Would U Keep a Malicious Gossip as Best Pal?

If you are still considering a vote for Donald Trump, please, as you read this, try to think if you know ANYONE who would behave this way and expect you to trust him to fix your roof or make a will for you.

I gather that Mr. Trump does not like Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman who hosts a TV show. 

 

Nine years ago, a young woman working in Congressman Scarborough’s Florida office told friends that she had a heart condition and wasn’t feeling well. Shortly afterward she fainted, hit her head on her desk, and died. An inquest held that the death was accidental. “There is no doubt that the head injury [resulted from] a fall rather than a blow being delivered to the head.”  No one disagreed, let alone presented evidence to the contrary. Congressman Scarborough was in Washington at the time.

Mr. Trump, without the least evidence or reason to believe the death wasn’t accidental, proclaimed to the world recently that “some people think” Scarborough “got away with murder” and suggested the dead woman was cheating on her husband: “A lot of interest in this story about Psycho-Joe Scarborough. So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & dies? I would think there is a lot more to this story. An affair?”

Diligent searches turn up NO evidence to support Trump’s lies, which were phrased as questions or prefaced with “Some people think” to evade libel laws. 

 

How is this different from a jealous parishioner telling the whole congregation you molested her kid, or a coworker whose girl you stole in high school telling the boss that you’re sleeping with the boss’s wife – solely for spite? Trump has no interest in truth, and no compunction about inflicting pain on strangers. Anything to deflect attention from his embarrassingly incompetent response to the pandemic. 

 

Actually, Trump may no longer be capable of reaching that level of purpose. He seems more than usually scared, and keeps desperately lashing out in nutty ways Joe Biden couldn’t have scripted but must love. Meanwhile Biden’s recent response to the alleged murder of George Floyd was reasoned, thoughtful, and not political in the partisan sense. Beyond a brief statement that stirring things up right now is probably unwise, he didn’t touch on Donald Trump.

The dead girl’s bereaved husband, seeking to protect her reputation, asks Twitter to remove Trump’s tweet, which has no basis in fact. Twitter, obviously loathe to offend the gentleman in the Casa Blanca, refuses, saying it’s “deeply sorry.” The widower points out that a regular citizen would have been banished for acting like Trump. 

 

Twitter won’t remove the tweet but adds to two unrelated tweets a “fact-check” link suggesting they might not be accurate.

Trump, having been dealt with so generously by Twitter, threatens to destroy Twitter. He alleges that social media are discriminating against Republicans. (Does he think all Republicans make proclamations as patently false and downright stupid as his?) As kids we used to define “egotism” as “a naked ant floating down the East River on his back, thinking about his girlfriend, and shouting ‘Open the Drawbridge!’” Sorry, but Trump, who has no power to outlaw social media, reminds me of that ant.

Would you remain friends with such a person? Trust him with $100,000? Give him the button to launch nuclear weapons? Close the drawbridge!

                                         – 30 --

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 31 May in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website, sub nom "Trump's Wild Accusation Stinks of Desperation" and on KRWG's website (sub nom, "Facts Matter, Even on Social Media").  A radio commentary based on it will air during the week on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org) and is also available on demand on KRWG's website. ]

[I understand that Donald Trump did many more significant and equally malicious and dishonest things this week.  Bailing on WHO in the midst of a global pandemic, on the flimsy allegation that it likes China more than it likes him these days, is certainly up there.  So is his response to the apparent murder of George Floyd, and his continued fear that saying anything reasonable regarding that sort of thing would strike his "Core" as wimping out.  His rhetoric and now action regarding WHO is worthy of analysis.  Basically, he'd like to shift our attention from his abysmal treatment of the pandemic, calling it a little flu that wouldn't hurt Americans, to his mockery of health experts, cheerleading for protesters in several states, and refusal to wear a mask (let alone his insistence on gathering cadets for a Trump speech at West Point, which West Point didn't want, and his insistence on another gathering recently in Baltimore, where the mayor urged him not to).  Blame the Chinese.  It's certainly true that local authorities in Wuhan seem to have tried to mislead their superiors initially; and likely China's national government was briefly in denial, as Trump was; but WHO was on the scene pretty quickly, investigating, and sounding alarms that Mr. Trump ignored like the clucking of pigeons, and China (which, of course, has powers Trump does not) did a hell of a job stopping the spread, so far.  Trump failed.  WHO was probably not perfect, but its record is a hell of a lot better than Trumps.  However, it has not acted fast enough for Trump to help Trump's "Blame China," maybe because it supposes that trying to contain and ultimately solve the problem is a better use of its resources.  
Most of the world would say China made some mistakes.  The U.S. made many mistakes.  How 'bout we move on to try to fix things, then analyze relative fault later?
But Mr. Trump has other priorities.

I chose this incident because it sums Trump up so neatly and doesn't depend on studying the record of WHO or understanding science or deciding who said what first in some debate.  Trump didn't like somebody.  He made up with no evidence at all (or repeated with no evidence at all, knowing he had no evidence at all) a stupid and malicious lie that that person had been having an affair with a young, married, employee and caused her to be killed.  He didn't give a shit that her family and husband were publicly humiliated and hurt (and her reputation sullied for no reason).  He didn't worry about truth, because he and truth are rarely in the same zip code.  His behavior was not only spiteful, stupid, and dishonest, it likely was ineffective.  Could anyone previously unaware of this sad event not come away with more sympathy for the victims of Trump's barely lawful defamation than for Trump?
And we can all understand it.  We've all seen it happen, in high school or in our social or professional lives, at church or workplace.  Mostly by people who, like Mr. Trump, are deeply hungry for more respect and love than they feel they get, perhaps more than they can ever get. ]