When a sitting president of the United States tells over 30,000 lies and falsehoods, it’s tough to pick out which ones were the worst. But I’m going to give it my best.
The first worst lie, ironically, was told before he ever became president. But I’m going to include it because of how despicable it was; how it planted the seed for what we’re now seeing play out in front of our eyes in Washington, D.C.
For roughly five years, we were told by the clownish reality T.V. talk show host that President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States. Over and over, he demanded that Obama produce his original birth certificate.
Some said it was a dog-whistle to the racists – that they couldn’t trust Obama – that he was a closet Muslim and Kenyan born radical who will infiltrate our government and turn our country into a socialist dictatorship. The lie wasn’t a dog-whistle but was a giant bullhorn to the hateful bigots. It gave Trump credibility to the white people around the country who could not accept that an African-American lived in the White House.
So when he ran for president, he had a built-in white supremacy base of support that helped catapult him to victory. All of it based on complete bullshit.
The next worse big lie surrounded that victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. As we all know now, Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million votes while Trump won the electoral college. At least that’s what the truth and facts are.
However, neither of those points mattered. Because the crazy-man president told us that the only reason Clinton won the popular vote was that they were all cast by illegal immigrants. That’s right, millions of illegals in California filled out ballots and signed their names – under the penalty of perjury and possible jail time, to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Of course, he doubled down on that lie by forming a phony voter commission to root out illegal voting. The panel, led by his sycophant Vice-President Mike Pence and a perennial liar and crook Kris Kobach, disbanded within a year. Why? Because there was NO fraud. It was a sham panel from the start, but it once again gave his crazy supporters something they could point to as proof that the radical libs screwed over their great leader.
Finally, the last and biggest whopper of them all — yes, the lollapalooza – the coup de gras of historical lies, began months ago and continues to this day. That’s the one that says the current loser president was cheated out of victory; that the Democrats and other never-Trumpers rigged the whole thing. He didn’t lose. They stole it from him.
Yes, way back in the summer, when polls showed him losing the election quite handily to Joe Biden, he told the American people that we couldn’t trust the results. Not if he won, mind you, only if he lost. The fix was in; he told his cult. But if he won, never mind.
The rest is history, as they say. On January 20, he’s out – Joe Biden is in. He lost the election by over seven million votes and the electoral college 306-232. It wasn’t even close. Yet, to his rabid base of deplorable’s and wing-nuts, he was cheated. Republican politicians echoed this biggest lie of them all. And along with the president’s urging, it helped nudge the cult into a frenzied insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday to try and overturn one of the safest and free elections we’ve ever had.
We can link all of these lies, can we not? The first one set the stage by solidifying the racist crackpot base that still supports him. The second one sowed the seeds of distrust in our electoral process. And the third one, the most dangerous of them all, gave the whacko’s all the wind they needed to propel them to take over the Capitol and try to overthrow our democracy. It’s as if it was all part of a plan.
At the time of this post, the House voted to impeach him for inciting the insurrection, and he is now the only president in history to be impeached twice. If anyone deserves such a fate, it is he, of course. Like author and journalist Tom Friedman told Anderson Cooper last night on CNN, “If I could, I’d impeach him two or even three more times, if time allowed it.”
I want to leave you with one final thought on all of this. Yesterday, we lost 4,610 souls to Covid-19. One week ago, we witnessed a white supremacist takeover of the United States Capitol. Our economy, with thousands waiting in line at food-banks, is in deep trouble.
Has there ever been a more fitting end to the worst presidency in American history? Thousands dying from a pandemic he never took seriously; smoke billowing from our invaded Capitol building; people suffering and struggling to stay above water; and an impeachment that will most likely not conclude until long after he’s already left office.
That, my friends, is the legacy of Donald J. Trump. Please close your eyes and think about the carnage he’s inflicted upon the United States of America. Think about the smoke, Trump banners, Confederate flags, and anti-Semitic t-shirts. Think about the long lines for food. And sadly, think about all of the physical suffering and death from Covid.
As Trump said in his inauguration speech nearly four years ago, “The carnage stops now!” Indeed it does – in seven days.
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