“No, I don’t think he’s racist,” Graham said on the Snapchat show “Good Luck America.” “Here’s what I think: You can be black as coal, and if you like him, he likes you. You can be albino, and if he doesn’t like you, he doesn’t like you. He’s about him. If you like him, he probably likes you. There’s a flaw there, but no, I don’t think he hates people because of the color of their skin. I think he reacts to people as how they react to him. I really believe that.”
“It is what it is.”
From his interview in the NYT:
“There’s always this begrudging sense that black people are being granted something, when it’s white people’s lack of being able to live up to the defining words of the birth of the country that is the problem. There’s a lack of recognition of the difference in our system. Chris Rock used to do a great bit: ‘‘No white person wants to change places with a black person. They don’t even want to exchange places with me, and I’m rich.’’ It’s true. There’s not a white person out there who would want to be treated like even a successful black person in this country. And if we don’t address the why of that treatment, the how is just window dressing.
You know, we’re in a bizarre time of quarantine. White people lasted six weeks and then stormed a state building with rifles, shouting: ‘‘Give me liberty! This is causing economic distress! I’m not going to wear a mask, because that’s tyranny!’’ That’s six weeks versus 400 years of quarantining a race of people. The policing is an issue, but it’s the least of it. We use the police as surrogates to quarantine these racial and economic inequalities so that we don’t have to deal with them.“
From Politico, on Trump’s response to the NFL allowing players to kneel to protest racial injustice and NASCAR banning Confederate flags:
“He completely missed the boat,” said Rick Reilly, a former Sports Illustrated and ESPN contributor and the author of “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.”
“It’s like somehow his cable that comes into the White House is set in 1962, he’s so far behind,” Reilly added. “This is a watershed moment and he’s lost. It’s like your grandpa who thinks Joe DiMaggio is still playing.”
THE “GOOD OLD DAYS”
The “Good Old Days”
From the Washington Post, by Alexandra Petri:
Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?
— President Trump on Twitter
KNOW THE SIGNS: HOW TO TELL IF YOUR GRANDPARENT HAS BECOME AN ANTIFA AGENT
For your birthday, she knits you an unwanted scarf. To be used as a balaclava?
She belongs to a decentralized group with no leadership structure that claims to be discussing a “book,” but no one ever reads the book and all they seem to do is drink wine.
Is always talking on the phone with an “aunt” you have never actually met in person. Aunt TIFA????
Always walking into rooms and claiming not to know why he walked into the room. Likely.
He “trips” over and breaks your child’s Lego police station when walking through the living room in the dark.
Total and bewildering lack of nostalgia for good old days.
Gathers with loose-knit, disorderly group of figures you have never met to play “mah-jongg,” governed by mysterious “rule cards” issued annually from a nebulous central authority.
Suddenly, for no reason, will appear or pretend to be asleep.
Insists on producing container of nuts whenever there is company. Why? Code of some kind?
Carries peppermints (chemical irritant?) in purse at all times.
Is taking Centrum Silver. But for what reason? Surely to build up strength for the coming confrontation.
Keeps forwarding you what appear on the surface to be emails of jokes someone has typed out from a Reader’s Digest; claims to think you would “enjoy”; must be some sort of recruitment or propaganda or hidden message.
Hired a clown for your child’s birthday — part of the Juggalo command structure?
Big tin of Christmas popcorn mysteriously replenishes itself. WHO IS HELPING?!
You gave her a Precious Moments figurine of a law enforcement officer, but she hasn’t displayed it.
Remembers things from the past in incredible, exhausting detail, but recent ones only sporadically? Cover of some kind.
She claims not to know how to use her phone, yet always appears upside-down on FaceTime, which should be impossible without hacking capabilities.
If he is to be believed, he spends hours playing bridge.
He is walking non-threateningly at a public protest.
Looks suspect.
From CNN:
President Trump invoked George Floyd’s name during a Friday bill signing ceremony touting the latest jobs report, which exceeded economists’ expectations.”We all saw what happened last week. We can’t let that happen. Hopefully George is looking down and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. (It’s) a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody,” Trump said during a White House Rose Garden event before signing a piece of legislation devoted to small business loan flexibility.
“This is a great, great day in terms of equality,” Trump added.
From the Washington Post, by Alexandra Petri:
From Esquire, by Jack Holmes:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a32734159/trump-regime-protests-military/
From the Washington Post, by Alexandra Petri:
Such courage!
How fortunate we are to have as president the bravest man in America. A man who was not afraid — when even Joe Biden was standing above ground and meeting with protesters — to boldly go down into a secure bunker. Now that was an act of courage! Hiding under the ground, which is a scary place full of earthworms and moles (some could be malignant) and cicadas and very long roots! Secreting himself in a bunker of limited size, laughing in the face of claustrophobia, even though he was forced to confront head-on the terrifying fact that all the items around him might have been touched by Dick Cheney during his brief time in the same spot — only a very daring man would have the guts to venture there. Hiding below the White House, where Andrew Johnson’s ghost could possibly also be, at any time.
But his courage did not stop there. No! He was not afraid to pick up the telephone (always terrifying, because you cannot see your interlocutor, and sometimes you both start talking at the same time, which can haunt you for months afterwards) and yell at the nation’s governors that they needed to “dominate” and “get much tougher” and that “if you don’t dominate you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.” This was not just a sign of bravery, but also intelligence, demonstrating his laser-like ability to pinpoint the one remark that might soothe or offer even a tiny bit of reassurance during a trying time, and then say the exact opposite.
But it was not just by phone that his courage demonstrated itself. He did not merely speak, but also typed! He managed to violate Twitter’s terms of service by glorifying violence, the act of a very bold man. Behind a keyboard is the most frightening place of all to be, much scarier than standing in a protest, because you do not know, for starters, if the keyboard is entirely clean, and also you might make a typo. And staring at the screen to which the keyboard is attached could lead to eyestrain.
It took immense bravery to say the very worst things at a time such as this. But that is the kind of bravery for which Donald Trump has always been known. Not afraid to heap insult on injury on insult, bold enough to cower, wise enough to plant his foot firmly in his mouth. Whereas most leaders stop at pouring oil on troubled waters, Donald Trump is brave enough to set that oil on fire!
So brave! So dominant! He is a beacon in the night, just like the White House wasn’t.
I Tried Being Tasteful... 