‘With Donald Trump … things got worse’

“Any guy who can do a body slam, he is my type!” said President Donald Trump recently at a rally for Rep. Greg Gianforte, the member of Congress who attacked a reporter when he was running for the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2017. The reporter had simply asked a question Gianforte didn’t like. 

When a Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, was alleged to have been brutally tortured, murdered, and then cut into pieces to remove him from the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey and sent in bags back to Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump reacted by stating that this would really just hurt the U.S., as the Saudis “are spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs for this country.” Not true, by the way, the Saudis have spent $14.5 billion. 

Khashoggi was assassinated because the Saudi crown prince was not happy with his criticism of the Saudi human rights situation. Imagine that… who does that remind you of? But the importance of the Trump statement is that the president demonstrates that he values the billions much more than a human life.

All this from a president who has called journalists “sick people” and has accused the news media of “trying to take away our history and our heritage” questioning their patriotism by stating: “I really think they don’t like our country.” The president has, in fact, at times urged his followers to attack journalists for their heinous crime of doing their job. 

Maybe the president needs a course on the meaning of the Fourth Estate in this country… And Trump, who celebrates the Second Amendment every chance he gets, maybe should start by reading the First Amendment. 

“Mr. President,” I would tell him, “There’s a reason it comes first…”

An ‘aggressive kid’

“In the second grade I actually gave a teacher a black eye — I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music and I almost got expelled.” That’s Donald Trump boasting in his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal.” He claims that as a child he was an “aggressive kid.” Personally, I think he’s aggressive when surrounded by friends who might outnumber the person he does not like; or nowadays the world’s toughest guy is constantly surrounded by Secret Service agents — who really are tough guys.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on the day of the Iowa caucuses before the presidential election, Trump told audience members he would pay their legal fees if they engaged in violence against protesters: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell … I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise,” he said on Feb. 1, 2016.

In a Las Vegas rally where security guards threw people out for protesting when he was running for president, candidate Trump shouted: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.”

At a rally in Michigan where he ran into protesters, Trump urged the crowd to “Get him out. … Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court, don’t worry about it.” 

Pipe bombs

As I write this column, most news outlets are reporting that “pipe bombs were sent to a number of prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“CNN received a similar bomb, addressed to Mr. Obama’s C.I.A. director John Brennan…” reported The New York Times.

The Times also reported that a “law enforcement official said the devices were similar to one found Monday at the home of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and liberal donor.” Soros is Jewish.

All have one thing in common, they’ve been critical of Donald Trump and his administration. 

In a New York Times opinion piece written by his Soros’ son, Alexander writes that his father grew up in the shadow of the Nazi regime in Hungary. He emphasizes that the lessons of the past were well-learned by Soros, who has faced anti-semitism in some form all of his life.

Written as if sighing deeply, sadly, Alexander Soros says that “something changed in 2016. Before that, the vitriol he [George Soros] faced was largely confined to the extremist fringes, among white supremacists and nationalists who sought to undermine the very foundations of democracy.

“But with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, things got worse. White supremacists and anti-Semites like David Duke endorsed his campaign. Mr. Trump’s final TV ad famously featured my father; Janet Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve; and Lloyd Blankfein, chairman of Goldman Sachs — all of them Jewish — amid dog-whistle language about ‘special interests’ and ‘global special interests.’ A genie was let out of the bottle, which may take generations to put back in, and it wasn’t confined to the United States.” 

We need an adult in the White House

Certainly the president of the United States may be the most powerful person on the face of our earth. Everything he or she says, everything he or she does is looked at, evaluated, and studied. Some persons here and abroad react to his every word and action. 

I remember more than once being told that in this country we have freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean, they emphasized, that I can scream “fire! fire!” in a dark movie theater setting off a stampede that may kill someone who is trampled. The screamer is liable in such a case. 

So I ask myself: Are pipe bombs sent to Democrats a reaction to a president they feel is urging them on? Or have we forgotten that just last week a traveler on a plane reached over and caressed a woman’s breasts because he claimed the president said it was OK. 

When what appears to have been a plan arranged by the Saudi crown prince to have a journalist detractor mangled and killed because he was writing columns in the Washington Post that the prince didn’t like, was that a reaction to a president condoning the body-slamming of an American journalist? 

Folks, dangerous human beings, deranged people — like Donald Trump — sometimes show up, cause much trouble, and make an exit. Thank goodness, they’re gone… But other times there are those who cause trouble and as time goes by they become more dangerous and empowered, making them even more hazardous… And then they become Hitler, or Mussolini, or some other maniac history is full of.

In my opinion, we’re dangerously close to letting this situation get out of hand. Really. And I wish there was more that I can suggest than that this is why it is so important that you vote on November 6. And vote anything to do with Trump — out!

Because if there is one thing that is obvious, currently, is that we need an adult in the White House. One who doesn’t lie, cheat, or urge people to do horrible things.