The soul-ugly three

Carla Herreria of HuffPost recently noted that U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif), introduced a bill requiring President Trump to undergo a physical and mental health examination. The purpose, per Herreria, is to ensure Trump is "stable enough to remain in office." 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-democrat-bill-trump-mental-health_us_5998d558e4b0a2608a6cb6b1?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009)

Speaking to Mercury News, Lofgren conceded her bill will not pass. But "it will stimulate conversation."

That's exactly the reasoning proffered by leftist college students who manufacture fake hate crimes. The falseness isn't the point, they insist. Raising general consciousness is more important. (You know, 'the end justifies the means.')

But, for Rep. Lofgren, this matter carries greater and different weight: Should an elected official use taxpayer-provided resources to pursue a gambit she herself knows will go down to defeat, merely that some desired conversation might be kick-started?  

Did voters elect her to pluck dollar bills from their wallets to fund partisan larks -- especially ones such as this, that could interfere with the orderly progress of national governmental affairs that impact the daily lives of all citizens, including those of her own constituents?  (And, shouldn't she turn her attentions instead to jobs and economic concerns?)

"Does the president suffer from early stage dementia?" asked the perhaps-smirking Lofgren, when announcing her legislative antic. "Has emotional disorder so impaired the president that he is unable to discharge his duties? Is the president mentally and emotionally unstable?"

Millions of American families currently suffer the horrors of dementia, watching helplessly as loved family members devolve from intelligent, witty, and productive people into mere shadows of themselves. 

It would seem a measure of the meagerness of Lofgren's moral character that she would cruelly exploit heart-wrenching human tragedy for momentary political partisan advantage. 

Perhaps Lofgren's own family has not been plagued by dementia. One would hope it hasn't. Mine has, and I wouldn't toss the subject about with Lofgren's light-spirited uncaring.

But, there's yet more damning evidence (as if the addition were even needed). Come now reports that Rep. Lofgren is effectively picking over the bones of 88 year-old Senate Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers, lusting without apparent conscience after his status -- never mind that Conyers is (thankfully) still quite alive.


*****


Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis has just made clear his contempt for democracy, and for the common man.

Trump voters are "asses," Lewis wrote with boldfaced haughtiness. He proposes an effort by establishment political swamp snakes like himself to challenge President Trump in an upcoming primary. The smug Lewis -- pinky perhaps upraised, nose aloft -- unveiled proudly the presumption of innate superiority he and his fellow pampered elitists harbored all along.

"The masses, it turns out, sometimes are asses," he snickered, crudely. "Sometimes, the people who actually pay close attention to politics know more than the disgruntled populists and nationalists who are willing to gamble on the future of this great republic -- and on the reputation of a conservative philosophy that goes from Aristotle to Burke to Buckley -- in order to boost a reality show host."
(http://www.thedailybeast.com/dear-trump-voters-youre-a-bunch-of-idiots)

Earlier this year, I published: That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs sedition during the incipient Trump revolution (Bromley). In it, I wrote of the annoyingly pompous Matt Lewises:

In typical press coverage of the Trump campaign, I wrote: 
"[E]litist natures had loomed as the clucked observation that some rank-and-file Trump supporters lacked higher-level formal educations. The conceit there is that democracy is not properly a mechanism for self-governance by all, but instead the privately harbored geegaw of lettered cake-eaters.)"

I later added, of "inflated-head, champagne and limos" anti-Trump sorts: "They seemed of the notion that the common people should remain in the ship's belly, manning the oars. Meanwhile, they, believing themselves ever so clever, would strut about topside and chart navigation beneficial to their fancies."

Of course,  Matt Lewis is without significant practical influence. After all, had the Lewises the sway they surely wish, Donald Trump wouldn't be in the White House. Among the lessons of 2016 is that the common man doesn't care about prattling popinjays like Lewis, whether they be in Hollywood, corporate recording studios, the 'Deep State,' or fake news mainstream media.


*****


During the 8/14 broadcast of the Fox News Specialists show, co-host Eboni K. Williams offered a carefully prepared attack on the president of the United States. Her words were vile, the charges she recklessly tossed out were irresponsible, and her manner was that of an icily precise, mercenary assassin.

In Trump's remarks following the Charlottesville horror, Williams asserted, the president (and, by manifest implication, his average supporter) was racially bigoted. Her gamy brickbats were endorsed by malevolent ditz Kat Timpf.

Following that channel being deluged with rightful complaints from patriotic citizens understandably outraged at Williams's despicable slurring of them (Trump was, of course, handily elected by more than 60 million good Americans), the vapid teleprompter prose-regurgitator claimed to have received threats. 

But that 'gimmie sympathy' stunt stank, and immediately faded away. It reeked of a paycheck-angling PR person's scheming. And it reminded of the fake assault charge contrived by former FNC guest commentator Michelle Fields against then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. (Fields was initially aided in her lying by the Washington Post's Ben Terris.)

Williams continued her deceitful sliming of President Trump on the WABC radio program she co-hosts with Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa. Like Williams, Sliwa seems to relish slurring the U.S. president, sometimes with grade school epithets.

Eboni K. Williams barely turns up on Fox News since her ill-considered, untrue, and personally destructive assault on the president and his nationwide support base. But, her cause was championed by fellow Fox personage Sean Hannity. Hannity publicly attacked those in his own audience who had thronged to petition against Williams. Hannity berated them for allegedly not appreciating opinion diversity. 

Of course, Eboni K. Williams doesn't offer well-reasoned, substantive arguments from which listeners can derive intellectual benefit and philosophical enrichment-- just squawky propagandizing that revels in personal slurs and smears all dissenters with the bigot's broadbrush.   

I don't doubt Sean Hannity can distinguish between legitimate articulation and gutter splashing. Which makes puzzling his barrel-chested support for Williams, and apparent willingness to as much as spit on the protective Trump backers she nastily smeared.




--------------------