Let me start by saying… Just Wow!
A made for Television reality show. A spectacle that Phineas Taylor Barnum, who was an American showman, politician, and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus might be amazed at the chutzpah of one Donald “the Don” Trump, the Mafioso president.
And boy did he pull out all the stops by firstly shunning the speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi without a handshake, telling outright lies and embellishments, and pandering to each of his constituencies. Seeding the very same Capitol Hill where impeachment hearings had taken place with an infomercial for his reelection campaign.
It was also replete with irreverence toward any respect of tradition, civility, and precedence as appreciation for our history and the Capitol decorum. Some of the most offensive material included aspects of racism as to the subtext of his messages on immigration, ICE, and the border patrol, not to mention the glorious fence and its fallacies.
He told you who he was and where he is going while knowing he would be acquitted of the Articles of Impeachment by the Republican-led majority Senate. However, awarding the coveted Medal of Honor to ultra-right, white conservative talk radio personality, Rush Limbaugh was the outright declaration as that of white nationalism that Trump subscribes to, and hung around his neck by our ‘Be Best’ First Lady Melania Trump.
For so many reasons it was difficult to watch. His outrageous statements, lies, and misguided policies, even the ones he knowingly lies about such as selling the American People that he will fight for pre-existing medical conditions, while at the same time fighting the Affordable Care Act in court to eliminate them.
At one point House Women dressed in white stood up and chanted HR 3, holding up three fingers, referring to legislation already passed by the house with bi-partisan support sitting on Mitch McConnell’s desk gathering dust and waiting only to be brought up for a vote in the Senate. All of this while calling out Democrats as Socialists who want to take away your healthcare system.
He literally spoke to the Republicans where they typically sit, in this case to his left ironically and to the military, Supreme Court and others in the center between the two-party seating sections. This was his opportunity to win support from the Senate and the American public who were watching on TV of all his accomplishments (many manufactured by the liar in chief himself), and make a pitch for being reelected ahead of the vote on his Senate trial to convict and remove him.
When Nancy Pelosi neatly tore up her copy of his speech before Congress and the cameras beaming this message into homes across the country, it was a spectacular, clever, and powerful display of an improvised moment by gesture alone as a shot heard ‘round the world as an act of defiance.
When later asked by reporters why she did so, she called it a “manifest of lies,” and on her Twitter account she tweeted, The manifesto of mistruths presented in page after page of the address tonight should be a call to action for everyone who expects truth from the President and policies worthy of his office and the American people.
Now, unfettered and free to seek retribution against perceived enemies real and imagined, L’Enfant terrible unleashed. His thirst for vengeance, punishing others, and blaming them, without seeing how he is “at cause” in the matter while learning no lessons of value to reform his compulsions and behavior.
Look out world, look out!
