To the Editor:
Second Opinion: Nuts and Numb Nuts.
While the world contends with the terror of war, the resilience and courage of the Ukrainians, and the real possibility that Putin is mentally ill and not opposed to using a nuclear bomb, our own doofuses and crazies have not been idle.It’simportant to keep an eye on them especially in a midterm year. Sadly, there is only space here for a few.
In the garden of the merely demented,Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)blooms conspicuously. Shewas confronted recently after speaking to a crowd summoned by the notorious Nick Fuentes. She claimed not to knowFuentes, an advocate of America as a white-Christian-only nation, a Holocaust denier, and a leader in the Groyper Movement,white nationalists who seek to normalize racism and make it a part of mainstream conservative political ideology.
Repo House Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) seemed to “buy” her self-exoneration until Logic grappled him to the ground. He later observed that Fuentes’ “introductory speech where he praised both Putin and Adolf Hitler should have been enough for her to walk away.This is unacceptable.”(emphasis mine) But the racism inherentin white nationalismactuallyis acceptable to a lot of people in this country, a factwhich McCarthy and many Republicans are afraid to publicly criticize.
If it were not acceptable, MTG, Nick Fuentes, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, the afore-mentioned Paul Gosar and Thomas Massie, Tucker Carlson,Louis Gohmert, Stephen Miller, and many others,would be as isolated in the Republican Partyasa pig at the Westminster Dog Show.Unfortunately, their porcine grunts are music to the ears of not all, but many.
In the arena of the barking-mad, theBest in Show for the week goes to a recent former president. Last Saturday night in New Orleans, Trump spoke to 250 of his most loyal donors. To prove that he’s “up” on foreign relations, he praised North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as “seriously tough” (he did not mention their “love letters”). He blasted President Biden’s “weak” response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,andsuggested that the US should disguise our F-22 Raptorswith the Chinese flag and “bomb the sh*t out of Russia.”
“And then we say, ‘China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it,’ and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch.”His audience roared with laughter and, I expect, deep, guttural,barnyard delight.This is the irresponsible,unprincipled,reckless man-child that nearly half the country thinks should have another whack atbeing our Commander-in-Chief.
I saw a video last week of a reporter asking Trump if, were the situation reversed, he would be as brave as Ukraine president Zelensky. Trump responded, “Well, you never know.” I was reminded of a Howard Stern interview about 10 years ago when Trump, a legendary germaphobe, told a story in which headmittedly refused to help an 80-year-old man who fell at a party at Mar-a-Lago and bled on the “beautiful marble floor[which] became very red…This is terrible! This is disgusting!After the Marines took the old man away, “I say, ‘Get that blood cleaned up! It’s disgusting’…The next day I forgot to call [the man] to see if he’s OK…[the blood] it’s justnot my thing.”
To the reporter, the real answer’s,” ‘Fraid not, that’s just not my thing.” Trump is worlds away from the courage and national leadership demonstrated by Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore