Eric Peters, who mixes autos and politics on his site...did an op-ed on this. I'm not always on the same page - he's a committed Losertarian who thinks we can do without government - but here, he's exactly right.
Eric Peters is a Libertarian gearhead, columnist and author.
www.ericpetersautos.com
Rep. Thomas Massie did a just awful thing the other day. He embarrassed Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi – who embarrassed herself on live TeeVee by talking about the stock market is doing great and that’s what people ought to be focusing on, rather than the grotesque Epstein revelations (about which you can find more,
here).
Trump could not let
that slide.
More finely, he could not help releasing another childishly explosive, utterly delusional fact-free rant via his social media platform. It began by
praising Bondi:
“AG Pam Bondi, under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was
fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing on the never ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein,” the president wrote.
Italics added.
Fantastic? If that’s “fantastic,” we can only wonder what outstanding would look like. There is, of course, near-universal agreement that Bondi’s performance was crash and burn bad. She came across as someone who is hiding something and knows she is. And her prattle about the stock market when the issue at hand is whether women – young girls – were being systematically trafficked by a ring that may have leveraged
kompromat to control
kompromatted American political figures is something that most Americans regard as more important to get to the bottom of than being ever-so-happy that corporate America is making bank.
Trump went on to say about Massie that he is a “Republican” – air fingers quotes are Trump’s, to suggest that putting America rather than Trump (and Israel) first is something
Republicans ought not to do – is also a “Loser” (the president likes to use capital letters when they are ungrammatical, for emphasis) as well as a “Sanctimonious RINO” who “made a total fool of himself yesterday, fighting aimlessly against a
hopeless agenda of Hate and Stupidity, as most clearly stated by his crashing Job Approval Numbers in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
Italics added.
So the president of the United States thinks it is “hateful” and “stupid” to want to get to the bottom of the Epstein business. Why would he say that? It’s despicably callous, for one thing. It shows he doesn’t give a single damn about what Epstein and his associates – one of whom is incontrovertibly the president himself – did to those women and possibly underage girls, too. Setting aide the despicability of this on a human level, it is beyond politically stupid for Trump to say what he is saying. Women are after all half the vote – and most men
like women and do not like men who are interested in little girls.
The man comes off – like Bondi – as a cornered rat. It is not a good look. And it gets worse. The president goes on to praise himself as a “very popular President who has brought our Country back from the brink of extinction, and very quickly, at that!”
Like Muttley from
Wacky Racers, he seems to want a biscuit – or a medal.
The fact is he’s not very popular. As of right now, the best numbers give him a 46 percent approval rating and the worst 36 percent. Either number is not exactly “very popular” but Trump’s delusional view of himself as
il magnifico arises from the feedback loop of praise emanating from his sycophants, who dare not criticize him because anything shy of praise results in them being cast out as “traitors” (
viz, Marjorie Taylor Green) and “losers.” He is a kind of Marie Antoinette figure, who thinks all is well because there’s plenty of cake to eat in Versailles.
Then he rehashes the getting tired 2024 campaign talking points, such as biological men playing in women’s sports that Americans cannot afford to care about anymore, because while the stock market is doing bonzers, most Americans aren’t. Trump and Bondi and their amen chorus continue to dig their own political graves by conflating the Dow with how people who work for a living are doing. The billionaire investor class is not the middle class or the working class but people such as Trump either do not comprehend this or – far worse – just don’t give a shit.
Of a piece with their not giving a shit about Americans’ completely warranted disgust over what they have learned
so far about this Epstein Business. They want to know everything and aren’t going to abide being told to “move on” to things the people who clearly don’t want them to know anything about say must be “moved on” to.
It’s not going over well. It ought not to go over well. We’re talking about what is inarguably the most sordid – and possibly treasonous – scandal to erupt within the memory of any living American. People want answers and they want accountability. Nothing less is going satisfy, much less get them to forget and shut up about it, as Trump seems to hope they will (as they have already forgotten about “COVID” and those “beautiful” drugs pushed on them by the president, that enriched monsters such as Albert Bourla).
Trump says the man he has chosen to replace Massie – via the state primary in Kentucky – is “crushing him in the polls.” But no actual poll suggests anything of the sort. The fact is Massie is extremely popular in his home state, probably because he is seen as someone who actually does put America – rather than Trump (and Israel) first. We’ll know the truth come May, at any rate. If Massie blows Ed Gallrein – Trump’s choice to unseat Massie – into political oblivion, it will be seen as an early indicator of which way the winds are blowing.
They may not be blowing in a direction the president likes. And it is likely if that turns out to be the case, rather than acknowledge the fact and change course, Trump will only bloviate harder and worse than he already has.
If so, the man is not merely delusional. He is insane.
. . .
