Doug's Darkworld

People who deny things they weren’t accused of are admitting guilt. That’s been one of my observations since I was a young man. I suppose there are codicils, there always are, nothing  is black and white. Still, as a general rule, when someone denies something they weren’t accused of, it should raise an eyebrow or two. I am here talking about Trump and him tweeting: 

“ … Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate — FAKE NEWS,”

Um, no one said anything about a series of mini-strokes Mr Trump. (The medical term is transient ischemic attack (TIA.) It’s basically a temporary stroke that lasts only a few minutes. It’s a forewarning of a possible stroke.) He is literally denying something that no one suggested.

That’s the problem with lying all the time, hard to remember what one has said. Trump was taken for an unscheduled hospital visit last fall. Is something up with his health? Unfortunately America has a long history of lying about the health of the POTUS. Cleveland. Wilson. Roosevelt. I can see why they do it, people are remarkably able to deny their health has failed, especially when the brain is involved. Wilson referred to himself as “slightly lame.” One whole side of his freaking body was paralyzed! And his cognitive functions were impaired, as you would expect when a major stroke caused brain damage. And it also makes sense for the people around an ill POTUS to keep up the fiction. Either out of cynical self-interest, or rationalizing it away. Human nature.

I pretty much suspect that something happened to Trump’s brain. I say this from a number of perspectives, but mostly based on his non response to Covid-19. He does not seem able to grasp that Covid-19 was a game changer and required an actual response, not his standard gestures and promises. That the world he inhabited had changed! And so here we are playing a national game of whack-a-mole as various states try to control outbreaks. All without anything resembling a national coherent strategy.

So yeah, there’s no one really home in Trump’s head. He’s just a walking collection of habits. And in the case of a con artist and habitual liar, these aren’t particularly useful habits for a POTUS. If it’s good, it’s his doing. Bad, his enemies. No enemies to blame? Make them up. His tweets and responses to interview questions are getting weirder and weirder. Hell, some of his recent interview responses have just been word salads. And he has no platform for his reelection campaign, just his usual habit of regurgitating Rush Limbaugh and Q-Anon nonsense. Like his latest claim about a planeload of antifa thugs: Black-clad thugs on a plane? What was Donald Trump talking about? No one knows, no evidence has been provided. And it makes no sense, why would they wear black clothes on a plane?

This is what happens when one turns a political party into a religion. There’s nothing left but dogma, and it doesn’t have to actually make sense. And anyone who disagrees, why they are Satan’s minions. Deceived by the anti-religion, socialism, communism, whatever. The fact that the anti-religion doesn’t exist, no matter. The Jewish conspiracy Hitler was killing millions to fight didn’t exist. Small comfort to the millions killed. The number of socialists and anarchists in America is miniscule, the idea that they secretly control the Democratic party is laughable. It’s an idea that might get Trump reelected though. 

One has to remember that in the shining world of white Christian Republicanism … there’s no such thing as right wing violence. I’ve had right wingers absolutely freaking insist on that, all violence comes from the left. Even Hitler, he was a socialist don’t you know? And people like Kyle Ritterhouse and the police, why if they are violent they were forced into it defending themselves against leftist violence. Like I said, Evangelical Republicanism led by Trump is a religion now. A cult really. They have the answers, any problems that arise are because people didn’t accept them as saviors.

Reality is far more nuanced of course. That’s why the efforts of Trump, Napoleon, Hitler, Washington all came to naught. (Yes, I admire Washington in a way, but creating a country where only white male property owners have rights while everyone else was a second class citizen hasn’t turned into the paradise for all it was promised to be.) So yeah, Trump is not going to win the election and turn America into a paradise anymore than he did the first time. Granted Biden isn’t either, but I think there’s someone still home there.

I mean, Trump’s latest is telling everyone there will be a vaccine just before the election! What an incredible coincidence! Just another example of his magical thinking, since his higher functions are gone. (Look at Trump interviews from decades back, he at least was articulate and responded to questions in a sensible way, unlike his current word salads.) There’s absolutely zero reason to think a safe, tested, and effective vaccine will be available by November. And even if there is, vaccines are only one component of a national pandemic response. Which we don’t have yet. 

Oh well, Rambling on. It’s just so freaking weird to wake up every day in a country where mass death stalks the land, and the king is pretending it’s all under control. And his loyal followers agree even as they are dying. Maybe Trump will stroke out or otherwise become incapacitated before the election. Not that I’m sure that would help any. On the plus side, as a long time student of history, I now find history’s endless parade of stupidity, nonsense, and avoidable catastrophes far less perplexing. Human ignorance, gullibility, and stupidity is a feature, not a bug.

Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #InsanusTempora

PS. This has been bugging me. If American cities were actually under siege, if there was widespread violence  … people would be dying by the score! Whole blocks would be going up in flames! We’d see burning Walmarts on TV every night! I mean, in the Watts riots in 1965, the last major civil unrest in the US in my lifetime, 35 people were killed. Just in Watts! If something like that was happening nationally, hundreds would be dead! Whole neighborhoods would be burning. What, under a dozen people are dead? A handful of businesses? There are no freaking riots going on people; so responding as if there are is political theater, nothing more. Like Trump’s promised vaccine, pandemic theater. Neither is helping.

PPS. Guess what the big killer of cops is now? Covid-19. If Blue Lives Mattered Mr Trump, you’d do something about that, not make up stories about plane loads of antifa ninjas.

PPPS: Shares, likes, comments appreciated.

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved. 

(Image: A screengrab from The Drudge Report. Used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s an interesting site, it’s been an Oracle at Delphi for the right for decades, people should check it out.)