“Out Of Control” America And On The Skids Trump

On Our Radar:

As conforms to the pattern of Trump as we have documented it over the course of close to 4 years, Trump has said so many insane and demented things this week, space doesn’t permit reviewing all of it. But there were a few choice items that reached out and lacerated our corneas.

Trump was on Fox News being interviewed with one of the token black hosts, Harris Faulkner. The program segment was pre-recorded, so we don’t know what might have been so radioactive that it required editing, but what they kept was remarkable enough.

Trump on the subject of the use by police of chokeholds:

“I think the concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent so perfect and then you realize if it’s a one-on-one now if it’s a two-on-one that’s a little bit of a different story – depending – depending on the toughness and strength, you know we’re talking about toughness and strength, we are talking there’s a physical thing here also.”

“Sometimes if you’re alone and you’re fighting somebody, it’s tough … we have some real bad people” — Trump defends police chokeholds pic.twitter.com/DZfjT5isFU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 12, 2020

Once again on what he has single handedly done for blacks, presumably also for Ms. Faulkner:

“I think I’ve done more for the black community than any other president, and let’s take a pass on Abraham Lincoln, because he did good — although it’s always questionable. You know, in other words, the end result –”

What President Lincoln did for blacks that was “questionable”, was left to the television audience’s interpretation, since Ms. Faulkner didn’t follow up on it to receive clarification.

On renaming of U.S. military bases presently named for heroes of the Confederacy:

Trump wasted no time signaling to his base that he is not going to allow U.S. military bases to remove the names of Southern military commanders from the Civil War era:

“It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.”

Trump couldn’t resist yet again, the opportunity of using a racial slur that demeans Native Americans, to insult Senator Elizabeth Warren, (D-MA):

“Seriously failed presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, just introduced an Amendment on the renaming of many of our legendary Military Bases from which we trained to WIN two World Wars. Hopefully our great Republican Senators won’t fall for this!”

That the bases are part of a “great American heritage”, is all the more reason that it is better late than never, to strip from them the attachment of the legacy of dishonor, shame and treason, according to many in the ranks of leadership in the U.S. armed forces.

One among them is David Petraeus, (someone whom I have admittedly given mixed reviews to in the past), a former US Army general and Director of the CIA who wrote an opinion piece in The Atlantic stating that the time has come to remove the “names of traitors like Benning and Bragg from our country’s most important military installations.”

“These bases are, after all, federal installations, home to soldiers who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Petraeus continued. “The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention. Now, belatedly, is the moment for us to pay such attention.”

Trump probably finds the name “Fort Bragg” appealing, on the basis that it describes one of his favorite and essential facets of communication.

Trump’s base is crumbling around the edges:

Media observers, including here at National Compass, have long been on the watch for signs of any softening of Trump’s support from those who marked the ballot for him in 2016. 

Until recently, most of the instances were still largely anecdotal, sporadic and non-dispositive.  No longer. Mind you, we’re only describing the earliest indications of a trend, but a trend it is, nonetheless.

The American Bridge PAC, active since 2017, is an org with the mission statement of “flipping state legislatures, protecting and expanding our majority in the House, winning governor’s mansions, taking back the Senate, and above all else, removing Donald Trump from the White House.” American Bridge now has a series of ads that feature former Trump voters. 

Here is a sample – this from a voter and military vet in Wisconsin:

Trump on the skids

For the first time, Trump’s numbers in the Gallup organization’s survey of his approval rating, have dropped noticeably. 

As this chart from Gallup.com indicates, Trump actually started off the year with approvals topping out at 49 percent, which were considered by most observers to be outliers and inconsistent with many other credible polling organizations.

This ran all thorough from January into April and now for the end of May, Trump’s approval has plunged 10 points, which runs in tandem with head to head matchups with Joe Biden when voters are asked which of the two men they intend to vote for in November.

Also, some interesting data points from an NBC / Wall Street Journal poll conducted within the week and a half past. 

NBC / WSJ learned from the survey group of registered voters contacted by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, that 80 percent believe that “things in the U.S. are out of control.” 

Mask or no mask – that is the question

The poll also found evidence of what we have been conjecturing for some time now – that whether you wear a mask or protective face covering in public places such as retail stores, is indicative of whether you are conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, pro-Trump or anti-Trump / #NeverTrump.  From the report:

A majority — 63 percent — say they always wear a mask when shopping, going to work or interacting with other people in public. Another 21 percent say they sometimes wear a mask. Seven percent say they wear a mask “rarely” and just eight percent say they never wear one.

But despite generally widespread mask-wearing, Republicans are more likely to follow Trump’s lead by expressing reluctance to donning protective masks.

Among the 15 percent of adults who say they rarely or never wear a mask, 83 percent plan to support Trump over Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential contest. Among those who say they always wear a mask in public, 66 percent choose Biden over Trump.

Check out our full collection of Adios to Trump apparel and merchandise.

“just malice, ignorance and base impulses.”

As a response to Trump’s acceptance and promotion of a demented conspiracy theory suggesting that the 75 year old victim of Buffalo P.D. riot response team, Martin Gugino –  was tied in with some unidentified Antifa group, one reader of the Los Angeles Times, submitted this rejoinder as a letter to the editor. We liked it too, so here it is:       

To the editor: 

In case Americans needed any more evidence, President Trump’s disgusting tweet about Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old peace activist who was violently shoved by police in Buffalo, should make it clear: The president is hopelessly immersed in dumb conspiracy theories, always has been and always will be. (“Trump vilifies elderly protester as his campaign struggles to relaunch,” June 9)

Trump’s supporters continue to love him because he validates their own grievances and conspiracy theories. Republicans can count on him to appoint right-wing judges and sign legislation benefiting their fossil fuel and corporate donors.

No matter how often Trump’s motivations are examined for strategy, there’s no there there — just malice, ignorance and base impulses. He will keep shooting off his mouth at every opportunity to make his character glaringly obvious until the voters throw him out in November.

Wendy Blais, North Hills

Forbes magazine also reports that Mr. Gugino, has been informed by his doctor that the shockingly aggressive and callous act on the part of the two officers which put him flat on his back with blood pouring out of his head, has resulted in permanent injury:

Attorney For Elderly Buffalo Man Pushed By Police Says His ‘Brain Is Injured’

“He is starting physical therapy today, which is definitely a step in the right direction,” his attorney said.

by Richard Cameron

Not quite a level playing field for Women’s Professional Football

It probably isn’t a surprise the only major European women’s professional football (what we Americans annoyingly call “soccer”) league that is planning on finishing its season this COVID-19-plagued year is in Germany, a country led by a woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Frauen Bundesliga restarted its season with league leaders VfL Wolfsburg cruising to an easy 4-0 victory over ninth place FC Koln on May 29th, just four days after the English Super League, widely considered the second best women’s league in the world after the National Women’s Soccer League in the United States, announced they were ending their year. 

The NWSL will be the first U.S. professional team sport to return to action when teams meet in Utah to play a 25-match tournament compressed over just 30 days to determine the 2020 national champions.

It took Germany’s biggest four men’s clubs, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Bayer 04 Leverkusen, pitching in the funding to start the German women’s league. 

The clubs reportedly donated $2 million to provide the women’s clubs with the resources needed to implement security and hygiene protocols to make sure players were safe enough to begin play. 

The women’s clubs themselves couldn’t afford the additional costs because funding for their teams falls far short of support fans give the men’s game.

And that money is what motivated most European league’s decisions about restarting their 2020 football schedules.  The leading football leagues in Europe are in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy.  Of the men’s leagues, only France has cancelled the year.  But for the women’s game, so far, only Germany is playing.

The cancellation of England’s Super League stung the most.  Despite claiming it supported professional leagues across the Kingdom, presumably including top female players, the English Football Association (FA) failed to live up to its hype.

“The FA and Premier League will talk the talk when it comes to equality and ‘football for all’ but it seems an asterisk needs attaching and a footnote saying ‘unless it asks questions of the might and morals of the market-driven Premier League,’ wrote Suzanne Wrack, a football writer for the Guardian Newspaper in England.

Unlike the German federation, where solidarity between the men’s and women’s leagues allowed both to continue and finish their seasons, the English soccer leadership only cared about the men’s league, according to Ms. Wrack.

Two of the questions put to clubs in the WSL and the Championship this past week (in May) were whether clubs could possibly meet the necessary safety requirements to finish the season and whether they have the financial resources to do so. We have the opposite of German solidarity, with the onus on individual clubs to magic their way through this crisis. That has an effect on morale. If clubs fear they cannot provide a safe environment, and players feel their clubs cannot do so unaided, of course they are going to favour cancellation.

The lack of financial support, the lengthy period of uncertainty and an unwillingness to bring football’s resources together to navigate this crisis means the feedback to the FA’s questions will likely go only one way, because they have engineered it to make completion unviable, risky and scary.

The FA has also made it clear that women’s football exists only as a PR move to pacify female supporters of the men’s game.  If that wasn’t the case, with six of the ten wealthiest clubs in the world (Germany has only one – F.C.Bayern Munich) the FA could have easily matched and exceeded what the men’s Bundesliga did for its women’s teams. 

English female fans should remember that the next time they spend big money on tickets to the men’s matches.

by Tony Wyman

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