The truth behind the lies of [redacted]: Racism, malignant narcissism, and sociopathy characterize his every action.

In the Washington Post, an article on the aftermath of the infamous “go back to your country” tweets describes the president’s thought processes when singling out the four first-term congresswomen of the colored persuasion for abuse.  He instinctively saw the four as being isolated and different in a particularly racialized sort of way that allows a European to assume someone of African descent would somehow be amenable to “going back” to Africa.  He calculated that they would be vulnerable to bullying and he then struck with or without considering the consequences, assuming that his backers, virtually the entire Republican Party, would follow along with him and without protest.

Since he has a limited imagination and limited vocabulary, he fell back on his usual catalogue of insults, but with a twist.  Having been told of the Somali origin and Muslim faith of the one immigrant among the four who were told to “go back” (perhaps he only, at first, intended to refer to her alone) he decided to key on the items his advisors most abhorred: the instances in which she betrayed an insufficient degree of respectfulness to Israel by blurting out, “It’s all about the Benjamins” (with which the recipients of Sheldon Adelson’s largesse would agree) and confessing that there might be divided loyalties among the Israeli-American right wing, which there honestly might.  Her transgression was more in the fact of who she was while she was saying it than in what she said, if you follow me.

To make a long story short, he told her, in most precisely bullying tones, to go back to her own country, as if that were even possible to say nothing of desirable, wise, or productive.  To make this absurd demand, he ignored all the sweat and tears she had poured into qualifying as a US citizen while a refugee, and all the devotion to the principles of free speech, equality of opportunity (remember that?), and respectful dissent that shes espoused.  He displayed his ignorance in a particularly ugly way by dismissing her political philosophy as if it were merely represented by blind hatred of the US.

She does have something to say that can’t be so easily dismissed.  It is essential to objectively examine her proposals for potential usefulness and practicality and objectively determine their effects on constitutional norms.  “To form a more perfect union” should become, abstractly, the moving target at which the Constitution fires, again and again, each time getting closer to the heart of justice.

There’s no end to the extremity of the lows that the president will not go to get a reaction from his base.  Heaping cruelty on cruelty, always with a veneer of common-sense explanation for the disruption, is the norm.  He told an entire research division of one of his distressed departments they had to pack up and move to Kansas City “because the cost of living in Washington DC was too high”; something like two thirds of them quit rather than accept a forced transfer from Washington DC to Kansas City.

He is sending batteries of Patriot missiles with about 2,300 men and a squadron of F-22 Stealth fighters (probably defensive interceptors) to Saudi Arabia, so he’s sure to expect significant Benjamins from Mohammad bin Salman.  Perhaps he can arrange a few minor assassinations to round out the package deal– the Saudis have plenty of hatchet men.  I wonder how our treasured armed forces feel about hiring out as mercenaries to a King who doesn’t share their vision of democracy nor their religious faith (and I hear some of them are very Christian.)

(image courtesy of pixabay.com)