I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but Tucker Carlson is hack. He is a right wing, dog whistling, opportunistic hack who cares more about placating his cribbed viewer base than making cogent points or saying things with any kind of value. He repackages bargain basement talking points that high school debate students use when throwing mock cases together. He provides no value in terms of discourse, and more than that, he knows it. He’s been told to his face by better men than me that he sucks (Jon Stewart…where are you? We need you…). Anyway, recently one of his bigoted dog whistle diatribes where he suggested that helping poor people was bad for the bottom line, which lead him to suggest that immigrants make America “dirtier”, caused some of his sponsors to FINALLY take notice that he’s a scumbag. As of this writing, 4 of his sponsors dropped him, and it looks like he might lose more in short order. This of course caused him to give a non-apology where he unconvincingly said that he did indeed like immigrants and immigration. As it turns out, that didn’t help his situation. Do I expect this to collapse his career? Unfortunately, no, but it is nice to see that unlike Sean Hannity or Donald Trump, some bad people know that this level of humiliation is supposed to be a bad thing. But make no mistake, the only thing making America dirtier are people like Tucker Carlson.
Did it surprise anyone to find out that Trump’s resorts hired undocumented immigrants? The man is a notorious corner cutter who doesn’t like to pay people a fair wage. Of course he was going to have undocumented workers! But the beauty of the situation, of course, blossoms out far past just errant employment. Indeed, the best part of the story was some of the stories of the women who have come forward to blow the whistle on it. Because you know people on Trump’s side would want to make the case that he was unaware and appalled, but that becomes harder to validate when you find out how close he literally was to the situation. One of them recounted cleaning his room and doing his laundry, including (the poor woman) having to iron his boxer shorts. The woman who told this story spoke no English and performed tasks directly for Trump. More so, she also claimed the management helped to obtain fraudulent documents to help avoid detection. So the big take away is that illegal immigrants are the blight of the nation, unless they’re ironing Donald Trump’s boxer shorts.
So I’ve been reading articles about trade negotiations with China, and one of their big complaints is consistency. They’re frustrated because Donald Trump doesn’t seem to know what he wants out of a trade deal, and keeps moving the goal post, regardless of how willing they seem to be in dealing. And the more I think about that, the more I can put into context things like Trump declaring that illegal immigrants should be kicked out of the countries, no due process, despite that being unconstitutional to the extreme. Trump is basically a toddler. He has expectations that he’s going to be taken care of in every aspect of his life. If he wants something, like a toddler, he doesn’t take into consideration what it takes to get it, or even if it’s permissible. That doesn’t even cross his mind. He just knows that he wants something, and that the people around him, like a toddler’s understanding of his parents, are there to make that happen. But unlike actual parents, the people around Trump are ACTUALLY there to make his whims happen, which has meant skirting the law and the very foundations of what is allowed.
I kind of feel bad for Melania Trump. I feel like the people who should be worried about her optics aren’t doing their job. Now, realistically, no one should have needed to tell her that it was inappropriate to wear a jacket that said “I really don’t care, do u?” in big white letters on the back while visiting a detention center holding kids separated from their parents. But fashion was previously a big part of her life, and I suppose that jacket is fashionable, and perhaps this was just a blindspot. But blindspot or not, as the first lady, especially in this administration, maybe putting herself in a position where her sincerity is put into question wasn’t the best of ideas.
So after weeks of claiming that the separation of families at the borders was both A) Out of his hands/Not his fault and B) A totally necessary thing, Donald Trump is signing an executive order to end the vile practice that has been the result of persecuting and prosecuting asylum seekers, hoping to find refuge from awful conditions at home. On a near daily basis, Trump has claimed that this practice was the result of legislation enacted by Democrats and that it was on them to fix it. He claimed with vigor that there was nothing he could do. Now, a number of high ranking government officials who know the logistics of this predicament have very vocally disagreed that this was out of his hands. That he could make this go away with a phone call. That this practice was part of a wider protocol to deter immigrant asylum seekers from seeking refuge. Trump vehemently denied this was the case. Then on Wednesday, he went and basically made the call he claimed he was incapable of making. If the weight of that ridiculousness gives you a headache, well, welcome to the United States of America!
I have to say, Donald Trump shows just how quickly a hot streak can end. He as riding pretty high on the end ride of his North Korea summit. Regardless of the criticisms you could throw his way regarding how he handled it, the fact is that it seems like, for the time being, tensions have been de-escalated. That is a positive development. Couple that with his already improving approval numbers, which regardless of your opinion on it, is undoubtedly true, and Trump is sitting kind of pretty at the start of the summer. Then his treatment of asylum seekers and families at the border comes to light, the separation of families at the border, the literal cages children are being kept in, the concentration camp comparisons, the blatant lies about who is at fault for this process, saying he hates it and is blameless while simultaneously defending it’s necessity….it’s been a real fiasco. Now he’s withdrawing the US from the United Nations Human Rights council, citing Israel’s treatment, but the sheer irony of that in the face of how we’re treating immigrants…Listen, I can’t give you approval ratings numbers, but spoiler alert, several polls have shown consistently that the MAJORITY of people are pretty damn nonplussed about this whole separation of families thing. The guy is very much playing a one step forward, 2 steps back kind of game.
I’m not saying one SHOULD call the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement hotline and report seeing an alien from outer space, as has been going on since the hotline launched a couple days ago, that said, the phone number in the strip is real…just sayin…
Mind the Exit 