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Quid De Cogitatione? Glenn Rose
Four weeks from today the polls will have closed across our country. It might be that the outcome will still be undetermined the morning that The News-Gazette hits the newsstands and mailboxes.
It might well be days or weeks of counting and recounting before we get a decision.
One thing we can be sure of is which of the candidates will be whining “fraud,” “cheating,” and “stolen election” if defeated.
In the one presidential debate that was held, Republican nominee Donald Trump went “off the rails” his staff and close advisers wanted him to stay on to make a non sequitur declaration, “In Springfield [Ohio], they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”
The remark was immediately challenged and, with documentation, debunked
by the host commentators of the debate.
It had already been refuted by the Republican governor, Mike DeWine, and the Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio, Rob Rue.
Nonetheless, Trump called foul on the host network for “fact checking” him, complaining that only he was being called out for falsehoods.
Strange that those in agreement don’t consider that Trump, frequently the author of untrue declarations, might have been the only speaker of such an egregious falsehood during that debate.
Meanwhile, J.D. Vance, Trump’s pick for his vice president, in an interview on C.N.N., defended the dissemination of this false story, saying, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention … then that’s what I’m going to do.”
With Trump and Vance we get two scoops of alternative facts for the price of one!
It was the sentence that followed Trump’s diatribe against immigrants that caught my attention.
Trump justified his attack with, “Well, I’ve seen people on television!”
Really?!! What he sees on television is instantly a fact?
He must be secretly happy with the Justice Department clearing out the rooms full of secret documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago. It made space for the bargains he sees on T.V.: overpriced cookware, cheaply made and ineffective exercise equipment, wrinkle remover, memory improver, testosterone booster, any number of products that do well with the gullible viewer.
How Trump spends his money is up to him. What alarms me are visions of an insomniac Donald Trump wandering the residence in the White House, finally dozing in front of a late-night television movie. Drowsily, he half awakens with a Godzilla movie on the screen. He sees Tokyo under attack and reaches for the hotline to the Pentagon, ordering an immediate nuclear attack to “save” Tokyo.
Perhaps a little hyperbolic, but Trump is notoriously impulsive.
Trump, a master of manipulation, is himself easily manipulated by people he deems his equal. He thinks he has Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un in his pocket, but he’s in theirs. He’s easily flattered by autocrats and returns the favor with expressed respect.
He called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “brilliant” and disparages the value of NATO, the alliance that has kept Russian aggression in check for almost eighty years. He’s even suggested that Russia invade our allies who aren’t paying their “dues” to NATO, which isn’t how it works. (Member nations are expected to spend a certain percentage of their gross national product on their own defense and come to the aid of member nations if they’re attacked.)
Trump is noted for retaliating against those who don’t do his bidding. (Remember “Hang Mike Pence”?) During his administration he unsuccessfully tried to extort the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for dirt on then Vice President Joe Biden.
Trump now opposes aid to Ukraine. If the United States falters on its support for our European allies, they may be forced to come to an agreement with Putin, knowing we no longer have their backs.
Isolated by abdicating our role as leader of the Free World, the negative effect on the U.S. economy would be enormous.
Trump will continue going “off the rails.” He will always do what satisfies h is g argantuan e go. H e c an’t resist the siren call of his MAGA acolytes at his rallies and will always give them the insults and name calling that garner him the cheers he craves, even if it hurts his candidacy.
His demeanor and narcissism have awakened the patriotic Republicans. Past leaders are denouncing Trump, declaring they are voting for Kamala Harris. Conservative stalwarts like Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Vice President Mike Pence have spoken out against Trump’s candidacy. Former members of Trump’s administration are joining the voices of opposition to another term for Trump. It’s a long list of conservatives who see Trumps as “unfit to be president.” “Google” it.
Sometime in the future J.D. Vance will have his own epiphany and be added to that list.
And for those who still doubt the criminal behavior behind the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, read the filing of Special Council for the United States Department of Justice Jack Smith.
You owe it to yourself and to our country.
If our morals, our ethics, and our Constitution are so malleable, so mutable, and so maligned that lies go unchallenged and truths undefended – if our standards for those we choose to lead us are so demeaned and defiled that character no longer matters – what country and society will we leave our descendants?
This election is not about politics.
