How the Hell is this Normal?

As I watch hundreds of heads talking as if we are living through some normal Presidential administration, I keep yelling at them: “How the hell is this normal?”

Is this, at last, a “pivot”?  Doesn’t the Afghanistan speech show that Generals Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly are indeed “adults in the room”?  Hasn’t Chief-of-Staff Kelly finally restored some order and discipline to the West Wing?  Why does the press keep quoting the lies of press secretary Sarah Hucksterabee Sanders?  Why do they even keep going to the daily briefings—when no questions are ever answered?   Why do they ask “normal” questions of the President when he doesn’t know any details of the legislation he’s advocating—or just blatantly lies, notwithstanding all the “normal” fact-checking?  Wow, he’s finally “acting Presidential” because he’s reading off the teleprompter!  He’s working with “Chuck and Nancy”!  He’s become the Consoler-in-Chief with a photo-op after Hurricane Irma!  He even goes to the United Nations!  And what a funny bromance with Vladimir Putin?

This ordinary treatment of a deranged President is dangerous!  He threatens “complete destruction” of North Korea.  This was not merely, as a European foreign minister said, “the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience.”  He is actually threatening to unleash nuclear war on our planet!

His original abolition of the DACA program was not merely a change in immigration policy.  He has brought existential fear to millions of young people in America—and threatens to use  a national police force to deport all the disgusting scum in our midst.  California Governor, Jerry Brown, in supporting state “sanctuary” legislation, brought some needed language to the nation: “We’re not soldiers of Donald Trump or the federal immigration service.”

He insults people of color, women, disabled persons, immigrants, judges, reporters—and it’s just “locker room” chatter.  Hey guys, he’s attacking all the fundamental values and institutions of our nation. Let’s say it!

He is never going to “pivot”, or “act Presidential”, or demonstrate empathy, or understand complex domestic and foreign policy, or tell the truth, or put national interest ahead of the Trump brand. He’s on a fast track to destroying the nation we love.  Talking heads: Let’s develop the language and tactics to make this clear to all Americans.

Bob Filner, author of Trumping Trump

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