Arizonans join thousands across US in protests against Donald Trump
Arizonans protested outside the Arizona Capitol against President Donald Trump. The ‘Good Trouble Lives On’ protests were across the US.
- Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for $20 billion over a story about his contribution to Epstein’s 50th birthday album.
- Trump called for the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians to revert to their former names, considered by many to be offensive.
- Trump claims the U.S. is a “country of passion and common sense” despite his controversial actions and statements.
Donald Trump is desperate to distract his followers from a scandal of his own making, pulling out all the stops to try to get MAGA minions to talk and think about something else — anything else.
But buried in the garbage he’s spewing are two statements that really stand out as disturbing, like wheat from chaff, only whatever the opposite of that is.
Meanwhile, Trump celebrated six months in office for his second term as president the way you would expect him to — with a typically boastful, incoherent rant on Truth Social, his social-media platform.
He raved on July 20th about how “it’s being hailed as one of the most consequential periods of any President,” and goes on to say that, “One year ago our Country was DEAD, with almost no hope of revival. Today the USA is the ‘hottest’ and most respected Country anywhere in the World.”
Honestly, it’s most reminiscent of a 4-year-old (right down to the capitalization) writing a little fairy tale or something and expecting his parents to praise it as the best story ever written. It’s kind of funny, kind of pathetic.
Trump has been raving lately to distract from the Epstein files
Trump has been raving a lot lately, and doing lots of showy, brash things, even for him, as the MAGAverse melts down over his response to the so-called Epstein files. Before the election, Trump and some of his cronies (two of whom run the Justice Department and the FBI, respectively) often hinted at or downright boasted about names of people on a list kept by Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced sex offender who died by suicide while in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
In early July, the Justice Department and the FBI said there is no there there. There is no “incriminating list,” the departments said, and Epstein killed himself (conspiracy theorists thought otherwise). It’s an abrupt about-face that has blown up on Trump, who has desperately tried to distract everyone from the whole sordid affair.
For instance, on Sunday, July 20, Trump shared a fake video that “showed” Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office. This falls on the heels of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, saying a report by her office showed a “treasonous conspiracy in 2016” by Obama officials “manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork” for an FBI investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.
We’re past the point of most things being shocking with Trump, but this kind of is. It’s not just that a sitting president (or any president) reposting this garbage is stupid, though it is that. It’s that is also assumes a certain level of stupidity among the people who believe everything he says or posts.
All of that plays into the most disturbing things Trump has said or posted over the last few days.
Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion
The first is what he told the Wall Street Journal when the paper asked him for comment about a story that Trump contributed a poem and crude drawing to an album of letters from friends of Jeffrey Epstein for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter, not surprisingly. It’s what he said next that is concerning.
“I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.”
And so he did, filing a $20 billion libel suit against the publisher and reporters. In one hilarious claim, Trump’s lawyers write, “The Article was published in The Wall Street Journal as an exclusive. However, since publication, Defendants have widely disseminated it to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”
You don’t say. Tell me you don’t know how journalism works without telling me you don’t know how journalism works.
What’s so wrong here is the idea of just suing any outlet that reports something you don’t like. And yet Paramount and ABC News have settled suits with Trump for tens of millions of dollars — suits that most legal experts believe they could have won. This is dangerous territory, a direct threat to the First Amendment and legitimate reporting ― and the lack of courage is dispiriting. Trump, meanwhile, smells blood and keeps suing. There is nothing to indicate that he will stop.
Maybe the Wall Street Journal will show the courage the others lacked.
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Trump is demanding a return to offensive sports names
In the midst of all this, Trump also decided to demand that the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians change their names back to the Redskins and Indians, respectively, names considered offensive ― thus the changes. No one is seriously calling for this. It’s a battle that’s been fought and won. Why on earth would anyone, much less the President of the United States, start this argument again?
Oh. Epstein. Right.
Anyway, in the middle of a rant about all this, Trump also threatened to scuttle a deal the Commanders announced in April to build a new stadium in Washington, D.C. if the team doesn’t change the name back.
Sigh. Yes, it’s all as ridiculous as it sounds, the desperate moves of a man possessed by distracting people. But there was something else that really struck me in his screed, something that, like his willingness to sue anyone for anything at any time (and enjoy the backing of the U.S. Supreme Court while he’s at it), sums up his worldview and that of his followers, including the majority of the Republican party: “Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense.”
Times are definitely different. But in what way does this make us a country of passion and common sense? It makes us a country that is willing to offend and hurt others just for Trump to make himself feel better, and MAGAworld (at least the ones who aren’t mad about Epstein) follows along unquestioningly.
Terrifyingly, we’re only one-eighth of the way through.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. What are you waiting for?
