REPUBLICANS RUNNING AWAY FROM TRUMP

…Our Commander-in-Chief as he is being seen by others in Congress

 

Key US Senators are questioning Donald Trump as being "their" President.

 

Well, it’s happening right now that many in Washington on the right are racing each other to see who can get further away from the president.    Even the GOP leadership such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and others with less notoriety, are working hard to disassociate themselves from the president. 

 

Trump has once again, caused some Republicans that had previously tried hard to go along with President Trump, such Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, who are now saying that the president hasn’t shown the “stability” nor the “competence” to be our president of the United States.

 

So, how did Trump respond to that?

 

Well, he first responded to the terrorist attack in Spain as a US president should with the appropriate message.  Then, during the same hour, he tweeted the false story he had told many times in the election campaign about General Pershing in the early 1900’s, killing 49  out of 50 Muslims in the Philippines.  The tale goes that the general used bullets dipped in pigs blood.  And as the story goes, Pershing told the 50^th Muslim to go back to his people and tell them what he had done.  The old fable says that there then were no Islamic attacks in the Philippines for over 25 years. 

 

 

Trump is now suggesting that the Europeans should do what the urban legend says about using bullets dipped in pigs blood on today's terrorists.

 

Many expert historians have de-bunked this story and even PolitiFact and Snopes looked into it and they agree that there is no proof that General Pershing did anything of this kind, nor did he order or approve it.

 

After the Charlottesville press conference, the nation's CEO’s started announcing on national TV that they were leaving Trump’s two CEO advisory committees.  The defections were occurring so fast that in order for the president to get ahead of the issue, he then disbanded the two advisory committees before the majority of the CEO members had totally backed out on their own.  Eight CEO’s had announced their withdrawal right after Trump’s press conference and before Trump disbanded the committees.

 

So far, the only group that has continued to be a supporter of the president is Rupert Murdoch’s, Fox & Friends on the Fox Network.

 

The two living former Republican presidents, military leaders and even the vice president have issued statements making plain their differences with Trump.  Condemnations poured in from the conservative prime minister of Britain and especially from Germany, where they know what comes when you coddle Nazis.

On the morning after, during all three hours of “Fox & Friends”, (apparently Trump’s favorite show), the hosts defended Trump even after he aligned himself with white supremacists. It was a delicate task as some parts of Fox News had already gone wobbly.. Host Kat Timpf even called Trump’s remarks “disgusting”, but Trump’s “Fox & Friends” friends did still give it a try.

 

Fox host Steve Doocy began his show by saying Trump’s real “mistake” was to take questions from reporters. He figured the president “was just trying to be very careful” in his remarks.  Doocy then read out White House talking points as they usually do, such as “The president was entirely correct . . . ”  Host Todd Piro allowed that Trump’s comments “may not have been the smartest,” but then said something really dumb, “He could cure cancer tomorrow and other people in the media are going to attack him.”  (As if Trump had the ability or the patience to actually spend time studying medical books on cancer.)

 

Another host, Abby Huntsman, joined in the discussion to say that although this was a “missed opportunity for Trump to stand up a little stronger against hate groups”.  She added, “some people are going to hate this president anyway”.

 

The hosts tried mightily to change the subject from Trump’s unconscionable defense of neo-Nazis to his claim about those taking down statues of what Doocy calls, “Confederate heroes”, that they would soon be attacking George Washington's statues.

 

Huntsman then said, “Hmm, interesting point there,” introducing her “panel to debate this phony issue”.

 

Johns Hopkins professor Wendy Osefo tried in vain to help by saying: ”The issue was beyond monuments and more about Nazis killing and beating people. This is not talking points, this is human life.”  (But that comment fell on deaf ears.)

 

Then the black Republican, Gianno Caldwell, a reliable Trump defender chimed in with. “I mean, there are good people on both sides of this debate”.  But this time, Caldwell just wasn’t going to accept Trump's comments: “President Trump, our president, has literally betrayed the conscience of our country, the very moral fabric in which we’ve made progress when it comes to race relations in America.  He’s failed us. . . . Mr. President, good people don’t pal around with Nazis and white supremacists.”

By the end, Caldwell and Osefo were so deflated by the issue that they were both dealing with their own personal tears.

 

The host Huntsman, after trying one more time to talk about Confederate statues, she finally gave up: “You know, it’s a tough debate.”

 

Now that’s pure B.S.!

 

It’s not a tough debate. In fact, it’s not even close to a debate!  There are Nazis, there Alt-Rights, there are white supremacists and racists…..and then there are the rest of us.

For Fox to try and defend the president on this issue was obscene and disgusting.  It was unthinkable that the president of the United States would let white supremacists think it was okay to hold and act on their hateful views. In defending Trump, Fox is encouraging racists to crawl out from under their rocks and preach their venom out in the open.

 

A Huff-Post/You-Gov immediate poll shows the effect of Trump’s statements.

 

Only 22% think Trump may be opposed to white nationalism.  When the president winks at such racism, more racists are then emboldened. Among Trump supporters, 48% think the armed white nationalists in Charlottesville were mostly right.  They may have gone too far, but they have a point (per 37%). Half of Trump supporters were thus giving the green light for the president to express sympathy for white nationalists.

 

That is disgusting and deplorable.

 

But, let's get back to Fox & Friends:

 

They then read aloud their "selected" emails from their viewers: “Trump was right. . . . No matter what he says, he will be condemned. . . . It wasn’t eloquent, but it was pure Trump and common sense,” ..err...right.

 

The host Doocy again raised the prospect of George Washington becoming the next victim after Robert E. Lee.  But they did agree that General Lee probably would have wanted his statues taken down anyway, because: “He wanted to put the Civil War behind us and focus on national unity.”

 

If only Fox & Friends could do the same.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017