One of the things that I have been hearing a lot about this weekend is that Trump bombed Syria to distract from the Russia investigation. This could be true, but several things are also happening. My last post about Ann Coulter sparked a lot of debate and that is a good thing. A lot of people spoke about what a vile person she is and that too, is a good thing. The core of what I was saying is that despite the content of what she is saying, she has the will to say it. That is the key to why they are winning; the will to speak, knowing nothing while we don't.
Sometimes, speaking what may be true feels icky, for lack of a better term, because of the timing. The people who get the message out do not have such compunction and that may be why the bad guys win. These are the people who are in the trenches, the Deplorables and the trolls whose first thought when seeing a Hillary Clinton stumble at the 9/11 Memorial was not, "Oh my goodness, I hope she is ok." but immediately begin working on screen captures of the moment and memes that only they think are funny. These are the people who think up things like Comet Pizza has a basement where children are being molested by the Secretary of State who somehow slips her Secret Service detail along with many other higher ups to go and do some nefarious thing in a crowded pizza place. These are the people with the disgusting will after children were killed at Sandy Hook to start spreading the rumor within hours that it was completely fake.
Trump bombed Syria on Friday. Why? A number of articles came out immediately as we began to get battle damage assessment (BDA) of the ordeal. First, we see that not too much damage was inflicted on the airfield as they were up and running again the next day. He told the Russians that he was going to do it so they could move their equipment and personnel. No doubt Assad's troops knew as well and were able to think about a three day weekend they were likely to get.
What was the intent? Were we meant to stare in awe as missiles flew into the night and be dumbfounded by the might of the U.S. military to the point that we would forget the myriad things going on?
Logic like that is predicated on the notion that the American people do not have the bandwidth to think about more than one thing at a time. I am still peeved about the Yemen debacle which Trump seemed to only engage in because President Obama would not authorize it when he was in office.
Let me state that I do not think that Trump is a thoughtful man. By that I mean that I was unmoved by his moment in the White House Rose Garden talking about the "little babies" that were harmed or killed in Assad's gas attack. More people in Syria die from regular ole bombs than from gas attacks, so why the change now? In fact, earlier in the week, both Secretary of State Tillerson and Ambassador Haley said that the administration's position would basically to leave the Assad regime be. Also, keep in mind that Trump screamed that intervention in Syria would be a big mistake in 2013. The Republicans were ready to sue Pres. Obama over intervening without congressional approval. What changed? "Gas Attack" was trending. That is all. Trump is running the administration based on what is most popular. End of story.
This is also very telling about his personality and temperament as well as ours. In light of Thursday and Friday's events, what is our policy on Syria? Who knows? We will apparently find out the next time something happens. If it gets enough "likes" America will do something. If not, well...
This whole administration is being run moment to moment and the best many of us can do is hang on for the ride.
It seemed the biggest goal of the attacks on Syria were pretty simple. To get Americans to snap-to, salute the flag, and forget about everything else that has ever been said or done by Trump. He didn't "become Presidential" as Fareed Zakaria put it. He muddied the waters.
We need to be able to say so in the moment. Sometimes it feels bad. Sometimes it feels wrong to talk about the motives of a president in the moment, as bullets are flying. The interesting thing is that never stopped anyone on the right from taking the opposite position and that may be part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now. That may be part of the reason that mess will get worse. We need to be able to speak out about things as they happen. We need someone to be the a-hole, in short and call BS ...and keep calling BS...When these things happen.
Having been called a "liberal snowflake" and many other things in the past year, we see that the core of the right-wing is to condemn those who are nice and good. So, Angry Liberal, if I can say something, don't feel bad especially if you are speaking the truth. Do it quickly and forcefully, because the bullies and the liars will not wait.
Be faster than the lies and spin,
Writ Large
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