? I don't know. Trump has seemed reluctant to involve the US in another ground war, but it's possible he could be persuaded by warhawks.
DeleteHis answer to everything is aggression. Classic bully logic: see an enemy, kill enemy, problem solved. Since he thinks that way and is prone to loose talk about even nuclear weapons, his solution is most likely to be an air war, including nuclear weapons. It is a grim thought, but seems reasonable given his obsession with his definition of winning.
Delete