A serious question

For all the MAGA apologists out there ... which of Jesus’ teachings do you think Trump most embodies?

Snowflake

Now I’ve heard everything.

Trump, apparently, suffered mental anguish at a “60 Minutes” broadcast, and doesn’t like the nickname “TACO”.

This, from the Insulter-in-Chief who causes millions of people mental anguish every time he opens his mouth!

Unbelievable.

Just saying “no”

Hearing Trump spout, yet again, his wet dream of making Canada the 51^st state makes my stomach churn.

But then what do you expect from a convicted sex predator? He clearly doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no”

The art of projection

Hearing Trump calling Putin “crazy” for his latest attack on Ukraine, I’m reminded of how often he seems to project his own behavior onto others.

Past presidents’ failings on security or the economy, other people’s incitement to violence, weaponization of government and the justice branch against enemies, interference in state politics and private business ... and other leaders’ actions on the world stage.

Listening to Trump

I hear hate and cruelty. The very opposite of Christian values. I’m at a loss to understand how anyone professing to be Christian can support this man. No matter which of your policy agendas he happens to promote along the way, the ends do not justify the means.

The cognitive dissonance is unreal.

Trust is broken

Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, recently met with a number of US state governors. They were mostly from border states, bemoaning the hit to their economies from the drop in Canadian trade and visitors.

First: don’t talk to Canada, talk to your own damned administration. And I’m not buying the “but I didn’t vote for him” and “I don’t agree with him” whining. It’s your country, your countrymen, your neighbors, who voted. Don’t like it? What are you doing about it?

Second: what happened to the “We don’t need anything from Canada” insults regularly thrown our way?

But third: your economic hit is nothing to do with any actions on the part of Canadian federal or provincial governments, it’s the actions of your president, and those of millions of individuals in Canada making personal choices. The result of deep-rooted shock, betrayal, and anger at your president’s attacks on our country.

That is not something that will vanish the moment tariffs are lifted, or even the moment Trump leaves office. Imagine your best friend, someone you’ve known and trusted for years, suddenly turns and punches you in the gut with no provocation. No matter what they say afterwards, trust is broken. Your relationship will never be the same again.

Trump’s words and actions have poisoned the US brand around the world in a matter of weeks. The damage will take far longer to repair.

No room at the inn

Listening to Trump talk, he seems unable to hold a single thought from beginning to end. Sentences ramble, with weird halts, repetitions, and inexplicable tangents. What he says one day will be reversed the next.

The one exception to this pattern is – he knows how to hold a grudge. He knows exactly who to be angry at. Grudges last years, decades, with perfect fidelity.

The thing is, he has so many grudges, I’ve come to the conclusion there’s simply no room in his mind for anything else.

Attack! Attack! Attack!

Even more than the recently-popular “I don’t know”, Trump’s go-to response for anything he doesn’t like is to blindly attack.

Anyone who crosses him, contradicts him, or even questions him is nasty, a terrorist, needs to be waylaid and attacked by vigilantes, tried for treason and executed, and – worst of all – called lots of lame schoolyard nicknames.

This is not the mark of a mature adult, let alone someone in possession of nuclear launch codes!

What kind of refugee do you want?

White = good

Everyone else = bad

Pretty much sums up the state of Trump’s America.

Who is above the law?

When I hear Trump rage against judges any time a decision goes against him, he’s making his intentions for the USA very, very clear.

He’s declared anything he does “legal”, because he’s the president, and anything that gets in his way “illegal”. He has no concept of, and is incapable of understanding, the fundamental notion that a president’s power is not – and never was intended to be – absolute.

Dammit, you all fought a war – that you celebrate every July – to rid yourself of a king.

But then, Trump can’t actually tell you what’s in the Declaration of Independence. He says it’s “a declaration of unity and love and respect." No, it was a group of colonists rejecting the absolute power of a monarchy.

An absolute power that he’s successfully taking back for himself.

Eat the tariffs

Trump promised other countries would pay the cost of his tariffs.

Of course, that’s nonsense, but don’t anyone dare tell the Orange Leader.

And woe betide any company that makes it clear to the American consumer why prices are rising.

Trump expects Walmart to not raise prices in the face of an additional tax. He expects either Walmart or China to eat the costs.

China? Pretty please, lower your prices?

What? That’s a ‘no’?

Sorry, Walmart. Apparently the American government, the believers in free market and non-interference, are now dictating corporate policy and demanding you to take one for the team.

Because there is no way Trump can ever be shown to be wrong.

We’re the ones who won the war

And Trump is whining about European celebrations last week. Isn’t the end of a years-long conflict worth celebrating?

For Europeans, this is a war that saw your country invaded, homes bombed, cities destroyed and civilians massacred. Of course, America has never experienced that kind of devastation, so Americans can’t be expected to understand.

But Europeans know what it’s like. That kind of conflict leaves memories and lasting scars that cross generations. My home was invaded. My grandparents suffered through five years of enemy occupation. My parents were thankfully evacuated to safety. I was born several years after the end of the war, but reminders – physical and psychological – were everywhere while I was growing up.

Take 9/11, multiply it ten thousand times and you start to get the idea.

Trump’s vanity can’t move beyond claiming wins for himself, whether justified or not. So fuck your petty point-scoring, you pathetic draft-dodger. Nobody’s keeping score. It’s the end itself that is being celebrated.

Buying power

Qatar is offering a $400m luxury jet as a gift.

They’re not asking for anything in return.

It’s completely free, no strings attached.

It’s a gift to the Department of Defense, not to Trump personally.

It will be fitted out as the new Air Force One.

Retrofitting will take years.

It will be decommissioned at the end of Trump’s term (only a few years from now) and become a museum piece.

Trump won’t get to keep it.

All this is true. Believe me.

Multiple choice quiz:

(a) Is Trump stupid?

(b) Does he think everyone else is stupid?

(c) Both the above?

Weaponization of government

GOP – supposedly the party of freedom and minimal government interference.

Trump – party of bullying private individuals and companies into acting how he believes they should.

And now he’s got the levers of power in his hands, with a supine Congress either too cowed or power-drunk to apply the brakes. Executive orders, lawsuits, withholding funding, withdrawing security clearances, cancelling contracts ... anything to bully people into compliance.

It’s clear he’s pushing the boundaries and will keep pushing until someone says “enough”. He already blew a problem (drugs crossing the northern border) into a full-scale perceived emergency to seize control over tariffs. Now he’s inventing an “invasion” to seize the power to detain people without any legal recourse. What kind of country does this remind you of?

Wake up, America!

The “Know Nothing” President

Trump sure seems to instantly know everything about anyone or anything that annoys him – fake press, failing magazines, incompetent CEOs (of successful companies whose internal policies he disagrees with), judges who uphold the law, immigrants (legal or otherwise) and anyone who’s not male and white. He has it on good authority, and can assert confidently (because someone once told him) that they are all very bad people, criminals who he is so knowledgeable about that they should be punished without the pointless formality of a trial.

He apparent knows the legality or otherwise of any act that gets in his way (clearly it’s illegal) or his own actions (clearly legal, by definition).

So, he knows a lot. In fact he’s the cleverest and most knowledgeable person in the room. On the planet, even. He knows everything. He knows more than lawyers, doctors, economists, scientists, on any topic you care to mention.

And yet he remains steadfastly and cravenly ignorant of any attempts to hold him to account for his own actions.

Any of his previously good friends and supporters who now criticize him (I barely knew them, never even met them). Anything about executive orders he’s signed. Whether or not he’s required to uphold the Constitution (remember that oath of office you swore?)

“I don’t know” has become his go-to answer for any embarrassing question.

The most obvious thing that I admit I don’t know right now is – how can anyone still take this “know nothing” President seriously?

You’ve got to laugh or else you cry

I just did my weekly grocery shopping for the family.

Except I don’t go grocery shopping any longer. Because groceries, apparently, is an old fashioned word that nobody uses any more for a bag with different things in it.

Trump is so clueless he can’t even understand what “different things” a bag of groceries might contain. It’s food, Donald. Stuff that ordinary people need to go out and buy on a regular basis or they’ll starve. Something you’ve never done in your life, oh man of the people.

So I got home and announced, “I’ve just got our bags with different things in.” Which made my wife laugh.

At least we can still laugh.

Good on you, Stockholm

First France, and now the city of Stockholm in Sweden have given the middle finger to US embassies demanding they contravene their own laws by kowtowing to Trump's war on DEI.

Of course, if you think that qualities like inclusion, equity, and a diverse culture are dangerous concepts then you’ll likely cheer on efforts to stamp them out in other countries.

It’s not as if there are actual dangerous matters to put a stop to elsewhere in the world, like genocide, random arrests and disappearances, incarcerations without trial, and harsh repression of basic freedoms that you take for granted like education, and the right to leave your house not accompanied by a male family member.

No, obviously those can wait while we stamp out the dangerous notion of equality for all members of your community.

Seriously, Trump, put your own house in order, and butt the fuck out of other countries’ business.

“Gulf of America” means you’ve been conquered

Trump is trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. He thinks it shows American domination.

I’m not sure if he’d be so keen if he realized it meant the exact opposite.

Transportation routes, including bodies of water, were often named after their destination. The Gulf of Mexico was named by the Spanish colonial invaders in a show of dominance over the native populations in Mexico. There was no suggestion that the Mexicans owned the gulf.

Changing it to the Gulf of America feels like he’s opening up the country to an invasion from the south. The very thing his supporters are most afraid of.

The school bully

Trump won’t rule out the use of military force to subjugate Greenland. “Because we need Greenland very badly.”

School bully shakes down smaller kid for his lunch money.

In what civilized universe did that behavior become something to admire?

Feeling stalked

When Trump talks about Canada being coerced into an unwanted union with the USA, I feel like I’m being stalked down some dark alley by a creepy old guy, muttering obscenities with snot and spittle dribbling down his chin. 

It’s terrifying, and I don’t know if he’ll lose interest and wander off into a corner to play with himself, or if he’s gripping a loaded pistol under his grubby flashers mac.

Let’s ignore the constitution

 

This is the guy who’s sworn an oath to uphold the constitution. But apparently not those bits that get in his way.

At this point, looking on as an outsider, I’m tempted for my own sanity to say “not my problem”. The USA is clearly going to hell in a handbasket unless enough citizens who actually respect the law and enjoy the freedoms it’s supposed to guarantee you, mount a strong defense before it’s too late. But it’s not my country so the cruelties being inflicted there shouldn’t be any of my business.

And yet, with Trump throwing his weight around on the world stage, the insanity going on there does directly affect me, so he’s made it my business to care.

Rule of law or dictatorship?

 

Hearing Trump talk about deporting immigrants with no due process because “you can’t hold trials for millions of people”, I have to wonder when did the rule of law become a matter of convenience in a civilized society?

“We know who the bad guys are.” How? Your gut feel? That’s the courts’ job to decide. They are there to ensure the law is applied properly, not on some madman’s whim.