It’s Not Funny Mr. Trump!
*The final straw for Henry Flores was Trump’s insinuation of violence against Hillary Clinton. Whether real or not, we’re glad it brought Henry out from his semi-retirement – *smirk*. VL
By Henry Flores, News Taco (4 minute read)
I was sort of enjoying my quiet semi-retirement from composing satirical commentary but the antics, missteps, and misstatements of The Donald, “The Hair Job Guy,” Mr. Tramp (er, Trump) have led me to make a comeback of sorts. Frankly, I was having a good time watching him stumble through the presidential campaign process but this past weekend he said something that turned what he said was a sarcastic comment into something potentially deadly serious.
This weekend he invited violence
[pullquote]. . . this weekend Mr. Trump took the fun out of watching him act like a clown.[/pullquote]Much has been said concerning Mr. Trump’s fitness to serve as the next President of the United States. Some pundits have questioned his sanity, others his temperament, still others his general deportment. However, this weekend Mr. Trump took the fun out of watching him act like a clown. This weekend he pretty much openly invited some unbalanced, angry, disengaged individual to commit one of the most heinous crimes in the nation. Mr. Trump practically called for the assassination of a sitting president.
Right at the very moment when the average voter is trying to make up her mind as to which of the candidates they wish to vote for, Donald Trump suggests that someone should assassinate Hillary Clinton if she were to win the election in November. Although this suggestion, in itself, is a situation that could have an ordinary individual arrested and investigated by the Secret Service, it is a situation with a great deal of gravitas because the call was made by a leading citizen and the representative of one of the major political parties running for the presidency. You or I could be thrown in jail but Mr. Trump? More importantly, few would take a suggestion from you or me seriously enough to attempt the assassination. That is not the case when someone as public and important politically as Mr. Trump who commands a great deal more media attention than you or I.
[pullquote] I think it is time for the American people to take his idiocies seriously.[/pullquote]What he said . . .
Mr. Trump stated, in a speech at Wilmington, North Carolina, that Hillary Clinton would appoint Supreme Court judges unfriendly to the Second Amendment right to bear arms and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her except…. Well, who else has the power to nominate Supreme Court justices other than a sitting president? So Trump, insisting that he was speaking of the voting power of Second Amendment supporters, suggested that the only way to stop Hillary from appointing judges after she was elected president was to….!
I’ve stopped giving Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt given his continuous misstatements and insults that he bandy’s about seemingly daily. I think it is time for the American people to take his idiocies seriously. Even though he always returns after hearing criticism of his latest faux pas and delivers some excuse for his behavior, excuses are not enough. Although we are all supposed to have constitutional protections for what we say the higher up the social and political ladder we ascend in the United States the more narrow the protection.
The presidency of the United States is a particularly unique and important position.
The individual who occupies this position leads the largest, most efficient, most powerful (in every way), country in the world. We are perceived as the envy of most liberal democracies globally because we are seen as the richest country but also the country that lies at the heart of the global economy. When we are functioning well the entire world is also and that’s just a simple fact. Our elected leadership, therefore, is perceived as the spokesperson for the world’s liberal democracies. This individual cannot be a jokester, cannot be sarcastic, he or she must be thoughtful and responsible for and in what they say. A mispronouncement by this individual can cause a war or economic collapse. Those who aspire to this lofty position must show the American people and the people of the globe that they are and will be responsible once in office—their wellbeing depends on it. When Mr. Trump said what he did about the Second Amendment he was not only responsible for what he said but how some of his followers and supporters interpreted what he said. He may indeed have been making a sarcastic comment but some of his supporters may have taken his words as a call to perpetrate a horrible crime. If Mr. Trump cannot act responsibly then he has no business being President of the United States and does not deserve the votes of Americans in November.
[Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr]
