Ending Trump's 'rough hour'

I will go down writing

Madness is the monster in the closet as Election Day approaches. For example, Donald Trump says Kamala Harris wants to ban cows and windows.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, after pointing out that Trump said the same thing about Joe Biden in 2020, writes, "Four years later, there are still 87 million head of cattle on U.S. farms. And the multibillion-dollar U.S. window market is growing steadily. Yet it didn't occur to Trump to defenestrate these wacky claims."

Defenestration is execution by throwing people out windows. Someone once told me defenestration is a synonym for masturbation, which is true only if it is done with extreme carelessness.

This election could be a referendum on America's original sin, embodied in the hypocrisy of a slave owner declaring that "all men are created equal." The contrast between our creed and our conduct has driven 248 years of struggle.

We are days away from learning whether our constitutional republic will endure or be ripped apart by people who object to being called racist while voting for a man who says, "We're like a garbage can for the rest of the world to dump the people they don't want."

Vice President Harris, the most qualified presidential nominee in living memory, is the only real alternative to a disastrous return to power by Trump. Those who say they don't know enough about her are hardly credible, considering they know enough about her opponent to disqualify him many times over.

Trump says "one rough hour" by police will end crime. He is not referring to his own crimes.

Soviet-era Russia made it a crime to possess a photo of anyone who had been purged and rendered a non-person. Hitler's Germany forced the exile of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, whose Institute for Sexual Science was looted and its books burned by Nazis in 1933.

What makes anyone think Trump, who admires Putin and echoes Hitler in calling minority populations vermin, would spare queer folk?

As for me, it is fruitless to try to erase the hundreds of commentaries I wrote that remain online, including my 2015 year-in-review in the Washington Blade titled "Year of the Arsonist" and illustrated with a photo of the Reichstag Fire. The arsonist, naturally, was Trump.

In the intervening years I have cursed and mocked him, sometimes simultaneously. I might as well throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Honestly, any fear I might have is overcome by indignation. Those commentators willing to kowtow endlessly to an ignorant thug are already with him.

The rest of us will go down writing.

Harris showed the right stuff with her strong, confident handling of a hostile interview with Bret Baier on Fox News. She did not let herself be rolled. Afterward, Baier said he "made a mistake" by running the wrong clip of Trump. Was it a mistake when he repeatedly talked over her? Harris didn't let him get away with erasing Trump's talk of an "enemy from within" and threat to use the military against domestic opponents.

Why be intimidated by a man who, as Harris points out, is unhinged and doesn't know what he's talking about? His abuses are too many to review here. He may hope to win by wearing us down.

A British friend advises me to keep a packed bag ready in case I find myself like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca taking the last train out of Paris. I live in a town where every other person thinks they're the lead character, so the train will be awfully crowded.

Trump is deteriorating before our eyes; but he was never a prize. Facebook reminds me of something I posted in 2019: "Trump's ignorance and refusal to prepare are a continual source of embarrassment. He called Italian President Sergio Mattarella 'President Mozzarella.' He called American DefSec Mark Esper 'Mark Esperanto.' He calls the Asian countries Nepal and Bhutan 'Nipple' and 'Button.' He referred to the nonexistent African country Nambia. Next he'll invite General Tso to a summit meeting." (General Tso, it turned out, was too chicken to show up.)

Worse than stupidity are fascism (which has threatened America before) and disrespect for our fallen warriors. Neither can ever be accepted.

Trump has said so much beyond the pale that for people to continue supporting him shows they like him for his sociopathy rather than despite it.

Our Founders, in declaring independence from Great Britain, pledged "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Upholding honor, decency and sanity requires electing Kamala Harris.

Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at [email protected].

Copyright © 2024 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.