"Donald Trump Does Detroit" by NYT editorialist Charles Blow

So, after weeks of preaching his sinister sermon of black pathology to mostly white audiences as part of his utterly fake “black outreach” — which is in fact the effort of a bigot to disguise his bigotry — Donald Trump finally brought his message before a few mostly black audiences.

He spoke Friday to a handful of African-Americans in North Philadelphia, and as described on philly.com, told them that “he is not a bigot, and blamed the media for portraying him that way, according to people who attended a private event.”

No sir, stop right there. We are not going to allow any deflection or redefining of words here. You are a bigot. That is not a media narrative or a fairy tale. That is an absolute truth. No one manufactured your bigotry; you manifested it.

You have proudly brandished your abrasiveness, and now you want to whine and moan about your own abrasions. Not this day. Not the next day. Not ever. You will never shake the essence of yourself. Your soul is dark, your character corrupt. You are a reprobate and a charlatan who has ridden a wave of intolerance to its crest.

You were a chief birther against President Obama. You have maligned Mexicans and slandered Muslims. You have treated women with disdain. You have mocked the handicapped. You have displayed a staggering lack of basic knowledge about governance. You have applauded dictators. You have encouraged the assault of protesters at your rallies.

You are a prime example of the worst of humanity. You are what happens when incuriosity meets intolerance.

You are not to be praised for your fourth quarter outreach, but reviled for it, because it contains contempt, not contrition Trump wants to demonstrate to white moderates that he’s not a dyed-in-the-wool racist and to demonstrate to his base that he’s unafraid to walk through the valley of the shadow.

Then on Saturday, Trump traveled to Detroit and visited with a church congregation, or at least with a fraction of that congregation, judging from an image of the nearly empty venue.

Before Trump read his remarks, he said, “I just wrote this the other day knowing that I would be here, and I mean it from the heart he said, “I just wrote this the other day knowing that I would be here, and I mean it from the heart.”

That’s the first thing that sounded like a lie. The New York Times reported last week that Trump’s advisers had gotten the questions Trump was supposed to answer during an interview in Detroit and prepared a script for him. What makes us think that they didn’t also write his pandering speech?

He told the gathering, “Our nation is too divided,” while not acknowledging that he is a principle source of that division. He said: “We talk past each other, not to each other. Those who seek office do not do enough to step into the community and learn what is going on.” And yet he never acknowledged that until now, when his poll numbers have dipped and worrisome numbers of people said they believed he appeals to racism and bigotry, he has avoided coming into the black community like one might avoid the plague.

The speech was feather-light on policy, but what was there was just repackaged Republican claptrap that reinforced negative perceptions about liberalism and blackness.
 
Trump said, “I believe we need a civil rights agenda of our time, one that ensures the rights to a great education and the right to live in safety and in peace and to have a really, really great job, a good-paying job, and one that you love to go to every morning.”

Translation: I want to further weaken public education through more charters and vouchers. I want to flood your neighborhoods with more police because you can’t control yourselves. I want you to stop freeloading, get off welfare, and get a job.

Everything about this spectacle was offensive: that a black pastor had invited this money changer into the temple to defile it; that Trump was once again using the objects of his aggression for a last-ditch photo-op; that news media continue to call this an “outreach to black voters,” when it’s clearly not.

Trump has no real chance in Detroit, and he knows it. During this year’s Michigan primary, Trump got just 1,679 of the total 132,602 votes cast in the city of Detroit.

But again, the citizens of Detroit — or black people in general — are not the intended audience for this pageant of perversity. You can’t earnestly court the black vote while at the same time your party is enacting laws in multiple states to suppress the black vote. The whole thing is a logical fallacy.

Trump closed his speech in Detroit by quoting a passage from First John, Chapter 4 in the Bible: “No one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

I too would like to close by quoting a passage from 1 John 4: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Everything about Trump reads to me as false, and I hope that on Election Day, America exercises the gift of discernment.

Trumpettes (Children of Trump)

For the life of me I cannot understand the thought processes of the children of demagogues -- children of truly sick, narcissistic, and cruel parents who support their parent's party line. Did not ANYONE in their supposed illustrious higher ed schools teach them to think? Or perhaps they simply do not care and are Ayn Randian enough to parrot their parent's beliefs. What legacy do these Cretans want to leave to their posterity? Perhaps they care only for their own enrichment -- all for me and nothing for anyone else -- and some, perhaps, on a genetic level are missing the empathy gene as their parents clearly seem to be.

Maybe some of us have too much of that empathy gene and simply get depressed at the trajectory of a nation gone half monstrously mad with hate and wondering if ever there will be a sustained effort to implement the greatest good for the greatest number or are my and other progressives' efforts after decades of trying failing.

When I first saw two of the Trumpettes proudly with killing rifle in tote displaying the kill of a GORGEOUS tiger I knew what the substance of those men were and wondered how could they be loved by their mates or really by anyone. In short, I am STUMPED.


GET OUT TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS UPON IT BECAUSE IT DOES!!

Pray for Me

I am a news junkie. Even as much as politics interests me I am up to my earlobes in campaign swill. It began more than a year ago and saturated cable airwaves for ad infinitum months. It still is not over. The campaign is MUCH MUCH too long and MUCH too much oodles of cash is wasted on it. Every time I see Trump and every time I hear about email I want to throw a shoe at the tube. Trump is IMPOSSIBLE to listen to with his bluster, rudeness and lies. He lies ALL the time. I turn most of it off now and I might -- might -- pick just one of the debates to hear.

When Trump is blustering I mute my TV which covers him too much because I suppose some people want to listen to his volcanic eruptions with the malevolence they contain and that brings in network cash. Well, it does not bring cash to me but rather brings on a headache! Hillary is NOT on enough to add to the saturation. I wish she had come out more to refute the accusations levied at her which amount to NOTHING compared to the damage Republicans have done both to the economy and to the ruination of the Middle East. Moreover, they have obstructed Obama, an African American Democrat, at every turn. He could have accomplished much more if not for the disloyal Republican opposition and it is the eighth wonder of the world that he accomplished as much he did. If not obstructed she will accomplish more.

Hillary Clinton is CLEARLY by far and away more qualified than Trump. She will IF she can get more Congressional support create multi-faceted much needed change in our nation. I view Trump as dangerous to life and incapable of performing the most complex job on the planet. It is a job necessary to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of events and the ability to respond to them which Hillary has the capability to do. He has none of either. I surely hope Secretary Clinton wins BUT I am sick to death of the constant air wave blather promulgated over and over again by talking heads who often know nothing about which they speak. HELP I'm drowning in political quicksand! Pray for Hillary, VOTE her in November and by the way pray for me that I survive the onslaught to come.