Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a super-sized patriot, with the only thing true about that being the size of his massive ego.
For let's face it, it's not easy to call yourself a patriot of any size, after applying for and receiving five draft deferments to avoid being sent to Vietnam.
Whatever he might say about that...
But there he was in Nashville on Monday, addressing the American Farm Bureau's annual convention.
And getting a standing ovation for demanding that all Americans show the flag and the national anthem more RESPECT.
We are fighting for our farmers, for our country, and for our GREAT AMERICAN FLAG. We want our flag respected - and we want our NATIONAL ANTHEM respected also! pic.twitter.com/16eOLXg6Fi— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018
Only to head off to a college football game in Atlanta a few hours later, and show that he doesn't seem to know the words of the national anthem.
Donald Trump drew more than typical stares when he took to the field at Monday night's college football national championship in Atlanta; he incurred the wrath and mockery of eagle-eyed TV viewers who noted that the current U.S. president didn't seem to know the words to the national anthem.
Intense scrutiny of the video shows that the president excitedly latches on to several phrases within the song, including "… you see," while trailing off or inaccurately mouthing most other lines.
With some viewers wondering what was going on...
Or what he was saying...
And others trying to read his lips...
Or like the folks at the Late Show, desperately trying to make sense of what Trump was saying...
Leaving it up to people like CNN's Jill Filipovic to sum up the true meaning of that ghastly faker's fumble.
Trump's ignorance of the very anthem he demands others respect demonstrates clearer than ever that his criticism of athletes never had anything to do with the National Anthem, but everything to do with dog-whistle racism.
This President doesn't know what "respect" means, and he certainly doesn't show it to the flag, the anthem or the vaunted office he holds. What he knows -- and all he's demonstrating with his repeated attacks on NFL players -- is racism works to maintain the support of angry white conservatives.
And leaving me to wonder how much longer must we wait before we can put that ghastly con man in an orange uniform?
And send him off to serve his
In the place where he belongs...
Notice how he lights up like a pinball machine every time there's applause. "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you..."
ReplyDeleteHi anon@8:19am....yes, isn't it pathetic. However, I can understand why he might be relieved to be hearing applause, because I saw a video of him arriving at the stadium and the boos were deafening...
DeletePerhaps Trump will "learn" from this, and in the future ONLY attend staged events made up of his supporters. That's what Stephen Harper used to do. You would never see Harper do any main-streeting among the public at large, like Justin does.
DeleteDavid
Ah I see. The whole Russian kookspiracy didn't work out so now it's back to the mental health attacks. If the left had put a fraction of the effort they use mocking Trump into finding a viable candidate a couple years ago we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
ReplyDeleteanon 9:18, there are people capable of focusing on more than facet of a person's personality at the same time, which is why the left are able to understand that Trump is a sexist, misogynistic, sexual predator, with narcissistic and (perhaps) paranoid mental health issues, while also being able to provide reasons to think thus. I also like the way you passively advance the criticism that it is the left's fault Trump was elected, for not having a viable candidate in Hillary, while aggressively defending the odious choice the Republican's presented.
DeleteHillary got 3M more popular votes than Trump. She had 30+ years of viable experience, but unfortunately fell victim to the anti Clinton smear machine that the GOP has kept churning ever since Bill interrupted the sacrosanct Reagan Revolution by leaving Pappy a one-term dud. It was guilt by association with Bill thanks to 8 years of the GOP conning the public and controlling the media cycle with Zippergate, not to mention the complicity of Shrub's idiot brother, why Gore didn't follow despite also having won the popular vote. The rest, as they say, is history.
DeleteI could go on rehashing old rivalries for paragraphs, but suffice it to say that Hillary was infinitely more qualified and viable than the effing moran WWE charlatan who made up an African country out of whole cloth and mistook the prime minister of New Zealand for Sophie Trudeau, among numerous other gaffes and blunders from his Coke-fefe addled deplorable self.
And as for "the left," it was in part the fault of perfectionist fauxgressives who felt that their great messiah Grandpa Trotsky wuz robbed and refused to vote against the far greater evil. The children need to grow up and accept that politics is a game of compromises, and sometimes you're just not going to get the unicorn in every garage that you wanted for your birthday. I feel no sympathy for the wannabe-revolutionary purists who think Trudeau is "worse than Harper," or would rather throw France over to Vichy Le Pen because Macron isn't letting them have every day be a holiday. They are nothing but useful idiots for the far more dangerous Reich-wing.
Russiagate isn't a "kookspiracy" either. Russiagate is well-documented by numerous reliable sources, including the Guardian and the Washington Post. Mueller is going to dig up so much dirt he'll have a dust cloud all over him bigger than a football field, like Pigpen from the Charlie Brown comics. "Kookspiracies" are things like spirit cooking, Pizzagate, Fidel Castro as Trudeau's "real" dad, Bill's illegitimate black son, Obama and Trudeau having a secret gay relationship as some kind of quid-pro-quo for Trudeau giving support to Hillary, so on and so forth. The kind of salacious, fake-news Internet meme crap that enough people fell for, and continue to fall for, because they'd rather believe in far-off lunacy from the National Enquirer than admit that they were wrong and complicit in aiding and abetting a Russian takeover of the United States. All because they felt a sleazy, idiotic game show host was somehow "better" than -- yes -- a qualified female in the top job. It would be such vindication and a remarkable coup if a woman defeats Trump in 2020. Not just because it'll be the 100th anniversary of female suffrage in the U.S., but because 2020 is "hindsight" and the orange ass deserves to have the barn door hit him on his way out.
Hi anon@9:18...First, we don't know how the Russia story is going to turn out since Robert Mueller has yet to hand down his conclusions. Secondly, this post is not about Trump's mental health it's about his rampant hypocrisy and as the CNN writer points out his crass racism. As for your third point, that may or may not be true, but it ignores all the "fake news" that contaminated the campaign. And the fact that Hillary Clinton got about three million votes more than Trump...
DeleteHi.Filcher....Thank you. I must admitted I was stunned that a Trump supporter should now be blaming the left for electing Trump. I have a few thoughts about what went wrong, but blaming the left is a bridge too far..l
DeleteHi Jackie...another great and very powerful comment. My view of what happened is that a lot of things came together at the same time, nobody realized what was happening, or could imagine Trump as President, and like a virus the body has never seen, the result was catastrophic. My hope is that the left will waste no time and effort fighting itself in the next election, and concentrate all its efforts on defeating the real enemy. And yes, if the next President is a woman, that would be a real bonus...
DeleteI bet he doesn't know the song is about a Mexican guy : Jose can you see ?
ReplyDeleteHi rumleyfips...well thank goodness doesn't, or he would refuse to sing a word, or threaten to build a wall around anyone who did...😉
DeleteIMO Trump clearly has dementia or Alzheimer's as his father did and it'll only get worse.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else notice his meeting where they tried to show off his "mental prowess" as a way to fight back against Fire and Fury? Trump was all over the map on DACA and seemingly clueless as to what the plan was. If this was meant to calm people's fears about his mental state I'd say it backfired. He has the attention span of a flea and very little grasp of the here and now.
Trump's inability to even lip synch the national anthem is a sign of a rapidly deteriorating mind and the evidence of the past year only confirms it.
My question now is how long will the GOP carry on this charade to keep Trump at the helm? He's a sick man that should be receiving treatment and the longer it goes untreated the worse it will get. It's time to praise the lord and pass the Pence.
JD
Hi JD...I saw parts of that meeting, and I didn't know what to think. He seemed more in control than I had imagined. However, I later read that he failed to grasp the most basic details of the immigration plan, which I found scary, for nothing is more dangerous than a man who can fool others into thinking he knows what he's doing, when he doesn't. And what makes it a charade is that those closest to him must know the truth, but in their lust for power are trying to cover it up. If Trump is allowed to get away with murder, his accomplices will hang with him...
DeleteDid he never know it or has he forgotten it? The first seems strange but the second is really terrifing as it would suggest some very serious cognitive impairment.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous9:18 AM
I must admit that I don't have much faith in the " Russian kookspiracy" (nice term btw) but if Mueller is doing a decent job the money laundering and sanction breaking charges, alone, are likely to provide Trump and associates with free room and board for time.
The cognitive decline, sadly, looks to be true.
HI jrkrideau...I would normally be very tolerant of a person who doesn't know all the words to a national anthem, as unfortunately I have found myself in that situation. Ahem. However, since Trump made such a big deal about it, I find it outrageous. As for the question of his mental state, I fear we may not be able to determine that conclusively until Trump finds himself in a crisis situation. And that will be the day the chickens come home to roost...
DeleteClassic Trump.. overplayed the patriotism card against others never thinking that most people would expect an ultra patriotic person to know the national anthem. His thought process is juvenile in nature ... if it results in immediate gratification and as a bonus feeds his ego it must be good. Not exactly the best leadership qualities but there are worse out there. Hopefully his tenure will be short once the money laundering crimes finally surface and the outcomes of his impetuous acts will provide a valuable learning experience so the suffering he has caused will not be wasted.
ReplyDeleteRT
Hi RT....Trump seems to have finally realized that many Americans are questioning his fitness to be President, and is now reading everything they write for him. Why it took so long I have no idea. Obviously they don't cover such topics on Fox and Friends. But what I fear the most is that if Trump finds himself in deep shit he won't accept reality, and whip up his followers into defying the law. In other words, his mental state could get him into trouble, and then make the situation even worse. I'm normally a pretty optimistic person, but I have a bad feeling about this one...
DeleteIt would seem likely that this is a case of Trump's mind just wondering - daydreaming - and him not really paying that much attention during the anthem. Does that indicate any issues? Not sure. After all, he has the attention span of a knat.
ReplyDeleteHi UU4077....I suppose that's possible, he does have a lot of things on his mind. But when you make a big deal out of respecting the anthem, and then a few hours later mumbles and mutilates that same anthem, it makes him look like a hypocrite or an empty vessel. And meanwhile the evidence keeps mounting that the emperor has no clothes...
DeleteKinda off-topic but I don't even really think the Star-Spangled Banner is all that good of a choice for an anthem in the first place. It is, after all, war p*rn set to the melody of an English pub song, about a war we lost to what later became... Canada. I always felt that America the Beautiful would have been a better choice. And yes there is racism in not only the lyrics but a lot of unaddressed present and historical racism in the country it represents. But I digress.
ReplyDeleteI hope Colin Kaepernick at least feels some comfort and vindication knowing that the great patriot Trump doesn't even know the words to the oh-so-important anthem that he and others labeled Kaepernick a traitor for not standing in salute for. Something tells me none of his deplorables who will still defend him to their last dying breath know the words either. And isn't it more patriotic to want to improve your country for all its people, including and especially its marginalized citizens, than to expect unquestioned fealty to symbols like it was... a religious ritual?
The way the flag is "worshipped" in the U.S. would make the Founders cringe. We were supposed to be predicated upon a separation of church and state. Instead America itself has turned into a love-it-or-leave-it cult. Figures that "In God We Trust" (which is also part of the song) is printed on what else but money. Canada -- or even Britain itself -- is less deferential to God and monarchy than we are to "patriotism." The last refuge of a scoundrel. A word perfectly befitting the tyrant clown of the golden arches (or should I say golden showers). Sad.
Hi Jackie...I remember reading an article where somebody pointed out that the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner contained some very racist lines, so i agree with you America the Beautiful would be a better choice. I also agree with you that the way the flag is worshipped in the U.S. Is a bit too much. I particularly dislike the way it's often paraded at sports events along with a colour guard. And I'm sorry to say that habit has started to creep into Canada and needs to be nipped in the bud...
ReplyDelete