Trump’s Ugly Reeks / Wreaks

January 22, 2019

Trump’s Ugly Reeks / Wreaks

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President Donald Trump

On January 8, 2011, a few miles from where I lived, a D Congresswoman almost died. An R U.S. District Judge did, and five others, too. A dozen more suffered gunshot wounds, which they live with still.

In the aftermath of the horror, good people formed the National Institute for Civil Discourse. (Here’s a March 18, 2011 Washington Post story about its founding, written by 50+ year friend, former Tucsonan and Rock Star Reporter Sari Horwitz.) I knew this organization back in the day, for my former spouse volunteered there for more than a year, and through the Institute we met and remained friends with co-founder Brint Milward.

WTF? No. What. The. Fuck. How did we go from a national tragedy eight years and two weeks ago, to honoring awful?

Honoring awful? We have an American president who mocks people with disabilities, talked about grabbing women’s genitals, and said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” in the aftermath of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, which resulted in a first-degree murder conviction.

And others? Well, I could detail outrages from the likes of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and … and he’s still spouting off … Rush Limbaugh. Why bother. We read about their outrageous, “look at me, I can be sensationally awful” comments constantly. You don’t come here to read their BS.

So, honestly, I want to understand what happened. A nation mourned a senseless tragedy that hit home for those us in Tucson, and especially for those of us who knew Gabby, Judge Roll, and other victims. And, in what seems like the blink of an eye, a nation bound up in notions of civility that needed some reinforcements, got taken over by a bunch of louts. How did this happen in the greatest nation this planet has ever know? How did we let so much stench wreak havoc on what some once called a shining city on a hill?

 

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