As I suspected, President Trump’s Approval / Disapproval ratings – at least according to Gallup – have immediately recovered.
I have no real explanation as to why the country seems to recognize the utter incompetence of our President one week and then goes back to sleep the next. Perhaps it’s a reaction to how his opponents are reacting to that incompetence. Perhaps this Internet thing on which you’re reading this has made attention and meditation so fleeting that no one really evaluates anything anymore.
Oh, and tribalism. If you’re in the tribe, the leader can do nothing wrong. (Shame on tribalists. Absolute shame.)
This reader’s observation concerning the Khashoggi murder is cogent:
I suspect this will be old news, in the US at least, by the time we finish the thanksgiving leftovers. We have short memories from, and in, a news cycle that seeks fresh shock and awe headlines daily. “Oh yeah, Khashoggi? Didn’t somebody go to jail for that?”
Just for my own morbid amusement, consider these facts:
- The “caravan” from the South, the one for which we deployed the Army? Remember Trump’s claims that it was full of malevolent characters, bent on our destruction? Well, the Army is withdrawing, most of the immigrants are still marching (a dubious term for these unfortunate people), and nothing like some horrid invasion is occurring. Hope you weren’t frightened, because if you were, you were a sucker.
- Mass shootings continue to occur, despite Trump’s (and the NRA’s) assertion
)that everyone carrying guns would obviate the need for gun control. I used to believe that, back, oh, 30 years ago. It’s become blindingly clear that this is bullshit. It’s built on the premise that everyone is rational. As scientists & people with bad neighbors know, rationality is not a core part of many human beings‘ core. - Trump’s refusal to accept the CIA’s appraisal of the Khashoggi murder as being on Crown Prince Salman’s (MBS) head, and the revelation that Trump has financial interests in Saudi Arabia, not to mention those of personal pride (think his Middle East diplomacy effort through his son-in-law, Kushner), leaves one with the inevitable conclusion that money matters more than lives to this President – and, for a self-proclaimed billionaire, it just makes the immorality of it all that much more pathetic.
- Remember that big ol’ tax cut for the middle class of which Trump announced just before the mid-terms? That’s completely disappeared. Never mind that it would have added to a suddenly ballooning debt, a helium balloon formed under the GOP’s leadership. As one conservative writer (Max Boot, I believe) recently noted, if you consider yourself a financial conservative, you’d better be a Democrat, because financial responsibility is no longer part of the GOP brand. I’d add, the acquisition of power & money is the soul of the GOP brand, and the abortion issue, along with tribalism, is the shears with which they harvest the money and votes of their tribe. (Quick, someone get me a cartoonist!)
Which all leads to the question, how much longer will the religious right continue to ignore the sober teachings of earlier generations, those that forbid the adoration of money, abjure the liar, to stay to their self-proclaimed religious path? Sure, as I’ve said before, redemption is a big part of the American Way, but at some point you do need to move towards it, it’s not thrust upon you. You must admit to error and seek forgiveness.
Otherwise, all anyone can say is that the religious right, the evangelicals, is nothing more than a bunch of money worshipping, liar-loving hypocrites.
And I don’t want to think that a large proportion of my fellow-Americans are in that leaky dinghy.
