Official White House Photo by Amy Rossetti
President Donald J. Trump, joined by First Lady Melania Trump, pardoned turkeys “Peas” and “Carrots” Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, during the traditional ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Donald Trump’s chilling Thanksgiving message this year, that “the world is a very, very vicious place,” wasn’t the usual uplifting encouragement for the American people to celebrate their blessings as loving families gather around a bountiful table. But, at least, it was fair warning about his own grim vision of our future together.
It’s normal whenever presidents call attention to the horrors of the world to promise nothing can prevent Americans, united in common purpose, from triumphing over adversity. But it’s often been said that Trump defies presidential norms. In a hostile, vicious world, he’s more of an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” kind of guy.
Trump was explaining why he doesn’t intend to order economic sanctions or end arms sales to Saudi Arabia just because U.S. intelligence agencies say the Saudi crown prince ordered the barbaric murder and dismemberment of a critical Saudi journalist who lived in the U.S. “Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a very, very vicious place,” the deeply philosophical Trump philosophized.
Trump sees nothing immoral or un-American about a U.S. foreign policy that curries favor with savage dictators around the world. Besides, the crown prince is a good pal of Trump’s own princely son-in-law, and the Saudis spend millions of dollars buying Trump real estate and renting whole floors in his luxury hotels. Such a foreign policy devoid of morality or democratic values should come as no surprise since Trump has completely removed morality and American values from his domestic policies as well. Despite that, many of Trump’s strongest supporters continue to call themselves evangelical Christians and patriotic Americans. No one knows why.
For Trump and his Republican supporters and apologists, there are far more terrifying concerns than Saudi Arabian butchers:
• Muslim assassins brandishing bone saws are our friends, but impoverished Latin Americans escaping poverty and gang violence are plotting to rape and kill you. Especially dangerous are women and children fleeing violence in Central America on foot across Mexico to invade the U.S. and murder Americans in their beds. Mixed in are lots of sinister Middle Easterners, and they aren’t those nice Saudis, either; they’re from those other scary Muslim countries from which Trump called for a travel ban—whichever countries those are.
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• As fast as undocumented immigrants could stream across the border, they lined up at polling places to cast illegal ballots for Democrats in the midterm elections. As Trump explained publicly, as soon as they voted, they would go outside and change shirts or put on a different hat and come back in and vote again. That’s why Georgia purged hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the voting rolls, closed polling places in black communities and passed an “exact match signature” voter registration law to prevent illegal votes for African American Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams. Trump demanded Florida stop even counting votes and declare Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Night the winners.
• In Wisconsin, Republicans were fortunate to continue controlling both houses of the state legislature through dishoest gerrymandering, even though Democrats defeated Gov. Scott Walker and every other Republican running statewide. As was true of Seate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the first concern of Wisconsin Republicans is to make sure Gov.-elect Tony Evers doesn’t succeed in improving the lives of Wisconsinites. If voters get what they voted for, they’ll just elect more Democrats. That will be easier when Evers forces the creation of fair voting districts after the 2020 census.
• On a more positive note, an honest report by scientists within Trump’s own government documenting the growing destruction from deadly wildfires, hurricanes, floods and droughts caused by climate change will finally alarm Trump and Republicans into reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to end the catastrophic human, economic and environmental devastation. Unfortunately, just kidding. There really was such a report mandated by Congress. Trump released it on Black Friday, hoping that everyone would be too busy fighting over large-screen TVs to pay any attention. Whenever the temperature drops, Trump still sends out ignorant tweets pretending climate change doesn’t exist. He won’t stop destroying environmental regulations that protect life on Earth until forced to do so by either Congress or the courts.
Trump escaped his own vicious world for a brief moment of quiet reflection over Thanksgiving. When he was asked what he was most thankful for, Americans already knew his answer: himself. He was clearly proud of everything he’s accomplished as president for himself and his family; you know, like that whopping big tax cut for the richest people in America. The rest of us got loose change out of that, but the midterms gave us plenty to be thankful for as well: Most of all, the results of the midterms have now created a real congressional check on Trump, rid Wisconsin of Walker and flipped Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania back into the Democratic column heading into the 2020 presidential election. Happy holidays!
