Easthampton, MA There’s no better evidence that we live in different worlds than the experience of visiting with organizers and activists in western Massachusetts searching for ways to deal with community and tenant issues and staying with friends and hearing about the microaggressions and their impact on local and school politics, and then reading the reports of former president Trump’s performance on CNN in New Hampshire. It was Trump unleashed on the one thing after another in his own special, inimitable way.
As a forecast of the issues for the 2024 contest, where he presents himself already as the inevitable Republican nominee, it starts, and perhaps ends, at 2020 all over again and his false claims that he won, and the election was rigged. He may be the last one standing who still beats that drum, but he clearly intends to beat it forever, and his fan club seems to love it, so this tune will be on rewind endlessly, facts be damned, for the future.
Trials, he seems to love them, or at the least is unbowed and unbroken before the bar. His recent loss in civil court for sexual abuse and the $5 million price tag on what he calls the “hanky-panky” charge was water off a duck’s back. She was “whack” he says. For Trump, it just boils down to another news cycle and another day in court.
January 6th for Trump, no matter all the arrests and now convictions, was literally just a walk in the park and a beautiful event. If he were president, pardon is absolutely on the table for all the miscreants. He seems to have spent a lot of time at the town hall trying to prove how busy he was and his own innocence in the affair. Threats to then Vice-President Pence, he never heard or said a word to his claim.
Interestingly, he seems to be skating on the wedge issue of abortion now. He sure wants to take credit for his squad on the Supreme Court and the end of Roe v. Wade. He seemed to say he was in favor of some exceptions, rather than a blanket ban, but never came out plainly and said anything definitively. He wouldn’t commit to a federal ban, which some on the right have called for, and now I guess we can expect Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis to promise as Trump’s putative opposition.
As for foreign affairs, this whole invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the ongoing war. No problem. If it’s still going on when he becomes president, he’ll end that mess in 24-hours. I assume by just calling his buddy, Putin, who else.
Trump in a second term, no worries brothers and sisters. He guarantees the second verse will be the same as the first. What a wonderful world to find when Trump daydreams on live TV, we all have nightmares.