It seems silly to say some of this stuff here. After all, 99 percent of you are like-minded individuals on this issue. So, consider this something you can share with people that fall beyond this group. Maybe it will help them understand.

It occurred to me that we spend a lot of time talking about Donald Trump and people on the right have rightfully said they think we are obsessed. All that being said, I thought I should take a step back and explain why that is. That obsession isn’t really about him. I think everyone has that kind of guy in their life. He is a little racist (or maybe a lot), a little sexist, and you can never quite trust the stories he tells. Maybe you run into him at Thanksgiving, work functions, or church functions. He is the guy you politely nod to and try to find some polite way to get out of the conversation. Failure to do so will subject you to countless grievances ranging from toilets, to windmills, and then sharks.

On that level, Trump is fairly harmless. I would have no problem with him spinning yarns about helicopter crashes, shark vs. battery debates, or injecting bleach to fight a deadly disease. He is an idiot. We encounter idiots every day. Some of them are our friends or family. We endure them because they are our friends or family. We endure them because they have positive qualities too.

So, the obsession over Trump is clearly not about Trump himself but about the collective reaction to him. Everyone has that weird uncle, cousin, or coworker. We tolerate them because we have to. Yet, no one gave them any real authority because we all know what we are dealing with. This is not what has happened in this case.

Trump is a mirror. The reflection you see says more about you than him. I’d say about 60 percent of the country sees a buffoon that somehow stumbled into a huge inheritance and a lifetime of debauchery. The United Negro College Fund used to say that a mind was a terrible thing to waste. The 60 percent see brain rot. When ignorance is not challenged it becomes entrenched and metastasizes. That fact alone is not remarkable. It describes millions of Americans.

The obsession over Trump is what has happened to the 40 percent. When they see the reflection they see themselves. They see the same petty grievances. They see the same prejudices. When they hear the insults and pot shots they become emboldened. Finally, someone is saying the things they longed they could say. Finally, someone is “telling it like it is.”

Trump is a mirror for the world. Either they see the ugliest version of themselves or they see the ugliest version of the people around them. In both cases we are all made worse. If we are repulsed then we treat followers with derision. We become less tolerant because we have to.

Those that see themselves in the reflection see the very worst parts of themselves. Their inner asshole is unleashed on the world. Yet, a superior and sanctimonious asshole is still an asshole. So, no matter where you look all you see are assholes. Our worlds become siloed with like-minded curmudgeons that see the world the same way we do.

When someone wants to be a leader it is incumbent on him or her to make us better. We are all fallible and flawed. Collectively we can be more than that. Collectively we should be more than that. Unfortunately we are now less. We are less because a lot of us have given the drunk uncle a platform and responsibility. This isn’t on the drunk uncle. It is on those that gave him the platform.

When we were kids, the older folks taught us a very valuable lesson. How do you know when a politician is lying? The answer? Their lips are moving. In all seriousness, lying and politics have gone hand in hand for the length of this experiment we call democracy. So, why is it so difficult for the mainstream media to do the basic job of vetting comments before running with them?

Apparently, Donald Trump has “agreed” to debate Kamala Harris on Fox News on September 4th. It will be beautiful in front of a packed MAGA house. It will be the best debate anyone has ever seen with fair and balanced moderators straight from Fox News. You won’t believe how great it will be. There is only one problem you have probably already guessed. Neither Fox nor Kamala Harris have agreed to anything.

Despite this, most mainstream media outlets initially reported that the two would debate on September 4th. Why? Simply put, Trump said so on his shitty little app. Of course the mainstream media ran with the story because of course Trump wouldn’t lie about something like this. The guy that told over 30,000 documented lies as president is the perfect kind of guy to take at his word no matter what he says.

That is until the try to cover up what he said and make it sound more palatable. The headlines only changed after they received a ton of pushback from readers and viewers. The media has never been able to figure out how to treat him as a whole, but we have occasional pockets of reporters that get things right. His appearance this past weekend before a group of African-American journalists was a masters class in holding him responsible for inflammatory rhetoric and dubious claims.

This is very simple and I can’t believe I have to write this down. He’s lying. If he’s arguing anything anywhere near policy he’s lying. He’s not even particularly good at lying. Imagine a second grader BS’ing their way through a copy of “Where the Red Fern Grows” and you have a good mental image. One good targeted question and that second grader goes running back to their seat with tears in their eyes. You know, big strong men with tears in their eyes.

The Trump way is to overwhelm you with a tsunami of lies. The hope and expectation is that you won’t catch them all. You don’t have to report on him in real time. You can stop and verify it simply because if it sounds like a load of crap then it probably is. Did he really agree to a debate on Fox? Does it make sense for Kamala Harris to agree to go on conservative sponsored media with conservative moderators and a conservative crowd? Of course, since the MSM bought it hook, line, and sinker, the Trump team gets to run with the narrative that Harris is backing out. It’s a really simple lie that a second grader could work through. I just wish the mainstream media were smarter than a second grader.

I hesitate to write this, but I figure a pseudonym and friendly environment provides the best cover. I also think that when my mind immediately went to this it shows not that I or anyone else that thought this are horrible people but that the state of our politics are this bad. However, the very first thought that came to mind when I heard about the news about the Trump “assassination attempt” was that it was a false flag.

Considering there are two people dead that makes the thought that much more detestable. There are three scenarios running through my head and I’ll let the peanut gallery vote for the most likely. I suppose we should add the possibility that all of this is on the level, but I’ll lay that aside for two important reasons. First, the secret service cleared all of those in attendance. So, they either royally fucked this up or something nefarious is at play. Secondly, this just lines up too perfectly. He is essentially unharmed, he gets to play victim, he gets to be in the news cycle, and they get to pin this on either left wing lawless zealots, people of color, immigrants, or they can go for the exacta. Details to come.

Scenario 1

All of the parties were knowingly involved. That means the purps are actually right wing operatives that knew they would be sacrificed. In this scenario the secret service were not involved in the plot. The planners simply knew that those two gentlemen would be taken out. I’m calling this one the least likely because I don’t see people willingly giving up their life for this ass clown, but I could be wrong there.

Scenario 2

The two men killed were not involved at all. It was a false flag that did not involve them. However, it would involve some in the secret service because it would involve them identifying two specific victims that fit the profile that would serve their narrative best. Admittedly, this is the scariest of the three scenarios because it makes the Secret Service complicit and it also means they specifically targeted two innocent people.

Scenario 3

It was a false flag that the Secret Service and those two were not involved in. The Secret Service honestly thought that they were involved and an active threat, so the Secret Service took them out. Honestly, this one is the most likely to me. Obviously, the identify of the two men shot hasn’t been released as of this writing. If they fit a particular narrative too easily then this scenario becomes less likely.

Okay, you place your vote.

A commenter to a previous piece on my Facebook page made an observation. I write way too much about the ex-president. That’s a fair criticism. I’ll gladly take that on, acknowledge it, and own it. I do write too much about that man and wish I didn’t have to at all. As much as he might be a subject of this piece, he is not the subject of this piece. This piece is not so much about him, but about you.

Of course, the you in this case is what I lovingly call the pejorative you. That means it’s not about everyone, but just those that still choose to follow him. It has gone well beyond ideology at this point. It has moved beyond ideology and into idolatry. They say the self-own is the cruelest own of all.

Millions of people wear adult diapers. I don’t wear them myself, but I have had occasional bouts with digestive issues. Various medications have had any number of side effects and those were some of the more serious ones. Some people have other health problems that require their use. So, I am not going to judge anyone that has a medical need to wear them.

So, I try really hard not to poke fun. The key point here is that every time someone points out a flaw or human weakness in the dear leader they adopt that as a sign of strength. Trump passes gas and some have suggested (people are saying) that he stinks because he has likely soiled himself. Instead of admitting that maybe he is not the best person for the job we just kind of assimilate this knowledge into our new schema. To translate that into plain English we can simply say “real men wear diapers.”

Thus the continuing spiraling nature of our politics and our culture proceeds without abatement. Therefore if you have control of your bodily functions, have basic knowledge of science, history, and current events then you aren’t really a man. If you have basic empathy for others and compassion for people that might be struggling then you aren’t a real man.

Let me be very frank. Normal people don’t do this. You will not see liberals. progressives, and leftists doing this. We don’t have bumper stickers on our cars. We don’t have signs for the yard. We don’t own any tee-shirts, hats, or flags that we fly from the home or on the back of our pickup truck. We actually don’t have a pickup truck, but that’s not the point.

People in cults do this. So, this isn’t about him. It’s about you. It’s about your desperate need to support everything and anything that comes out of his mouth (or any other portion of his body). I am trying as hard as I can to be respectful here. This is not a good look for you. You aren’t owning the libs. You are owning yourself. The self-own is the cruelest own of all.

What will probably become known as the Stormy Daniels trial began yesterday. There was much effort to delay it. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth as the good book says. Barring any unforeseen developments, the justice system has finally arrived at a place that it should have upwards of 40 years ago.

There is one nagging question that MAGA is asking and it deserves to be answered. Aren’t these prosecutions politically motivated? We’ve been ducking and side-stepping that question long enough. The simple answer is yes. They are politically motivated. However, I’m not sure if the details behind that answer really line up with what MAGA thinks it means.

The fact is that all of this is a prison of Donald’s thinking. Even if we take the facts from this particular case, we’d have to reach that conclusion. Would he have lost the election if the voting public found out he had a fling with a porn star? My guess is that it wouldn’t have had much of an effect at all. After the Access Hollywood tape came out, there was no doubt about who he was.

The defense is essentially the same one we give to the police officer when we get pulled over for speeding. Look at all the other people speeding. While that might seem persuasive, we cannot deflect from the obvious point that we were in fact speeding. Similarly, Richard Nixon could point to dirty tricks that others had pulled throughout history as some sort of relative defense, but he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

I surmise that at least half of these prosecutions wouldn’t be happening at all if he weren’t running for president again. Of course, that observation cuts both ways. A normal president would have accepted defeat, went back home, and made a killing on the lecture circuit. He would have sold books or been a guest professor at some prestigious university. He likes golf. He could have played every day on just about any course he wanted.

History has seen this happen before and history has seen similar deals go awry. Most of western Europe made a deal with Napoleon in order to get him out of power without bloodshed. That didn’t work, Appeasement didn’t work with Nazi Germany. I suspect that overtures were made behind the scenes to broker a similar deal with Trump. Just return the documents and move on with your merry life and no one would be the wiser.

The Donald cannot accept defeat even if it is the prudent thing to do. That’s all this has been about and all that it ever will be about. He lost in 2020 and couldn’t accept it. He continues to lose and can’t accept it. He lost for decades in business and refuses to accept it or learn from it. It is essentially hubris mixed liberally with idiocy. A wiser man would have walked away a long time ago.

Donald is not most people. I suspect most of us wouldn’t have sex with a porn star when our wife was pregnant. I suspect most of us wouldn’t consider stealing confidential or secret files from our place of work. We certainly wouldn’t hide them from the authorities after the fact. Donald is clearly not most people. So, would you or I be prosecuted in a similar situation? I suspect just about anyone else wouldn’t be in this position in the first place and that is kind of the whole point.

It was P.T. Barnum that said that a sucker was born every minute. I’m not going to question what people spend their money on. Goodness knows I’ve bought some useless crap over the years. I’ve been snookered by marketing gimmicks and charlatans just like anyone else. So, if someone is going to throw down 60 bucks on the Trump Bible then Godspeed.

Advertising has always been a somewhat unsavory business where facts and slight of hand are married in a shotgun ceremony. Just this week I noticed that Appleby’s is bragging that their boneless wings won a national taste test including a restaurant with wings in its name. Number one, aren’t boneless wings just chicken nuggets? Secondly, you have to know it was a blind taste test between Appleby’s, Bennigan’s, and TGI Fridays. Congratulations.

So, when I saw Trump selling his own Bible it didn’t surprise me. The fact that he was partnering with someone like Lee Greenwood didn’t surprise me. The only thing that surprised me about the whole deal is that Lee Greenwood is still alive. I could have sworn he died in obscurity when his shitty patriotic porn finally fell out of favor. Everything old is new again.

This isn’t new ground. My parents used to regale me with stories about the radio station that drowned out the locals at night. They would have a variety of shows and one that sold religious artifacts. It included things like the John the Baptist soap on a rope and autographed pictures of Jesus. No, what Trump is doing it not new and not novel.

I suppose in a way he isn’t even the worst one. Televangelists bilk their followers for thousands of dollars and it is usually thousands they can’t afford to give away. So, who knows where on the pantheon of sleeve these Bibles would rate. It is more pathetic than anything else. Add it to his action figures, shoes, and all of the other crap he peddles and it’s just sad.

I’m more and more convinced that Trump is nothing more than a thought experiment. How far are we willing to go before we either put him in jail or tell him to go away? When will the Republican party say enough is enough? Will they ever say it? What will the last straw be for people in MAGA nation? It’s not even certain that there will be an end.

Trump outrage is its own cottage industry. You have to know that networks like MSNBC, CNN, the Young Turks, and other similar networks secretly love this. They are rolling in ratings and advertising dollars. Every tweet, every insane rant, every trial development gets covered in breathtaking immediacy. It’s all breaking news. It’s all developing news. It’s all the most important thing that’s ever happened in the history of the world.

Let’s consider what we know. We know he has always failed at business. We know he is the most frequent litigant in the history of the country. We know he has committed countless amounts of fraud. We know he is guilty of how many counts of sexual misconduct. We know he is addlebrained and unfit any position of leadership. We’ve seen it first hand.

It’s not funny anymore. When we went through those first four years it ceased to be funny. It’s time for him to exit stage left. If need be, maybe we can use one of those old Vaudeville hooks to yank him offstage. Maybe he can have his own channel where he can sell his shitty shoes, overpriced Bibles, and can run infomercials with Lee Greenwood, Jon Voigt, and Kid Rock for 24 hours. Then, at least I could avoid it by simply not turning on that channel. I’m out.