Back in March of this year I wrote a post titled Lavatory Oratory, in which I bemoaned the rambling and nonsensical, yet perversely effective speaking style of the Orange Airhorn. On Tuesday of this week, he gassed onto the world stage with a speech to the UN General Assembly described by historian Heather Cox Richardson as "delusional and offensive," and causing one unnamed foreign diplomat to comment in a text to Washington Post reporter Ishaan Tharoor, “This man is stark raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?"
Some of us do.
I have never been so ashamed to be an American. Not so much because of the ludicrous buffoonery of Der Furor (which is bad enough), but because so many of my fellow Americans - knowing what he is - elected him twice, and are either standing by silently or happily cheering as he runs roughshod over the law, the Constitution, and simple human decency. I'm ashamed because no one in a position of authority and responsibility is standing up and telling this man to his face that he needs to go. As if he hadn't provided enough excuses for the invocation of the 25th Amendment already, his shocking performance in front of the assembled leaders of the world puts the cherry on the miserable sundae of his misrule.
Cartoon by Patrick Chappette, 2017 - as appropriate as ever.
A great nation once represented by such brilliant and honorable public servants and orators as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt is now represented by a malevolent, incoherent, gaseous oaf unfit to hold any office of responsibility, much less the presidency.
We deserve better. Hopefully, if we survive to 2028, enough of us will have rediscovered reason and responsibility to elect it.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when we greet the last collection of Great Moments in Editing and Signage for the month.
Bilbo
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