Here Comes Trump

Because the media want to be seen as fair and balanced, the rosy reviews they originally gave the Democratic convention have since been dramatically tempered by a lot of second-guessing.  I've counted as many as five or six commentators insisting that the Democrats did nothing to speak to the working-class Obama voters that defected to Trump in 2016, and not one pundit has seen fit to challenge that assessment.  Democrats now find themselves challenged about the apparent failure to present a clear agenda, and this third-degree treatment has been given to high-profile Democrats such as Pete Buttigieg and James Clyburn.  It's as if reporters and commentators at the TV news outlets, working for a Republican owner, are worrying about offending the boss and therefore are giving Donald Trump a springboard from which to leap forward and over Joe Biden.

Not really.  Trump (above) continues to lie and spread rumors and innuendo about the Democrats while providing misleading rhetoric about the issues of the day - especially COVID-19. And a lot of TV pundits, from Jake Tapper on CNN to Mark Shields and David Brooks on PBS and just about everyone on MSNBC, are calling him on them.  It is in that milieu in which the Republican convention starts tonight and in which Trump, after having seen Joe Biden speak softly and carry a big stick, threatens to speak loudly - every night of the convention, in fact! - and carry an even bigger stick, by which to beat Biden on the head with. After the Democrats' positive message of hope and light, Trump and the Republicans hope to bury their lofty rhetoric with angry defenses of God, the flag, guns, whitebread Middle American values, and all that other exclusionary claptrap commonly associated with the John Birch Society and the Tea Party.

Trump spent the week of the Democratic convention counterprogramming a message against Biden's, with some noticeable effect; like other obnoxious, minimally talented celebrities, he stays relevant buy getting people to pay attention to his outrageous schtick.  I wish I could say that Biden will be as effective in counterprogramming a message against Trump as Trump was in going against Biden, but I can't.  Democrats just don't have the ability to divert and distract from the Republicans' message in the same way that the Republicans - not just Trump, but Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes - have the ability to divert and distract from the Democrats' message.  But Mother Nature, God's bratty kid sister, could, in a brutal and nasty way, give the Democrats some help in creating a diversion.  Having set California on fire again, she is now sending two tropical cyclones to the Gulf Coast.  She recently blew a ferocious windstorm across Iowa and is threatening to send thunderstorms of similar severity and viciousness across the Northeast tomorrow.  (Alert: I might lose power again, and any posts will see may have been programmed to self-publish in advance.  In which case, expect more typos than usual! :-p)   If people talk about all that instead of Trump's empty-headed rhetoric, it will not only help Biden, it will highlight the necessity of addressing climate change.

And the day after convention ends, my area could get more severe thunderstorms.   

But When Quayle the Congressman Gets Here . . .

Sarah Palin has come out of her bunker for the first time since the Giffords shooting in Tucson, preferring to verbally reload rather than show any contrition for her incendiary rhetoric. She dismissed her critics as being guilty of "blood libel." But I'm not commenting on that. Not today, anyway.

No, I'm here today to focus attention on another Republican known for his asinine rhetoric, a congressman who shares the distinction with Gabrielle Giffords of being in Arizona's U.S. House delegation - Ben Quayle, son of the former Vice President. Elected to the House of Representatives in November just prior to his thirty-fourth birthday despite his connection to a porn site, the son of The Mighty Quayle (my ironic nickname for Dan Quayle, based on the Bob Dylan song "The Mighty Quinn [Quinn the Eskimo]") is best known for his incoherent anti-Obama campaign ad. In that ad, you will recall, Quayle made a few abstruse comments about his background and his qualifications for office. "I love Arizona. I was raised right," the Indiana-bred Quayle says to the camera, without explaining what these two declarative statements have to do with why voters should send him to Congress, or, for that matter, each other.

But that 's not why I bring up Ben Quayle. Blaming runaway spending on President Obama and the Democratic Congress in this ad, he labelled Obama the worst President of the United States in history and accused him of saddling the post-Boomer generation with massive debt. And then, after trashing and disrespecting his President, Quayle offered his rationale for running for Congress: "Someone should go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place."

No one who claims to be "raised right" (he was raised right, far right) would be so vicious and hateful toward President Obama, and no one of any decency would want to "knock the hell" out of anything. By using such nasty language and showing such childish behavior, Ben Quayle is as guilty of inciting anger and discord as Palin is. Maybe even more so in this case, because he's from Arizona, which Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik rightfully called a mecca of bigotry and intolerance.

And just how is knocking the hell out of Washington going to balance the budget or create jobs? Everybody in Washington may be in despair, every girl and boy (some are demonstrating at monuments, others are jotting down notes), but I doubt anyone jumped ecstatically when Quayle the congressman got there.

And guarding fumes and making haste is Ben Quayle's cup of red meat.