Donald Trump loves to brag that he can draw a larger crowd than any other American political figure. Of course, in the age of COVID-19, that’s not exactly a good thing, because getting large groups of people together for any purpose is not a great idea, especially if the majority of them aren’t wearing protective masks or practicing social distancing.
So it probably won’t surprise you to learn that when Trump showed up in Rochester, Minnesota Friday evening, his ego took a major hit when he looked out and saw such a sparse collection of humanity.
Minnesota, you see, has a standing health order prohibiting crowds larger than 250 people, and the one in Rochester was significantly smaller than 250.
Reporters who were at the Minnesota rally noted that the president appeared to be “very tired” and cut his speech short, only speaking for about 20 minutes. His rally speeches are usually up to 90 minutes long.
Monica Alba of NBC News noted:
President Trump only spoke for 21 (!) minutes at this smaller event in Rochester, MN tonight. Can’t remember him ever speaking for less than 45 minutes at a rally but this was restricted to only 250 people due to coronavirus safety guidelines and Trump was not pleased. https://t.co/5VXPX1qmMz
And Eli Stokols of The Los Angeles Times filed this:
This is about half his average speech length, and he often goes much longer when he's into the crowd (nearly 90 min in Tampa yesterday). https://t.co/XIhgjgBe65
The Minnesota rally and how Trump reacted is proof of two two things: Trump is only in this for himself, and his act has grown old and stale, even for him.
Imagine, for just a moment, it’s November 4, 2020. Many votes have not yet been counted in some states, and it remains unclear who has won the election. It will likely be several days before the final vote tallies are completed.
Despite that uncertainty, Donald Trump either declares himself the winner or immediately starts tweeting out that if he loses then the election has been stolen.
What happens next? That’s what most terrifies current White House aides who spoke with Ron Suskind of The New York Times on the condition of anonymity and admitted they’re expecting the worst:
“Many of the officials I spoke to came back to one idea: You don’t know Donald Trump like we do. Even though they can’t predict exactly what will happen, their concerns range from the president welcoming, then leveraging, foreign interference in the election, to encouraging havoc that grows into conflagrations that would merit his calling upon U.S. forces. Because he is now surrounded by loyalists, they say, there is no one to try to tell an impulsive man what he should or shouldn’t do.”
Consider some possible scenarios laid out by those same officials who still work in the administration:
“Disruption would most likely begin on Election Day morning somewhere on the East Coast, where polls open first. Miami and Philadelphia (already convulsed this week after another police shooting), in big swing states, would be likely locations. It could be anything, maybe violent, maybe not, started by anyone, or something planned and executed by any number of organizations, almost all of them on the right fringe, many adoring of Mr. Trump. The options are vast and test the imagination. Activists could stage protests at a few of the more crowded polling places and draw those in long lines into conflict.”
Such a conflagration would give Trump and the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr all the excuse they need to shut down polling places in major cities. They could impose a curfew or demand that people return to their homes in the name of national security.
The result: Trump can declare the election has been “corrupted” and the results cannot be trusted. He would then assume absolute power and silence anyone who dares to disagree with him by branding them a terrorist and imprisoning and/or executing them. The American democratic experiment would be dead. The United States would be a dictatorship and the purge of all who refuse to pledge absolute loyalty to Trump would begin.
Or perhaps Trump would seek to legitimize his power by throwing the election to the House of Representatives, where every state’s delegation would have one vote:
“The current composition of the House, in which Republicans control more state delegations even though Democrats are in the majority, favors Trump.”
The second term of Donald Trump would be rubber-stamped with the “legitimacy” of the people’s representatives doing what they can later say was the best thing for the country.
There is one antidote to all of this possible mayhem: An overwhelming Biden landslide, which polls suggest could be in the offing.
We have to vote like we never have before. And then we have to hope and pray for the best.
It has long been said that there’s something wrong with Donald Trump. And that’s especially true as it relates to his daughter, Ivanka, who serves as a top adviser to her father, along with her husband, Jared Kushner.
So it wasn’t exactly a surprise when the president made a comment a couple of days ago that rang true with a former staffer who worked closely with Trump on his NBC reality show, “The Apprentice.”
Specifically, while discussing coronavirus at one of his daily press conferences, Trump was attempting to pat himself on the back for his administration’s response to the medical crisis, which has been described by many as halfhearted and downright pathetic:
Trump says that if he’d heeded advice to just “ride” the virus and not do anything — “Just ride it. Ride it like a cowboy. Ride that sucker right through” — there could’ve been 2.2 million deaths.
As is, we’re only looking at 200,000 dead Americans. Hooray! Let’s have a party and celebrate, Trump seems to be saying.
That comment from the president prompted the memory of Noel Casler, a former “Apprentice” staffer who now does stand-up comedy for a living and regularly reveals all sorts of embarrassing details about the Donald Trump he once worked for. Casler posted this on Twitter, which we all know is Trump’s favorite social media platform:
That was the first time I’ve heard Trump say “ride it like a cowboy” without Ivanka on his lap. @realDonaldTrump
Yes, there’s something wrong with Donald Trump, but can’t the same be said for Ivanka, too? The two of them have a weird vibe going on, and it’s just not kosher at all.
If you polled American voters right now and asked them what the most important issue in the country is, you’d probably get a list that included the COVID-19 pandemic, health care, the economy, and several other answers.
But it’s safe to say one issue that probably wouldn’t be on that list is social media and its alleged bias against conservatives.
And yet, according to Eric Trump, the president’s son and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, the top issue in American politics is that he doesn’t get as many “likes” on Twitter and Facebook as he thinks he should.
During an appearance on the Fox News show “The Ingraham Angle,” Eric went on an extended whinefest, telling host Laura Ingraham that based on “engagements and likes” on his social media accounts, conservatives are being censored, adding:
“You better believe they also have their fingers on the dial. If I put something out that they disagree with, the numbers are down. I can just see it based on engagements and likes… they are censoring us, they don’t do it to the other side and its gross.
“But Americans are seeing through it, believe me Americans see through it. And quite frankly, the one you don’t want to do to Americans is take away their free speech. This is our First Amendment right for a reason. I think it’s actually probably become the No. 1 issue in politics”
Eric Trump claims his social media likes are being throttled and he thinks that’s become the number one issue in politics over the past few weeks pic.twitter.com/mzbrPjD8rX
Of course, what Eric is failing to realize or understand is that his First Amendment right doesn’t apply to platforms that are privately owned. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. can remove anything you post on their sites, and you agree to that when you sign up to open an account. It’s part of the deal. If Eric was too lazy to read that agreement and the terms of service, that’s his fault. But it doesn’t mean there’s some nefarious conspiracy to keep him from getting the likes or engagements he thinks he deserves.
Just the fact that Eric Trump thinks he or the government has a right to tell social media companies to make sure both sides of the political spectrum get equal coverage is bullshit. If he dislikes what they’re doing so damn much, why doesn’t he take some of his daddy’s money and start his own right-wing social media site?
If Donald Trump does happen to get a second term in office, all of us can kiss our First Amendment rights goodbye. And that alone is reason enough to kick the entire Trump family to the curb.
Bless their little cinder-black, atrophied hearts, the gang at Fox News has been trying so damn hard lately to create a giant scandal they can tar and feather Joe Biden with, and thought they’d found one with allegations that the former vice president’s son, Hunter, had somehow sold influence to foreign agents in exchange for favors.
Problem is, the entire Rudy Giuliani tinfoil hat bullshit about a laptop computer sent to a repair shop in Delaware turned out to be a dead end.
Despite all of those failures, the hosts at “Fox & Friends” were taking another run at the Hunter Biden story Thursday, inviting legal expert Jonathan Turley on to confirm that there was something “illegal” found on Hunter Biden’s computer.
Turley, however, quickly destroyed the fevered dreams of the hosts according to Crooks and Liars, remarking:
“We still don’t have any evidence that this influence peddling — and that’s what this is — actually influenced Vice President Biden. And there’s also no evidence that there’s a crime here.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Turley then added a final nail in the proverbial conservative echo chamber coffin by noting:
“Congress has written the laws to allow this type of influence peddling. By giving money to spouses and children, you avoid bribery and corruption statutes.”
Dammit! Another bogus conspiracy theory shot to hell and back by a rational human being speaking truth to insanity. The Fox Newsers must be wondering if it’ll ever end and fondly thinking back to the days when all they had to do was exclaim, “But, her emails!”
