Good Morning.
My goal in life at the moment is to go two whole weeks without feeling an uncontrollable urge to comment on the behavior of the president. So far I have been unsuccessful, but it is what it is. The guy scares me to death.
I was recently sent a petition about a parade that is in the works for Veteran's Day in Washington. The event is the childbrain of the president who is, not surprisingly, smitten with the public displays of military power seen in dictatorships around the world - you know, the kind with tanks and missiles rumbling down the street and battalions of troops goosestepping in front of a thug in a reviewing stand with his henchmen eyeing the crowd for any hint of disloyalty.
This is not the kind of activity that is supposed to happen in the United States. We have inaugural parades with handsome and now beautiful young cadets and midshippeople in their smart uniforms, wonderful horse units from somewhere, and military bands playing marches by John Philip Sousa, but our men and women in service do not participate in organized bowing and scraping to the Commander-in-Chief, currently a guy whose ego is so out of control as to boggle any mind capable of sorting through basic information. He craves, in capital letters, recognition and adulation from individuals and even better, from crowds, the bigger, the better, and this is why he has these rallies around the country every few days. He climbs onto Air Force One, flies to a place where he knows he'll attract a horde of adoring fans, struts onto the stage to thunderous applause, and rants for an hour about all the things they have in common. The man has nothing in common with them, of course; he is a business tycoon from New York who has been chauffeured around in a limo since the time of his birth and lived an otherwise extravagant, hedonistic lifestyle. He has never ridden in a pickup in his life and wouldn't know a kitchen table if he bumped into it, but at the moment he descended the escalator to announce his candidacy and declared that the Mexicans were criminals and rapists, he connected with what has come to be called The Base and a true symbiotic relationship was formed. He tells them what they want to hear and they afford him the blind allegiance he so desperately needs.
He is a shallow man with no core beliefs about anything, but he has a list of issues he kicks out to get the reaction he wants.
He is systematically dismantling an agency designed to protect us from crummy air and water because The Base doesn't like regulations about anything and could care less about the planet. He is determined to build a multi-billion dollar wall at the southern border because The Base doesn't want brown people coming to this country and who cares if the families seeking asylum are torn apart. He promises to maintain the gun culture so dear to The Base and if a little violence happens now and then, no big deal. He is so ignorant about agriculture that he didn't realize what his tariffs would do to the farmers who voted for him, so now he proposes to reimburse them with subsidies so they don't get mad at him. He fumes away about the press being The Enemy of the People, and The Base yells and cheers as if their team just made the winning touchdown. They chose him to represent the party of Lincoln over sixteen other candidates and nobody should be able to criticize him. They like the temper tantrums, the crudely worded, spiteful tweets at all hours of the day and night, and the petty name-calling. They don't care that he hasn't a drop of empathy for other human beings, that he threatens anyone who doesn't grovel at his feet, and that he lies like a rug - The New York Times just reported that he kicks out an average of seven outright lies or misstatements every day.
The Base will think the parade is a swell idea. It will be an official acclamation of their hero - and by association, them.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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