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The Kansas City Star

Well, Mr. President, Have You No Sense Of Decency Sir, At Long Last?

We might have another flag debate in this country. We still see the Confederate symbol flying in activities promoted by white supremacists on the streets of America and at numerous Klu Klux Klan meetings in the South. And on rural pickups. A new American flag has been created by a New York artist that symbolizes our divided country. Yes, the red, white, and blue stars and stripes are still there, but a divided black image of the United States is spread out on the flag emphasizing how much its citizens are split by politics, religion, race, gender, and economics. Republican governors are complaining the artist is desecrating our national flag but it is now flying in at least 12 locations around the country.

To illustrate how the narcissistic, psychopathic Donald Trump has divided the country into many warring factions, I have used a line from the 1954 Army-McCarthy Congressional hearings when Wisconsin Republican Senator Joe McCarthy charged that the U.S. Army was loaded with Communists and that the State Department actually had 225 Communists in the work force. He often said: “I have here in my hand a list of people who are Communists.” But he never showed anyone the names on the list. McCarthy badgered and threatened witnesses until Army lawyer Joseph Welch had had enough and blasted McCarthy: “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?...If there is a God in heaven, it will do you nor your cause any good.” It was the breaking moment for McCarthy. His fellow Republican senators finally turned on him and brought a motion to the floor to censure him. It passed 67-22. McCarthy died three years later of alcoholism and hepatitis—and was rumored to have syphilis.

Let’s Move On To The Psychopath In The Oval Playpen

There are two groups of Americans who put Donald Trump in the White House. One is represented by Billy’s son Franklin Graham who said God wanted Trump to lead us out of the wilderness! Southern  Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists have two major political goals: the preservation of white power and the elimination of Roe vs. Wade. Over 80% voted for him. The second group is represented by “unconservative” present-day white Republicans who also have two major political goals: low taxes and the filling of family  billfolds. And they readily went along with the idea of preserving white power in an ever-increasing diverse country. Nothing conservative about these guys. McConnell and Ryan have no interest in preserving the “common good.” They wanted tax cuts which would later sandbag Social Security and Medicare because of the huge deficit.

So these two groups accepted their roles as members of the Trump cult, put a little man in the Oval Office with five deferments, no moral code, no social manners or skills, and a total ignorance of the 232-year history of the country. They paid no attention to his uncivil campaign rallies where he lied constantly, attacked the “enemy of the people,” the press, which is absolutely essential in an informed democracy, called anyone who attacked him “dumb,” and offered to pay legal expenses if audience members physically attacked critics at campaign events.

Why did these people vote for a man no one would want as a neighbor, no one would want as a child, no one would want as a brother, no one would want as a father, no one would want as a daughter’s boyfriend, no one would want as a banker, no one would want as a resident in the basement, no one would want as a bully or coward at the family dinner table, no one would want as a university president, and no one would want as your motel desk clerk?  It boggles the mind.

A Decent Person Does Not Possess These Qualities—Trump Has Them All

Hundreds of campaign speeches and shouted questions—and thousands of misspelled and incoherent tweets—have used up all the adjectives one might use to describe a president who has lied to the public over 4,200 times and has lowered normal discourse and civility to septic levels never seen before in this country.  He is an embarrassment to the country that, even with its many failures, has often led the world in establishing and supporting human rights and human decency. Trump is a cruel, vindictive, lying, dumb, ignorant, petty, pathetic, whiny, petulant, know-nothing, juvenile jerk. That’s just a quick summary by adjectives! Even his friends don’t like him. By the way, who are his close friends?  David Duke? Stephen Miller? Steve Bannon? Franklin Graham? Sean Hannity? Melania Trump? Jerry Falwell,Jr? Females are not human equals according to male psychopaths. They are to be used, paid, and pushed aside. The Donald possesses trophy wives and has grabbed many pussies in his megalomaniac role as a sexual predator braggart. When he descended on the Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy he was surrounded by unemployed Broadway actors he had paid $50 to unemployed Broadway actors to politic for him for a few minutes.

During the campaign Trump asserted he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. After listening to some of his Southern Evangelical Christian women voters defend their vote for their hero, I can believe it, as long as the city attorney was a member of the Trump cult. Many Trump voters have only two issues, race and abortion. 

Researchers have been studying cults for a long time because so many Americans have fallen for David Koresh of Branch Davidian fame and the disaster at Waco, Jim Jones and The People’s Temple where 900 people drank the Kool-Aid, Marshall Applewhite and his Heaven’s Gate buddies who committed mass suicide after the space ship failed to show, and L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology that involves some other planets and extraterrestrial beings. Steve Schmidt, a Republican campaign strategist who denies Trump is a real Republican, says: “Trump has performed some level of Jedi mind trick. Here’s the deal—he lost by three million votes. He is weaker. The majority of the country opposes this (his policies). It is only through the magical thinking of the Trump cult that there is any capacity to believe the majority supports them. It does not.”

Steven Hassan, one of the world’s leading expert on cults, states: “Trump’s political movement meets the definition of a cult. Donald Trump fits the stereotypical profile of a cult leader. His followers fit the model as well. Many Trumpistas, especially the ones that say, ‘He could do anything and we would still believe him, we would still follow him,’ sound like people who have been indoctrinated into a totalistic mindset.”

Do We Still Have A Democracy?

Recent headlines are being written questioning the survival of our democracy. Two stand out: “Are White People Ready to Bail to Bail on Democracy? These Researchers Warn the Danger is Real,” and “American Democracy is in Crisis, and not Just Because of Trump.” But there is no doubt Trump has picked a slowly healing scab off our extensive race wound and turned it into a running, bloody, festering sore.
When Randy Moss of the Minnesota Vikings was recently inducted into the National Football League’s Hall of Fame he wore a tie with names of a dozen black men and women killed by police inscribed on it. He was congratulated by both NFL and NBA players, some white, some black, for his statement. But he received about 200 hate messages from Trumpistas, with many stating, “Hey, nigger, stay in your place.” Trump knows he got elected by whites, and his constant denigrating comments about anyone who is not white dominates the 24//7 news cycle. His tweets called CNN News anchor Don Lemon and Lebron James, perhaps the greatest basketball player in history, “dumb and dumber” with this tweet: “Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do.” Lemon, who demonstrates every night he is quite smart, fired back: I’m going to tell you exactly how I feel. Referring to African-Americans as ‘dumb’ is one of the oldest canards of America’s racist past and present: that black people are of inferior intelligence. The president constantly denigrates people of color—women, too. This president trafficks in racism and is fueled by bullying, from keeping children in cages, to bullying journalists at every one of his rallies and every chance he gets.” Trump has had his battles with six-term black Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California.  He accuses her of having a “very low I.Q. Waters, who represents LA’s toughest district called Watts, has been receiving death threats from whites for over two years. In 2017, a California man was arrested for leaving this voice mail at her Washington office: “If you continue to make threats toward the president, you’re going to wind up dead, Maxine, ‘cause we’ll kill you.”  

Will We Survive Trump and Make America “Greater?”

A reader sent me a brief history of the United States which covers 230 tumultuous years. The history contains photos of three presidents. The first one is of George Washington with the caption “I cannot tell a lie.” The second is a photo of Richard Nixon with the phrase “I cannot tell the truth.” The third one is of President Trump who laments “I cannot tell the difference.”  Some people think we will survive Trump because of our institutions and “the rule of law.”  Certainly the Congress, the courts, the thousands of government regulations, banks, the FBI, and the world’s best Constitution will put us back on the right path. 

Not so fast, says Anne Applebaum, a respected Washington Post columnist in her column “Are You Sure There’s No Need to Worry?” She lists what Congress has failed to do, what several administrations have failed to do, what the courts have failed to do, and what law enforcement has failed to do. In just one example she will make you worry about our future because we are not living by the rule of law. Although the Old Post Office in D.C. was classified as a historic building, the federal government allowed Trump to lease it and turn it into the Trump International Hotel Washington. According to the terms of the lease, no elected official can hold the lease! How many sections of government are ignoring the rule of that law? We have a president who, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Manual of Mental Disabilities, fulfills every criterion for both psychopaths and sociopaths. So far, Congress has not even passed a law limiting his sole right to push the nuclear trigger. Last year he threatened to nuke North Korea. Another Congressional failure to control a psychopath. His voter cult has basically imploded Christianity and the teachings of Jesus Christ in this country. His cult blindly supports this narcissistic Great Wall builder and playboy of the Western World—while he breaks many of the Ten Commandments with stormy playgirls who love to play for pay. The rule of law is supposed to make everything work: commerce, all contracts, civil rights, and society itself. We ignore laws at our peril, but we must change them at times to progress.