George Will: "This Sad, Embarrassing Wreck of a Man"

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"Want to play with my ball, Donny?"

Your Head Trucker finds it odd that people keep trying to pin the label of mental illness on Trump, when instead it is patently obvious that he is no more than a big, dumb buffoon - a consummately vain, overgrown rich kid who learned little from his expensive education, and remembers less - a reality-show actor who keeps flubbing his lines and missing his marks - a mental infant in the paunchy body of a 70-year-old blowhard.  Had he remained in private life, the only ones really hurt by his incorrigible self-worship would be his many creditors, probably.

But as president, with the active connivance and abetting of the entire sycophantic Republican Party - and perhaps with the encouragement and blackmail of Trump's Machiavellian father-figure, Putin - Trump, like a rogue elephant in a bazaar, is doing incalculable damage day by day not only to the foundations of this Republic, but also to the finely balanced bulwarks and linkages of the Western world that have, in broad terms, kept the peace and enabled the general prosperity of the whole world these seventy years.  (I do not say it is or ever has been a perfect world - but just try to imagine how much worse a world it would be without America in the lead, morally, financially, and militarily.)

He also has made himself, not really the leader, but rather the tool of those hateful, benighted forces in this country that are inimical to liberty, equality, decency, and democracy, with baleful results we have already seen; even worse may be to come. If his childish, lurching rampage is not soon stopped, or at least neutralized, he stands a good chance of going down in history as an enemy of the human race and a betrayer, whether by sheer stupidity or malicious design, of all that America is and has been and should be.

When I was younger and more idealistic, not to say naive, I thought it a very strange and rather silly thing, that custom of the ancient Egyptians and Romans, among others, to pronounce damnatio memoriae - oblivion - upon a despised ruler, once he was removed from office.  I must say that I have in recent years come to understand much better just why they did that.

George Will, one of the leading conservative pundits for the past four decades, a man of high intelligence and fine writing, who left the Republican Party in 2016 with the advent of Trump, began a column in the Washington Post this week with the same metaphor of an infantile leader:

America’s child president had a play date with a KGB alumnus, who surely enjoyed providing day care. It was a useful, because illuminating, event: Now we shall see how many Republicans retain a capacity for embarrassment. . . .

I recommend the whole essay for the perusal of my truckbuddies. But if you haven't the time to read it, Will summarized his views in the first five minutes of this clip from Wednesday's Morning Joe program:




I believe Trump will not last very long on the spotlit stage he occupies now - as them ol' Greek boys put it, after hubris comes nemesis, and a miserable end. But Trump is merely the image of the beast - a fake president, to use his favorite adjective - the willing, gullible pawn of evil men who are only too glad to feed his gluttonous self-love while using him to further their hellacious schemes - and beyond them, the credulous millions who eagerly follow and support, an army of willing tools and fools, worshipers of a god made in their own image.

If Trump for some reason were to fall silent tomorrow and depart the White House for some quieter spot, do you not think there would be plenty of others ready to fill the space he vacated?  Be sure that the fakery show would continue as planned, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.  The dire problem we face is not simply that of one churlish buffoon alone.

If you want to see a preview of the next episode in this filthy saga, look no further than Steve Bannon, Trump's erstwhile campaign manager and political incubus, who has stated his own evil intentions quite plainly, for all the world to hear: "I'd rather reign in hell, than serve in heaven."  What he is now organizing is a world alliance of far-right nationalist parties, united in one revolutionary goal: the exaltation of dictatorship, tribal hatreds, and willful ignorance, along with the utter destruction of liberal democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental human rights; that is to say, the triumph of lust over love, of greed over goodwill, of darkness over light in the human soul.

Do not be deceived, my friends:  the long, pleasant Indian summer of the postwar era, so dearly bought with blood, toil, tears, and sweat, may be drawing to its close sooner than you think, if the present danger is not swiftly and firmly averted.

And somewhere, the cunning jackal Putin is licking his chops hungrily, while the foolish Europeans and Americans split and re-split themselves into warring camps:  divide et impera. I do not know the remedy to all this - I only point to the rising flames.

So quit fretting about Trump's mindless tweets, a child's babbling, a mere sideshow, and focus instead on the real peril, the mortal danger that lies straight ahead. Bannon's declared intentions are unmistakable, undiluted evil, straight from the mouth of the Devil.

And now you can't say you weren't warned.

The Opposition to Gay Marriage is Literally Dying

It's only the first 6 minutes of this video that are relevant. Note the comment by conservative columnist George Will about the opposition. Also note what Mary Matalin has to say about the real threat to American families, which is the epidemic of single mothers - and your Head Trucker agrees.

We Are the Ones . . .

Andrew Sullivan quotes the brilliant conservative columnist George Will:

Just eight years ago, Proposition 22 was passed, 61.4 to 38.6 percent. The much narrower victory of Proposition 8 suggests that minds are moving toward toleration of same-sex marriage. If advocates of that have the patience required by democratic persuasion, California's ongoing conversation may end as they hope. If, however, the conversation is truncated, as Brown urges, by judicial fiat, the argument will become as embittered as the argument about abortion has been by judicial highhandedness.

Sullivan goes on to say:

I'm emotionally conflicted on this. As someone who has spent much of my adult life making the case for gay equality and for civil marriage as the sine qua non of such equality, I'd love marriage to be real in California for all Californians. But intellectually, I'm not conflicted. I'm with George. . . .

But as a political matter - and this is a political struggle - I hope the court decides to allow Prop 8 to stand. I do not want civil equality imposed by judicial fiat in the most populous state in America - in the face of a close initiative vote. It would be a horribly pyrrhic victory. It would taint this movement's power and message and moral standing. . . .

The court did its duty and its 2008 ruling is part of civil rights history. It need not force this now, and shouldn't. Let's put this to a referendum again. And let's do the hard work to win.

What I say: I agree, fellas. In the long run, it will be much, much better for us to win this particular fight in California at the polls, in a free and fair vote.

That way, nobody can ever say it wasn't a democratic decision. Nobody can fuck with it then. And nobody can fuck with our right to equal respect and dignity.

But what are we - you and you and you and me - willing to do to gain that victory, and the others to come in Congress and across the nation? WE are the ones we've been waiting for . . . . And isn't that what democracy is all about, huh?