Skip to main content

45 is a puppet

By



It didn't take long for viewers to see there was something amiss about the presidential seal behind Trump as he took the stage of a youth rally sponsored by Turning Point USA.  I thought it was an on-line joke, but it turns out the techie who was in charge for the screen presentation was either grossly incompetent, had his presentation hacked or is the ultimate troll.  Whatever the case, this is a moment neither Trump nor Turning Point will be able to live down for a long time, as the seal has now become the unofficial emblem of the Trump White House.

The creator of the satiric seal has become an internet celebrity.  When he created this image at the height of the 2016 campaign, he could never have imagined that one day Trump would stand before it.  He will have a hard time holding onto the rights of the design, as I'm sure it will be plastered all over t-shirts and caps in the days ahead.  It's the perfect emblem for a faux president who thinks he is king of the world.

Trump has really outdone himself in recent days, venting before a North Carolina audience and now a group of conservative teens, about all the imaginary threats in this world.  One of them turns out to be Sweden, whose police had the audacity to arrest A$AP Rocky for starting a fight in Stockholm.  So now Trump is leading the #FreeRocky movement from the White House.  He was very disappointed that PM Stefan Lofven wouldn't act on his request to let the rapper go.  It seems the new mantra of his foreign policy will be "treat Americans fairly."

Former Swedish PM Carl Bildt had a few words to say in response.  He hasn't had a chance to learn that there is no winning a rhetorical battle with @realDonaldTrump on twitter.  He will soon enough.

Meanwhile, A$AP is milking this new found attention for all its worth and when finally allowed to leave Sweden, I'm sure will be stopping by the White House to personally thank Trump, maybe even with his main man Kanye West in tow.  A$AP is an up-and-comer in the World of Rap, and was badly in need of some street cred.  Of all the places to find it.

This level of absurdity underscores the White House, which is why Kamala Harris took time to address the issue at the NAACP convention in Detroit.  She, unlike others, sees the misuse of presidential power, not to mention the shameless attempt to pander to the African-American community.  But, she has gotten more flack than Donald Trump for not rushing to the defense of her young countryman, as other Democratic presidential candidates have done.

The only video evidence we have of A$AP's presumed innocence are the videos he posted on Instagram, supporting his claim he was being taunted by two men before he slammed one to the ground.  If a similar incident had taken place in New York, I doubt Trump would be defending the rapper.

Sadly, this is the state our presidency has deteriorated to.  Trump will falsely accuse Ilhan Omar of sleeping with terrorists and her own brother at a NC rally, but will rush to the defense of A$AP Rocky because Kanye and Kim interceded on his behalf, showing how easily he can be pulled in any direction.  What kind of mixed signal does this send to the African-American community in our country, or all Americans for that matter?  About the only purpose these twitter rages serve is to deflect attention from the real crimes being committed by this malevolent administration.  This is what Kanye and Kim or any American should be worried about, not A$AP Rocky, who is being treated by Swedish authorities much better than are the Central American migrants and asylum seekers in Trump's detention centers.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more