Freak Out Friday – June 22, 2018

In the early days of the Trump administration, people were worried that Trump would emulate Hitler. Others sought out rationality, claiming that while Trump was no prize, he certainly wasn’t Hitler and the USA of 2018 could not remotely become Berlin of the 1930’s/’40’s.

And then racist right wingers and the KKK endorsed Trump, and Trump talked about how there were a lot of good people in the array of Nazi protestors in Charlottesville, and suddenly the comparisons to Hitler seemed more spot on. In fact, even Godwin of the acclaimed Godwin’s law stated that his rule was suspended for the foreseeable future. And now the other shoe has dropped.

1). We have camps. Just as the Nazis had concentration camps that served as carrying out widespread execution and just as the United States had camps in which they incarcerated the Japanese, including many who were American citizens and had done absolutely nothing that was illegal (read George Takei’s column here to see insight from it by someone who was there) we now have a new generation of camps where children–ripped from their parents arms–are being held.

Meanwhile brand new holding facilities–jails, basically–are being constructed by Trump friends who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign because the executive order Trump signed this week stipulated that families had to be kept together. In prison. Sound familiar?

You remember the executive order, of course. The one that just a few days ago, Trump stated he couldn’t sign.

Even the Secretary of Homeland Security agreed. Kirstjen Nielsen (whose first name was even able to stump my Spellcheck) stated, “Congress and the courts created this problem, and Congress alone can fix it.” The day before she tweeted, “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”

Except yes, they did. It’s been thoroughly documented. Trump’s right hand asshole, Stephen Miller, proposed it, and Trump embraced it. They did it to try and wrestle the Democrats into a hole where they would agree to give him enough money to build his goddamned wall in exchange for letting children return to their parents. Except Miller, Trump and Nielsen clearly had no idea what a spectacularly bad–not to mention illegal on an international level (could you imagine the three of them being summoned to The Hague to stand trial?) this undertaking would be. He managed to piss off Dems, GOPs, the Pope, not to mention Ivanka (the jury is still out on Melania who was seen heading for a surprise visit to kids in Texas wearing a jacket that said “I don’t really care. Do U?” Thank God she left it on the plane when she disembarked.). Trump clearly overreached just how far he could push people. Since he has no heart and no empathy, it didn’t occur to him that the enforced splitting up of families would freak out as many people as it had. His popularity began to sink, and his insistence that it was all the Democrats at fault was fooling nobody except his most devout, intransigent followers.

Even the news media is beginning to lose it, ranging from shouting matches between interviewers and Trump’s enablers to poor Rachel Maddow (when did we ever think we would combine those words?) losing her composure on the air while reading an AP report about camps targeted specifically for children. They’re building one camp two miles away from the camp where George Takes was imprisoned back in the 40s. Oh, and the document Trump signed? It doesn’t put forward any way of reuniting the families that have already been shattered.

Meanwhile the Charlottesville Nazis are planning a march in Washington D.C. demanding white civil rights. I swear to God, I’m hoping that two guys in black suits, sunglasses and hats and driving an old police car drive them into the Potomac.

It would be so easy to say that this entire fiasco is the absolute nadir of Trump’s presidency, but there’s no point in making that claim. Because if there is one thing that Trump has absolutely proven, it’s that no matter how low he goes, he will invariably find some new lower degree to which he can sink.

2). Spaaaaace Forrrce. Any reasonable and sane president, if he were interested in expanding the space program, would be solidly behind mounting an expedition to Mars. That’s the next logical step. Now to be fair, Trump did say that he endorsed exploring Mars. But most of his enthusiasm seemed to be powered by Elon Musk’s interest in launching a rocket. Back in the 1960s we were competing with Russia; now Trump is competing with a billionaire. Meanwhile NASA’s budget has been cut so far back that developing a serious endeavor to reach Mars is a non-starter. But what is Trump strongly endorsing? Basically he wants to create Starfleet. Something on par with the navy and marines. He wants to weaponize space, which is a concept specifically forbidden by the Outer Space treaty we signed with Russia over fifty years ago. Even Reagan couldn’t do it when he launched what he referred to as the Star Wars initiative, which Bill Clinton eventually pulled the plug on because nothing they were developing worked.

Trump also loves claiming that Hillary Clinton wasn’t the least bit interested in exploring Mars, which is of course yet another lie since she repeatedly did endorse it.

He never changes. His priorities boil down to three things: His own interests, competing with other rich people, and lying about Clinton.

At least he’s consistent.

Did he do anything right? No.

PAD