As I am enjoying my java this morning I am thinking about the blow-back from Thursday's Atlantic story about Cheeto's attitude toward the military.
I don't normally circle back on my coffee musings, but this one is getting so much response that I am making an exception. Maybe, if the public reacted to Cheeto's original attack on the war record of John McCain during the 2016 campaign as they seem to be reacting now, we might have been spared the last four year. Unfortunately, the base seemed to have opted for a "if I shot someone on 5th Avenue" attitude which let Cheeto off the hook. Anyway, I haven't seen this much turmoil from a story in a long time. Cheeto seems to be really sweating this one and is in full time damage control mode.
My feeling is you 'reap what you sow.' When you tell over 20,000 lies during your tenure and people believe you are lying every time you move your lips, denial has a very week launch platform. Also, when you start your denial with a verifiable lie it is even weaker. Cheeto began his damage control scenario with a denial that he ever called John McCain a 'loser,' yet the news outlets played back his video and showed his tweet with his actual 'loser' comments. This kind of gets the whole denial thing off to a bad start. I think the coup d'etat on this denial trip was when Fox news reporter, Jennifer Griffin, independently confirmed key details of the story. I think when Fox turns on Trump it is almost like having your niece write a 'tell all' book about your character flaws.
I could go on about all the ancillary behaviors that Trump has displayed toward the military like diverting budget money from military programs to build his cockamamie wall, etc, but I'm not sure it matters at this juncture. If you are a Cheeto supporter, no amount of data that challenges your cognitive dissonance is going to matter. You are going to ride that horse until it drops. I just have to say if you were a 'sucker' for serving your country because Trump thinks activities that don't have an ROI are a waste, imagine what he thinks about the voter who votes for him. If you vote for an incumbent who passes tax relief for the rich, mocks our allies, trashes the environment, is slowly destroying the USPS, mismanages the worst pandemic in history, who do you think is laughing at the suckers from whom he conned their vote?
On that note I am moving on to another topic while my crumpet enjoys the heat of the toaster oven.