Columns, Opinion By Tom H. Hastings, Guest Columnist
As a boy who grew up on skates in Minnesota with my Dad as hockey coach, I vividly recall that he frequently echoed the old adage, “The best defense is a good offense.” Someone evidently told that to Donald Trump too, and we see it play out constantly.
Our swampy guy in the White House is more surreal by the day. Along the lines of Benito Mussolini, he is claiming to clean up corruption — his primary campaign promise — even as he practices it on a daily basis.
He is under investigation, of course, for a campaign that colluded with Russian and probably Middle Eastern operatives to manipulate the American electorate via false flag social media posts. The Fake News strategy. His campaigners, from Paul Manafort (erstwhile campaign chair, now slated to go on trial for several corruption charges) to his son, Donald Jr., are serial liars about dealings with Russian operatives.
Who are actual American heroes? That is debatable, but some folks might say John McCain, former POW, tortured, and currently dying from brain cancer. Trump disses him every chance he gets. Others might say Green Beret Sgt. La David Johnson, already dead, killed in an ambush in Niger last October, and Trump tells his widow, “He knew what he signed up for.” For some of us, civil rights hero John Lewis — arguably the most squeaky clean politician in U.S. history — is an icon, but naturally Trump, who never worked for anyone’s civil rights, who never went to jail to protect the rights of the oppressed, who never served in uniform to rightly or wrongly protect the US, tweeted that Lewis was “Sad.”
Welcome to third grade. When someone offers criticism, do not respond with facts about that criticism, respond with lies and smears and attacks on unrelated matters. We are ruled by a pre-adolescent, spoiled rich boy — and his base can’t let it go, can’t face his glaring lies and crimes.
