Let’s for a moment, just for the sake of argument, stipulate that President Donald Trump isn’t ring-the-bell, crack-head crazy.
Set aside the repeatedly proven fact that Trump has publicly issued tens of thousands of well-documented lies, which no longer seems to be criteria in the United States for imposing a judgment of mental illness, poor character or even a moral wrong when it comes to that old-fashioned Ninth Commandment thing.
And overlook, for the time being, Trump’s endlessly effusive and repetitive wilted word salad he substitutes for political rhetoric when he talks or posts on social media.
No one has ever seen anything like it.
So go ahead and say that although Trump is clearly not very bright, he’s not, however, in immediate need of anti-psychotic drugs, a straight-jacket or even powerful sedatives.
At least not yet.
Given the absence of certifiable crazy, Trump’s public behavior over the last two weeks since he dragged the United States into war with Iran illustrate his corrupt, criminal and immoral behavior as president and one of the billions of humans on the third rock from the Sun.
Almost all of the country agrees that only a nut-case president or a corrupt fascist would tell an anxious planet on the verge of getting sucked into an Iran war, “Tuesday will be a Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, In Iran,” Trump said in an April 5 social media post. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fu***n’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!”
Because Trump is who he is, and because we’ve become dangerously acclimated to the president of the United States behaving like a parody on late-night TV, this particular deranged, dangerous and demented flap held the headlines only for hours.
Talk about the “crazy bastard” pot belly calling the kooky kettles “black.”
All this came amid Trump firing his incompetent and corrupt cabinet members from their jobs for their incompetent and corrupt performance as attorney general and head of homeland security. It all makes for another “There will be nothing like it!!!” conniption that’s hard to ignore no matter who we’re going to war with now.
Last week, Charles stopped by the Sentinel newsroom to leave a donation and some attaboys for what the team here does.
Charles is 90 years old, a Korean War vet, and a lifelong Aurora resident.
“None of us risked our lives so someone like Trump could be president and risk the life of every American,” he said. “Every day I shake my head wondering how anyone can even look or listen to him and not see how clearly he’s a liar, a fake and a fool.”
At 90, Charles clearly doesn’t care about mincing words, pointing out that we are fast approaching a point of no return where the damage Trump and his bewildered acolytes and MAGA followers inflict on the United States will be irreparable.
I agree with Charles that we have got to push back against the gas-lighters trying to persuade the nation that it’s not that bad or that’s just who Trump is and it’s all OK.
Trump himself could not have made that any clearer when he threatened to commit ghastly war crimes in Iran unless his plummeting poll numbers don’t turn around, like right the hell now.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump infamously said in a social media post just one week ago. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Trump posts scary, crazy stuff similar to that in the same way I post stuff about the obnoxious squirrels in my yard digging up my tulip bulbs.
But even for Trump, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” takes his reckless rhetoric to a whole new and criminal level.
This is “final solution” kind of stuff that no one in the United States should stand for. This is “never again” territory that came and went in a week with even less alarm than Trump’s “they’re eating the dogs” delusional crap.
Sure, there was some tough talk, even locally.
“The President is endangering the American people, our servicemembers, our allies, and innocent civilians,” Aurora Democratic Rep. Jason Crow said in a statement. “Americans of good conscience must come together and reject this madness.”
On national TV news shows, Crow joined Democrats in Colorado and across the nation in calling for impeachment to “stop a runaway, rogue presidency,” since he doubted that Republicans in Congress or Trump’s Cabinet would pursue invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
But the cogent part of the nation actually paying close attention to all this is back to hoping that, somehow, we make it through the Iran crisis and the dozens of other disasters simmering along since Trump resumed office.
Rational Americans, and the world, can only hope that, this time, Americans pay more attention to the election in November than their TikTok reels and sports scores and elect members of Congress who will remove Trump from power and his determination to drive the nation over the cliff.
Just hoping that Trump somehow gains enough sense and cogency by himself to stop acting like a desperate dictator and washed up reality TV feature isn’t cutting it folks.
Founding fathers wisely installed emergency “off” switches in the Constitution. Hit the switch.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com