Stop Acting Surprised

Like the rest of the world, I have watched as Donald Trump's recent tweets have gathered steam, invoked the imagery of female "bleeding" again, threatened and demeaned journalists who would no longer heel, and today repurposed an old WWE skit which now shows him laying out a male figure with a CNN logo head.

And like the rest of the world, ok, ok, scratch that, the sane, adult participants in the world, have been sickened, repulsed, and embarrassed.

But unlike many, I have not been surprised.

And frankly, anyone who is - whether a pundit on TV, a politician with the power to actually effect change, or an average Joe on the street - is disingenuous at best, blatantly stupid at worst.

Acting shocked at this behavior is ridiculous.  Donald Trump 2017 is exactly who Donald Trump has always been.  A loudmouthed conman-grifter with a petulant, bratty need for approval, and a schoolyard bully with a lust for revenge.  

He is the toddler who never hears the word "No."  

The middle schooler who straps frogs to bottle rockets for fun.

The angsty teen who could never get his dad's approval.  

The pudgy 20 something who lurks in the 4Chan basement preaching to an equally disgusting choir of non-men who blame all women for their inability to get laid.  

The ignorant 30 year old who believes his wealth allows him to grab whatever pussy walks past.  Self aggrandizement is the air he breathes.

The 40 year old who careens from one midlife crisis to the next, trading in wives like others trade in baseball cards, and bragging to the world about his cringe inducing exploits.

The 50 year old who Archie Bunkers his way through life and business deals - bloviating, blustering, brow beating - because those around him need their paychecks.

The 60 year old who believes a spray tan, scalp surgery to get rid of bald spots, and a gold plated toilet convince the world he is all that and a bucket of KFC.  (Well, we DO believe he is a bucket of KFC.  That much is obvious.)

And a 70+ year old who still never hears the word "No", surrounds himself with frightened sycophants, screams the equivalent of "Get offa my lawn" into cyberspace, and binge watches FOX.

He is the sum of all those years, all those parts.  And his behavior has never been in hiding.  Maybe you never paid attention till he swanned down the Trump Tower escalator and declared his candidacy, but this man who disgusts you today, is the same man who called himself John Barron and John Miller and phoned in "scoops" to Page Six and People - detailing his sexual prowess (gag), who he was dating, who wanted to bone him (clue: no one).  This is the same man who cheated openly on one wife while forcing the next to tout his sexual abilities to the press.  The man who constantly went on Howard Stern and played up his player status.

The man who has cheated, lied, manipulated, grifted, shifted, shafted, laundered, gone bankrupt repeatedly, lost casinos, attained a reputation so bad that no US bank would touch him, and who is on tape bragging about "grabbing them by the pussy."

He has lived his disgusting life as out there as one can imagine.  So to act like the past few days have given you the "vapuhs, Miss Scarlett" is laughable.  I have zero respect for any pundit or GOPer who took to a microphone to act "disheartened" about his derogatory remarks about Mika and Joe.  And yes, that includes the GOP women who stood at podiums and decried his treatment of women.  Seriously?  NOW?  Calling Mika "dumb as a rock" or accusing her of "bleeding badly from a facelift" at Mar-A-Lago on NY's Eve are your red lines?

Give me a break.

And as for Mika and Joe?  They do not get an autopass here just because Trump has now turned on them.  They emboldened him, sucked up to him, used him for ratings boosts, and enjoyed being buddies right up until it was no longer expedient to do so.  They were complicit in his obscene run to office.  It does not mean they now deserve to be blackmailed or abused, but it doesn't make them complete victims here.  Lay down with dogs...

Donald Trump is the same incompetent, illiterate, unqualified, misogynist piece of excrement he HAS ALWAYS BEEN.  That you have chosen to look past it, excuse it away, and prop him up speaks worse about YOU, than it frankly does about him.  He showed who he is every single step of his pathetic life and campaign for the Presidency.  Every disgusting, shameful, immature, sophomoric, sophmoronic, unprepared, unintelligent, incoherent piece of this shitstain puzzle was there on full display.

You don't get to feign buyer's remorse either. You did not purchase some mystery box, hopeful and excited about what could be inside. You bought a mangled, broken, stained, leaking reality star marked "As Is - Final Sale" on the discount shelf at Walmart.

You - GOPer politicians, preachers, power teat suckers - chose to ignore it in pursuit of your agenda.  The media chose to embrace it all because ratings.  And the willfully ignorant, badly behaved, racist, homophobic, proudly stupid, dangerously dimwitted found their standard bearer.  Shit, one look at any of his rallies should have been enough of a clue to you that this human lightning rod was attracting the absolute worst of our society.  Yet you let it happen.  He incited violence, and you turned away.  He TALKED ABOUT HIS OWN PENIS IN A DEBATE and you chuckled.  You - McCain, Christie, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, et al - you were all openly mocked by this cretin, your wives were dragged into it, yet you chose party over country and propped him up when your own campaigns had been sacrificed on the gilded altar of his hubris.

At this point I simply have no idea how these sad excuses for public servants can look into a camera and find the mangled words to excuse this behavior.  Sure, I get why Huckabee-Sanders, Spicer, and Conway do - they are paid  lot of money and get lots of airtime - those are powerful aphrodisiacs.  But Ryan?  Priebus?  McConnell?  

Fuck it - it's all about the power teat with them, too.  They can act shocked and saddened all they want when asked about Trump's tweeting, but the reality is they just do not care what he does as long as they are allowed to operate behind closed doors and further their own agendas.  They have the perfect distraction.  A human violin they can play as they need.  Stroke him, smile and wave as he jets off for round 34 of golf, hell, encourage his bad behavior because he doesn't understand what they are doing anyway.  

Trump is intellectually incurious (gets his "news" from FOX and Infowars - child sex slaves on Mars, anyone?), has the attention span of a cocaine fueled gnat (demands briefings be in bullet points not paragraphs), understands nothing of governance (Wait?  I'm not KING?), healthcare ("It's complicated."  Duh, Donny.), poverty (he would not cross the street to pee on a poor person who is on fire - he despises lesser thans), the military ("I know more than the Generals" & "I have a secret plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days" and people believed him), ANYTHING, and is only interested in playing to his base of equally dim mouth breathers.  So they let him.

And those people?  Oy.  They are eating this up like a fresh pile of biscuits at the Golden Corral buffet.  They are face first drinking in the drippings from this human chocolate fountain.  They love it, cheer it on because it acquits their own day-to-day bad behavior, the way they move through their worlds - hurling insults, abusing strangers, bullying anyone they can just to feel like a "big man" for a moment.

They are who they have always been.  Only now, they have been unleashed by a man who mirrors their behavior, plays to their biases, foments their fears, and acts like the biggest bully in the bar where everybody knows your shame.

Handwringing, clutching your pearls, wishful thinking, and acting shocked will not bring this to an end.  Robert Mueller eventually will, anyone paying attention to the gathering storm in that direction knows this.  But until then?

Stop acting surprised.  It is not believable, and frankly? It makes you look as stupid as the orange ballsac in the Oval.

Comments

[nikki in nyc]

I am only surprised when a day goes by without him committing some act of stupidity. therefore I am not often surprised.

[Mjanegeorge]

You nailed it here.

[Angela]

Yay! Absolutely right on!! I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks for posting the truth

[Katy]

F*CKING NAILED IT LINDA!!!!!

[Linda S to Joy]

Dinner, a nice bottle of wine - I'm pretty easy. :)

[Joy Myers]

Incredible!! I suppose it's not appropriate to propose without first meeting in person :)