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As each week in the term of this administration passes I occasionally find myself saying, “surely it can’t get worse than this.” Then it always gets worse, way worse. President Trump has the uncanny ability to take any situation and make it infinitely uncomfortable and embarrassing for the nation.
When he is given the opportunity to be presidential, he turns into a pigeon playing chess. He knocks everything over, shits on the board then struts around acting like he won.
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With the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville Virginia last week, Trump was in a prime position to take a stand and start the healing process. Instead, he doubled down on his refusal to call out racism and bigotry. He played to the base that got him elected instead of leading the country. He campaigned instead of comforting; he incited more anger instead of encouraging peace.
His calls for coming together as one was left empty, hollow and meaningless by the refusal to lay the blame for the death and violence at the feet of the racist alt-right protestors. Instead, he said, “both sides” were to blame. While many seemingly want to agree with that assertion, they are doing so simply because they refuse to admit their president is a doofus. They also are aligning themselves with actual, real life racists Nazi wannabees.
As the week went on his Twitter thumbs went to work, latching on to the racist neo-nazi lie that this was all about statues and preserving history. When in fact the “Unite the Right” rally had little to nothing to do with statues. The literature promoting the events didn’t even mention the statues. This event was purely a racist rally with the sole intention of inciting violence and pushing a white nationalist agenda.
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A nation that started with the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” is now being led by a man who winks at those who don’t agree with this statement at all. They prefer to only focus on history that supports their agenda of bigotry. A history of losing and shame is what they want to revive. Clinging to a belief system that has been battled and repeatedly defeated throughout this nation’s history and should have been left for dead.
So as this administration continues down this path to impeachment, I am left to wonder, exactly where is the bottom? Will we know it when we see it? When we see it will it be too late to recover?
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Photo: Getty Images