Wake up! You hit the snooze button one too many times. It’s time to yank the kids out of bed, get them off to school, brush your teeth in the car on the way to work, and absorb the latest Trump nonse
nse. What did he do this time? Does it really matter? It was probably a tweet, something blatantly false in an interview, or a rally where he said something stupid just to hear a crowd of morons repeat it back and chant his name. No matter what Trump has done this time, there will be something equally stupid to replace it tomorrow. Enough people (I refuse to use the word “we”) voted for him that Trump’s our President, like it or not, and an increasing number of people are choosing “not”. It’s been established, by no less than Trump’s own autobiographer Tony Schwartz, (ghost writer for Art of the Deal) that Trump is a raging narcissist, with a dangerous need for constant attention. As if he wasn’t getting enough as a seemingly filthy rich businessman or a cheesy reality TV star, he had to up the ante and become President, despite having no idea what to do once he won. It should be no surprise to us at this point that the news is dominated every day by the Great racist Pumpkin. What is surprising is how Republicans continue to stand by him, pretending that nothing’s happening. What do you mean “embarrassing the country”? You hateful Liberals! The sad truth is, by offering a mostly united Front, Republicans are doing a better job of showing solidarity than we Liberals.
If there’s one thing that I hate, it’s a trend that I’m seeing on social media lately where some “genius” points out that Donald’s distracting us from the “real story”. Frankly, this is pretty insulting. There’s an assumption here that most liberals are like Odie from Garfield, or babies who don’t even understand object permanence, only able to concentrate on one thing at a time. There’s no reason we can’t have two or more stories at once on the news. There’s so damn many channels it’s okay if a few of them actually provided different information from one another. The assumption seems to be that we’re all stupid, and we’ll look over there at the Silly Clown while Congress writes real legislation over in a darkened corner.
Remember when Rachel Maddow was real hero? Remember when she seemed to be the only one who was going to stand up to the Trump Administration, actually doing some old school investigative reporting about his ties to Russia? The Republicans have clearly chosen Party over Country; they’re not going to do a damn thing. And the rest of the media seems to be afraid of Trump. They’ve already been burned too many times, plus Trump is threatening our very freedom of press and they’re scared. Rachel was our only hope to take him down. Remember that? I remember those long ago days… less than a week ago. Earlier this week, Rachel Maddow produced two pages of Donald Trump’s tax returns. Now if you show any Liberal tendencies at all, your social media is peppered with outcries of ”Donald Trump should show us his tax returns!” after all, every president since Nixon has done it; what is Trump hiding?!? So what did Rachel do? She showed you some of Trump’s tax returns! What? It wasn’t exciting enough for you? It didn’t take down the whole administration in one fell swoop? Sorry. Sorry it wasn’t sexy enough for you. The fact is, Rachel presented info we’ve been clamoring for. It wasn’t a bombshell, it didn’t hurt the Trump Administration, but it was a story, and Rachel did her job by reporting it. If you’re complaining because someone presented a story that didn’t change the world overnight, yet also complaining how we pay attention to overcovered stories about the bumbling Fool in the Oval Office at the detriment of smaller stories like bills Republicans passed in the middle of the night, then get out of the way, because you’re not helping.
I’m not talking about late night hosts or political satirists. News is news and jokes are jokes. We lose the moral high ground if we say “you can make fun of Trump, but leave our Rachel alone!” She’s a grown woman. She can take it as well as dish it out. If the talk show hosts want to take a shot at Rachel Maddow for hyping what seems like a non-story, that’s fine, there should be jokes on every trend or seeming faux pas. I say “seeming” because a select few people on the Internet are seeing this for what it is, a small piece of a much larger story, but not an unimportant one. It’s been noted that this story reveals: that for all Trump’s talk about not being able to release anything due to audit, when it benefits him, it’s somehow magically okay. When MSNBC called to confirm that these anonymously leaked forms were actually Trump’s, the White House not only confirmed, but beat Maddow to the punch, making them public before Maddow aired with a now not-so-exclusive story. It also showed that Trump makes very little for a guy claiming to be a billionaire with numerous big league losses in numerous other years, that we know about. It shows that Trump pays well beneath the percentage that most “average joes” do, you know, the Little Guys Trump was supposed to represent. Also, even during her show, Rachel and David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist who received these documents anonymously in the mail, ruminated on just who could have leaked these documents. They seemed to have strong suspicions it was Trump himself, or at least someone from his inner circle. The tax forms were stamped “client copy”. While it’s fair to say that it looks like Trump got one over on Rachel, one has to wonder why he took a swing at her in the first place? Could it be she’s getting too close for comfort regarding the Russian issue? If she does have egg over her face on this one, maybe it takes her off Trump’s radar for a bit. That’s a good place to be while actively piecing together a puzzle that might take the whole Administration down.
Rachel Maddow isn’t the only time Liberal Internet Trolls have rung the bell of “while you’re distracted, the real news is going over here”. You know you’re not actually accomplishing anything other than playing “I’m smarter than you are” with people who are supposed to be on your side. There’s an implied, and often directly stated notion that the media has dropped the ball. That as they focus on the dangling keys, they don’t know that Republicans signed some obscure Bill in Kansas that takes away rights or so-called entitlements. Well here’s a thought: Where did you get your information from? Unless you’re a member of the White House staff and privy to classified information, then you got your “hidden secret” story through some form of the Media. The Media is covering plenty, even if they are mainly focusing on stories that seem to get more attention. It is a business after all. But don’t assume that the Media is playing softball with Trump. Maybe during the election they did, and that was a serious mistake. It’s different now, though. Trump won. He’s not hiding his lies as well anymore, because, as he’s said in other situations, he got what he wanted. He doesn’t have to pretend to be nice anymore. He’s literally declared war on the Media and is actively trying to discredit them, which would ultimately end most of the Press as we know it, so it’s safe to say that they’re plenty motivated to nail Trump however they can, but that means doing the job right and not jumping the gun. So, get over yourself, don’t assume that the rest of us can only focus on one thing at a time.
For the sake of the argument though, let’s say you’re right. Let’s say you discovered a story that no one’s making a big enough deal of and you’re doing your due diligence and making sure other people know what’s going on. Good for you. Seriously. That’s helping. But telling everybody that they’re missing the big picture because they’re not focusing on your favorite story doesn’t give credit to the people who are doing their part, any way they can. People who protested the Travel Ban by flooding airports helped force a judge to act and diffuse the situation. Public outrage and ridicule on the Internet helped keep Republicans from gutting the Ethics commission as soon as the new Congress was sworn in. Social Media and snarky TV satirists have forced Trump and the Republicans to be somewhat accountable for every ridiculous tweet and blatant lie. By focusing on the silly stuff, it prevents Trump from saying whatever he wants with absolutely no consequences. People are doing their part. The Resistance is having effect.
There is however, a limit to what we can do. Republicans have the House, the Senate, and Bozo the Clown in the highest seat in the land. We know their agenda; they haven’t exactly kept it a big secret. They’re out to screw the Middle Class, they’re in the pocket of Big Business, the Oil Industry and the NRA. They wear a Bible on their sleeves that few of them have even read, but the pretense keeps lower-class rural folks on their side, even if they’re consistently voting against their own best interests. We know all this. It’s not exactly shocking news, that the first chance they got to do real damage, Republicans raced to draft laws that are racist and fuck the middle and lower classes up the ass while making us pay for our own lubricant. This wasn’t a secret, it’s not a surprise, and the sad fact is, there’s nothing we can do about it… right now. Except maybe exactly what we’re doing. We’re chipping away at the Republicans and the Trump administration. We’re past the first 50 days and they’ve barely accomplished anything of any significance. We should be encouraging each other, and recognizing that everybody helps by doing what they’re best suited to do. The real story is that Republicans play dirty. They have for decades. They play all or nothing for little more than the goal of getting and retaining power. They cut corners, gerrymander voting regions, push for voter ID laws that are proven to reduce minority voting, this past election many Republicans took advantage of illegal hacking by a foreign Power designed to specifically torpedo Democrats. The real story isn’t that Liberals didn’t vote enough in 2010, or that we’re being distracted from real legislation by the Idiot-in-Chief… The real story is that Republicans have been slowly working a hostile takeover of this country for the last sixty years and they’ve finally done it, the least we can do is to help them self-destruct.
