Donald Dud

Like Trump, I bailed from his birthday parade early. I, however, could turn it off and watch clips later. He had to stay for the whole thing and didn’t look happy about it. Having gone from standing and saluting, grim-faced and look-at-me leading, he ended up slumped, dejected, fighting sleep while those around him looked equally sad. Little Marco failed to suppress a yawn. Hegseth seemed to want to disappear.

Will whoever selected the music lose their job? Was playing Creedence’s “Fortunate Son” a deliberate snark against the draft-dodger in chief, or, like playing a gay anthem at every Trump rally, unintentionally clueless? 

We can be sure Trump fantasized a North Korea-style show of military might and fawning fealty, thousands of troops marching in lockstep precision, turning as one to salute him, amongst wave after wave of mighty weapons of war. Instead, he got impassive soldiers, many looking bored, walking unsynchronized as corporate sponsors were announced. Some saluted, some didn’t. Some turned their faces to him, some didn’t. Smiling to the thin crowds, mechanized troops waved and made heart signs with their hands. That was nice. Hoping instead for menace, Trump thought otherwise.

In the bleachers, empty seats outnumbered the filled. If the event was intended to intimidate our adversaries and portray Trump as a powerful leader, it was a Donald Dud. The flyovers were impressive, though, like Seafair. And the robot dogs were cool. Perhaps the research behind them will survive Trump’s anti-science agenda.

Hewing to their disinformation-spreading business model, counting on audience credulity, Fox “news” spoke of the “energy” and enthusiasm of the parade. Black, they assured us, was white. Down, they insisted, was up. It appears they even added fake cheering to drown out the silence. Trump’s Joseph Goebbels, Steven Cheung, said 250,000 people attended and the country-wide protests were “miniscule.” Such is Trumpworld’s view of their voters’ intelligence.

Did Trump see images of the millions of citizens who turned out in hundreds of cities, including in red states, to protest his “king”dom? Evidently. That night, he took to “Truthless Antisocial” to demand law enforcement redouble their intimidation in blue-state cities, using rhetoric that made undeniable his dictatorial politicization of the DOJ. Or, as he calls it, “running the country.”  That those millions marched peacefully, providing no excuse for violent reprisals, must have been disappointing. There was, however, a favored MAGA tactic, blessed by Ron DeSantis, of attempted vehicular homicide.

The weekend held other horrors: As awful as the murders in Minnesota were, more portentous for our future was the MAGA response, including from sitting US senators, Elon Musk, and, predictably, Foxians. Despite the murderer’s manifesto and hitlist attacking Democrats, despite his roommate’s confirmation that he’s a staunch Trump supporter, right-wingers insisted the man was a liberal, a Marxist, blaming the murder on “the extreme left.” There were even suggestions on Trumpic media that Governor Tim Walz hired the man to off a political enemy. 

We may argue over which party has most lost its mind (though the answer is as obvious as the aforementioned and Mr. Cheung’s lies), but when the divide between them is this unbridgeable, the adherence to truth so unequal, prospects for joining together in commitment to democracy are dim.

Changing subjects again, to the missiles flying between Israel and Iran: In concert with the wishes of the Western world, Israel’s intent is to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons. As the Middle East threatens another conflagration, let’s remember that, if not for Trump, this wouldn’t have happened. Calling it “the worst deal in the world,” reflexively undoing President Barack Obama’s most beneficial initiatives in his first “presidency,” he pulled out of the tough nuclear agreement with Iran that Obama’s team had forged. The deal included regular, expert inspections, with which Iran was complying.

Iranically, the currently disrupted negotiations between the US and Iran would return to the status established by President Obama’s “worst deal.” Bringing things back to how they were before Trump ruined them is also a fair description of the ephemeral trade agreement, supposedly in the works, with China.

Speaking of bad things that happened because Trump was president, he’d have us believe that some world events happened because he wasn’t. Like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which, because of his unmatched leadership skills and plenary power over Putin, he’d be ending the day after he was elected. It follows that if Putin had been afraid to invade while Trump was president, he’d certainly be acceding to Trump’s demands to end hostilities, of which there’ve been many, after every one of which, Putin, playing Trump like a balalaika, escalated his attacks.

Were I to claim my columns prevent Trump from imprisoning everyone who opposes him, no one could prove it false; but I’d put that assertion alongside Trump’s about Russia and Ukraine. And it’d be fair to call me megalomaniacal and nuts.