by Tony Wyman

A Message To MAGA: We Have Had Enough Of Your Tantrum. Time To Grow Up.

I woke this morning to a phone call from a friend of mine, a doctor who spends her days treating COVID-19 patients, who has watched many die, telling me that her mother passed away late last night from the virus.

This amazing, kind, brilliant, compassionate woman, who already lost the man of her dreams to cancer, watched her mother suffer the same death that more than 300,000 of our fellow Americans have experienced because of the incompetence, cruelty and treachery of Donald Trump and the people who support him.

Of course, whenever someone correctly cites Trump’s irresponsibly negligent lack of a coherent response to COVID-19, the knee-jerk MAGA retort, predictably, is whatever the latest, often self-contradictory, lie told by Donald Trump happens to be:

“It’s a hoax. No, not the virus, the Democrats’ weaponizing the virus.  But it is a real threat. But one for which I take no responsibility.  And the governors are at fault for not doing enough to stop it.  Except for the ones that did too much, which they only did to try to hurt me. Plus, it is China’s fault for not telling us about the outbreak, even though we had the world’s most advanced system to spot a pandemic, and I saved two million lives by shutting down flights from China, even though that didn’t really happen in time, and the two million number came from a modeling scenario that was completely unlikely to happen! Hillary’s emails!!!!”

Utter BS.

For five years, I have written thousands of things exposing the truth about Donald Trump.  Thousands of much better writers have done the same.  Everything we have all written is easily verifiable, easily shown to be true.

Dozens of people close to Trump, including his niece, including former cabinet officials, including even Bill Barr, it now seems, have turned against him.  Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a four-star Marine general, called Trump “…the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people.”  He added that Trump and those who support him have “…made a mockery of our Constitution.”

Richard Spencer, a Marine aviator and Trump’s former Secretary of the Navy, who resigned after the president intervened in the military justice case against Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was described as “freaking evil” by those he served with after he stabbed to death a sedated and injured 17-year-old enemy combatant, said, “It was also a reminder that the President has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”

He added Trump’s intervention in the case was “shocking and unprecedented.”

Marine Four-star General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, used more cautious language, but made clear his thoughts about the character of the president, when he said, “I think we need to look harder at who we elect. I think we should look at people that are running for office and put them through the filter: What is their character like? What are their ethics?”

Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, accused his former boss of helping Russia’s cyber war against America, saying, “He is aiding and abetting Putin’s efforts by not being direct about this.”

He added:

“This sustained campaign of disruption, disinformation and denial is aided by any leader who doesn’t acknowledge it…Russia is the primary problem in this area. This is why I think the president has to be much stronger in condemning this effort to really reduce our confidence in who we are as Americans.”

Cliff Sims, former director of White House message strategy, said Trump keeps an “enemies list” of people that includes members of his own administration.  Omarosa Manigualt Newman, former White House director of communications, said Trump is a racist who privately used racial epithets to describe civil rights leaders and grieving black widows. Anthony Scaramucci, another one of Trump’s former communication directors, said, “Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country.”

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson chose not to confirm, during congressional testimony, that he believed Trump was guided by American values like respect for democracy and freedom.

And on and on and on.  One Trump insider after another, people closest to the president, criticized not his policies, but his character, morality, honor and fitness to serve.

Yet you, MAGA, continue to support the man who is literally destroying this country.  You wrap yourselves in American flags, load up on ammo, sign up for Parler, a haven for America’s worst extremists, and hunker down in your silos, waiting for word from the draft dodger you laughably call a warrior, to make the next move in the (what is it now?) 6D chess match you unbelievably think this intellectual speed bump of a man is playing.

Enough.  Those of us who love this country, who are rational, who aren’t easily manipulated by a con artist, who don’t allow our emotions to overrule our intellects, have had enough of your crap.

We are sick and tired of your feeble attempts to justify your support for Trump.  “Oh, I know he’s a terrible man, but I support his tax policies.” Really?  Then why can’t you explain, in detail, what those policies are?  Why when I ask you to tell me what happens in Trump’s plan in 2021, you don’t know?  Hint, its a tax increase.

“No, I mean, I support his plan to end abortion!”  Really?  Then show me where he’s introduced legislation to end it?  I haven’t seen it, but maybe it is hiding behind the wall between us and Mexico that hasn’t been built or paid for by the Mexican people. Trump has done less to reduce abortions than George W. Bush. Instead he’s used abortion as an emotional device to sucker anti-abortion zealots into supporting his presidency.

“But he supported the Mexico City Policy,” you say, citing the ban that prohibits foreign nations receiving family planning aid from the United States to mention abortion as an option to those patients receiving counseling.

Shocking news: according to the medical journal The Lancet, the ban actually increases abortions by up to 40%! But far-right anti-abortion site Life News didn’t tell you that, so it must not be true, right?  I mean, just because organizations that measure media bias call the site “hyper-partisan right” with “mixed reliability” doesn’t mean you should believe a research-backed medical journal’s scientific study of the actual results of policy decisions instead of an advocacy website with a political agenda!  Hillary’s emails!!

“But he gave the keynote speech at the 2020 ‘March for Life.’!”  You mean the one with the slogan, “Pro-life is Pro-woman,” that one?  Do you see the irony in that?  No, of course you don’t.  Instead, you cheered a man who cheated on all three of his wives, who bragged about sexually assaulting women, who told Howard Stern it was okay for him to call his own daughter, Ivanka, a “piece of ass.”

You stuck with, enthusiastically so, a man who said it was “check out time” in relationships when women reach 35, who called walking backstage while contestants were changing “inspecting the pageant,” who described attempting to bed a married woman as “moving on her like a bitch,” who claimed his fame gave him the right to grab women by their vaginas.

A man who caged brown children, separating them from their mothers, some forever, gave a speech that was little more than a cynical political stunt, so full of self-aggrandizing propaganda Dallas pro-life activist Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa called it “a toxic cloud of groupthink.”

Got news for you, so-called “pro-life” Trump supporters: you can’t be pro-life if you support a president who says “It is what it is” about the deaths of 300,000 Americans from a virus that he made worse by sabotaging the efforts of responsible governors and members of the medical community trying their best to fight the damn disease.

Don’t try to include yourself in the group of truly pro-life people who oppose abortion and who enthusiastically defend post-birth life with the same passion, if you are running around stupidly claiming being asked to wear a mask is a violation of your human rights.

Don’t rail against governors closing businesses, churches and schools to protect the lives of their people when you yourself prove they were right to do so, in the first place.

After all, if you won’t voluntarily wear a mask or limit trips to ones that are vital because you believe Trump, who thinks windmill noise causes cancer, over world-renowned immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, who, you know, isn’t an idiot and who actually took his own tests to get into medical school, what did you expect your governor to do?  Stand by and say, “It is what it is? I don’t take responsibility at all?” (That question is rhetorical if you live in Florida.)

If you toss your mask in the back of your pickup, the one with Trump “No More Bullshit” flags flying off the bed, when you go to the gun store to buy more ammo because of, you know, “antifa,” you are the reason your governor shut things down and why we are still stuck in this mess.

Oh, and before you say “Hospitals are normally at 76% capacity during flu season” as a way to minimize the severity of COVID, let me ask you to remind me of the last flu season that we closed down all the sports leagues, cancelled concerts, made weddings virtual, held kids back from school, stopped going to the office to work, washed our hands every time we touched something, wore masks, and kept six feet apart?  Yeah, never.

And, guess what, with all of those precautions, our hospital capacity fill rate is at 75% nationally. Much higher in areas of greater population density.  Where would we be if we just ignored our responsibility to our fellow Americans?  If our governors didn’t think it was important to “promote the general welfare” of their states?

Yes, whatever BS you believe from confirmation bias sites like OAN and Newsmax (whose founder, Chris Ruddy, once said, “I might not like Hillary’s liberalism, but I don’t dislike her on a personal level — as I do Rudy. Rudy Giuliani is a bad person.”), facts are facts.  And, enough of them compiled together equal the truth.

Speaking of truth, yes, now we are going to talk about the dumbest thing you believe in.  “Sleepy Joe stole our election!“

The 2020 Vote

Oh my.  Where to start?  Let’s start with this gem of a fact, one that adds up to the truth.  Before the election, Trump’s own State Department invited a delegation of members from the Organization of American States to observe the election.

The mission of the OAS, among other things, is to promote representative democracy by ensuring elections are fair and free.  It is the world’s oldest regional organization and is made up of 35 nations in the American hemisphere.

November 3rd, members were sent to battleground states, like those the Trump Campaign has since sued, to observe the process and execution of the voting in those hotly contested areas.  What they found was no evidence of any impropriety.  Well, other than from the Trump Campaign itself.

“On Election Day, the members of the Mission were present at polling places in Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and the District of Columbia, and observed the process from the opening of the polling centers through to the close of polls and the deposit of voting materials with the appropriate local authorities,” the OAS report on the election stated. “Members of the Mission also visited tabulations centers to observe the tallying of result. In the jurisdictions that it observed, the Mission found that the day progressed in a peaceful manner.”

However, the delegations did observe “clear examples of intimidation of electoral officials” by supporters of the Trump campaign.  You guys.

In a direct shot at Trump, the OAS report added, “In his statement the Republican candidate cast further aspersions on the US electoral process, stating that ‘This is a case where they’re trying to steal an election. They’re trying to rig an election and we can’t let that happen.’ The OAS observers deployed in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia did not witness any of the aforementioned irregularities.”

It added that the OAS supports the rights of candidates to seek redress if they feel the election was conducted unfairly, but “It is critical, however, that candidates act responsibly by presenting and arguing legitimate claims before the courts, not unsubstantiated or harmful speculation in the public media.”

In addition to the assessment of the OAS the election was not rigged, not a single top state election official, not even ones in deep red states like Oklahoma, Mississippi or South Carolina, claimed the election was flawed.  In fact, most stated the opposite, as did Trump’s own election cybersecurity expert, Chris Krebs, whose group, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called the election the “most secure in American history.”

In an unprecedented statement issued in their report, one clearly directed at those spreading lies about the election, the CISA said,

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.”

Krebs, widely considered one of the few people in the Washington bureaucratic establishment who is universally admired and respected by members of both parties, was summarily fired by Trump for doing his job.  See Anthony Scaramucci’s warning above.

Further accusations that the voting machines, some made by Dominion Voting Systems, were either tampered with or faulty, were quickly disproved.  One example included an error made by a worker who configured the machine’s ballot readers to record votes from a slightly different ballot than the one used in the election.

The mistake was made in the heavily Trump area of Antrim County, Michigan, which caused local officials to question the result showing Joe Biden winning by 3000 votes.  Republicans seized on it as proof of fraud, but election experts discovered the configuration error and corrected it, handing the county to Trump by 2500 votes.

These sorts of technical errors happen in all elections, even ones where paper ballots are used exclusively.  Everyone in politics knows this, since it has been true since the beginning of elections in this country.  This time, however, Republicans chose to present these routine and common errors as proof of a mass conspiracy.

But the lawyers representing Trump have never introduced evidence of widespread fraud in any of their 400 billion (slight exaggeration) lawsuits they have filed trying to overturn the election and hand the White House back to Vladimir Putin (slight exaggeration).  Why is this?

The simple answer is they don’t want to get disbarred.  Yes, believe it or not, lawyers have a strict code of ethics that actually prohibits them from knowingly lying in court.  I was shocked to hear this, too, but it is true.  The Bar Association, which sets standards for professional conduct and grants attorneys their license to practice, enforces a code called “Model Rules of Professional Conduct.” Rule 3.1 requires lawyers, as officers of the court, to faithfully represent the truth when arguing before a judge.

A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. 

So, Trump’s attorneys have not argued that the election was “rigged” or the vote was “fraudulent” because they know those claims are not true.  Even though Trump himself repeats that lie every day, multiple times a day, his lawyers won’t assert that in court because they know it is a lie, one that could get them punished by the Bar.

In fact, in one of the Pennsylvania cases, Trump’s lawyers even signed a statement saying they don’t allege voter fraud took place.  They wrote:

“Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any fraud in connection with the challenged ballots; Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any misconduct in connection with the challenged ballots; Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any impropriety in connection with the challenged ballots; Petitioners do not allege, and there is no evidence of, any undue influence committed with respect to the challenged ballots.”

Yet, Trump and you, MAGA, keep repeating the lie the election was rigged.  Not even Bill Barr, formerly one of Trump’s most loyal lap dogs, backs up your lie.  “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” he said.

He added, “There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all, and people don’t like something they want the Department of Justice to come in and ‘investigate.'”

So, that is where I will leave this.  I could go on, I suppose, and point out how Ted Cruz knowingly lied when he said Republican election observers were blocked from viewing the counts in Philadelphia, a claim Trump’s lawyers said was untrue in court during one of their suits that failed in that state.

I could add that it is patently silly to think Democrats would rig an election and leave such hated figures as Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and Louie Gohmert, in office, too.  Why rig the presidential election and not rig Georgia’s senate races, while you are at it?  President Biden, with control of both houses of Congress, would be a much more effective voice for change than he will be if Georgia’s races go to the GOP.

But, it is late and I want to move on, so here we go.   I am the parent of five children, so I know a temper tantrum when I see one.  And I also know there comes a time during those tantrums where all the liberal “use your words” parenting crap no longer makes sense and it becomes time to revert to good, old-fashioned Irish parenting.

“ENOUGH!”

We’ve reached that point with you, MAGA.  You’ve had your tantrum.  You’ve stomped your feet and held your breath and your face has turned purple.  We get it.  You didn’t get the orange pony for Christmas you wanted.  Well, as we heard in 2016, “elections have consequences.”

The consequence of this one is you need to grow up, act like real Americans, and quit being children.  If you don’t, you get to go to your room without dessert.  For four years.