I was thinking something this morning, sitting inside a hotel room in Delaware.
There are local political figures I like and local political figures I dislike and local political figures I abhor. For example, Will O’Neill, head of the Orange County GOP, is a floating turd in a yellow bowl. Gracey Van Der Mark is 854 flavors of crazy. Pat Burns is a sad tress stump. Lisa Davis is naive and simple.
But … they’re also humans. Like, as objectionable as I find Davis, I have no doubt she’s a loving wife and mother who bakes apple pies for teachers. One can object to another person’s approach/directives/desires while also acknowledging they possess positive human traits and characteristics.
That being said …
By now I have watched the Vivek ad featuring Amy Acton’s mother myriad times. It is horrible and grotesque and beyond comprehension. You know your political opponent endured a childhood where she was raped by her stepfather, so (instead of expressing empathy) you dig up her long-estranged mother (a woman Acton has not spoken to in decades) to … bash her?
For real?
This will go down, inarguably, as one of the most misguided political moves in United States history. I suspect (knock on wood) it’s the October Surprise Vivek launched on himself, and a hopeful death knell to his stupid campaign.
But while everything about it is disturbing, here is what got me the most:
And …
I …
I mean …
I mean …
I …
Staggering.
Seriously, in a nation of 330 million people, how did this happen? I can’t even understand it. Everyone (literally everyone) knows rape is bad—except for the dude we elected president. Everyone (literally everyone) knows trauma is real—except for the dude we elected president. It is all a contest to him. All a competition to see who can reach the bottom in the fastest time. I don’t know how one winds up this repugnant, but I also don’t know how someone this repugnant winds up president of the United States.
Evidently POTUS is now officially and publicly supporting child sexual abuse and pedophile apologists. When will this nightmare end? When will Republicans find their souls? Or is it already too late for that?
It's kinda right there in your post, Jeff.
"I don’t know how one winds up this repugnant, but I also don’t know how someone this repugnant winds up president of the United States."
It's because Burns and O'Neil and those like them are NOT human. They are NOT loving or rational or reasonable. They are the monsters that drove us into this ditch, willingly. Vivek and Trump are scum, but they wouldn't be where they are if they weren't rewarded for it, by people like Burns and O'Neil.