Silence is the sound of the Democratic Party (through the Democratic National Committee) in response to the scabrous allegations hurled by President Trump as we approach Congressional elections on November 6. The party is headed by Tom Perez, a former Obama Secretary of Labor. Is it inappropriate to say that in this election season he has been, well, worthless?
Remember the various initiatives collectively called “instant response” emanating from a “war room?” Nada this cycle. Nothing. The objective of instant response by the party committee’s truth squad is to contradict what is being said in support of the opposing party committee or its office holders, in this case, Trump, and thereby to change voters’ minds.
The Republicans control the Congress and the White House. And the Democrats have no available “titular leader” to spearhead opposition to Trump because the Democratic 2016 candidate for President would be ineffective. And the previous President, Barack Obama, is famously prickly about the use of his time and his voice so that nothing would be “instant” if at all.
Apparently Mr. Obama’s high regard for the downtrodden peoples of these United States cannot survive exposure to their representatives (or candidates to be their representatives) or even to them as individuals. He’s been scarce on the campaign trail. And I think I know why: matching his selected candidates with those that need him is almost impossible. Also, as my late mother used to say of certain people, he’s “not friendly.”
Although finding preposterous and outrageous Trumpisms offers an hourly opportunity, we have some recent beauts from him plus a number of others from Republican candidates who have caught the torch he has flung:
Cong. Martha McSally. This lady, running against Cong. Kyrsten Sinema for Senate in Arizona, this week cited her opposition to the “frickin’ [sic] caravan” of Central Americans who are the “tired and poor” mentioned on the base of the Statue of Liberty and now seeking a new life away from drugs, violence, and repression. She’s a jerk, but don’t tell that to the DNC.
Cong. Greg Gianforte. “Let me just say, on behalf of all of Montana, Mr. President, thank you for giving us hope, again,” said the convicted misdemeanant in response to Trump’s praise at a rally in Missoula this week for the Montana Congressman-at-Large’s bodyslam of a reporter last year. Imagine what a response team could do with Gianforte’s distinguished legislative achievement of 2017: an assault!
Trump. On the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the AP asked him on October 17 if he was concerned about Saudi involvement. Trump responded, “You know, here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh. And he was innocent all the way.” While a comprehensive and accurate account of the killing has not been provided, it is not like the charge by Dr. Christine Baisley Ford against then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on which no conclusion of innocence exists. There has been no DNC response to Trump’s preposterous comments to the AP.
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It is fair to ask whether anyone would listen to a DNC war room. What techniques could be used that would capture the public imagination from an anonymous DNC?
Ridicule, for one. We have just seen the ridicule hurled at the former Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, upon her release of a report hypothesizing that her deoxyribonucleic acid, the main ingredient of her chromosomes (I didn’t go to Bronx Science for nothing!), shows she MAY be 1/1000 a Native American from six generations ago! Native American tribes have condemned her.
Sen. Warren’s lapse reminds me of a song in Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun,” now necessarily omitted from revivals as insulting to Native Americans: “I’m an Indian Too.” Here are some lyrics, Senator:
Like the Seminole, Navajo, Kickapoo
Like those Indians
I’m an Indian too…
Many of Trump’s Trumpisms and those of his imitators are ridiculous and can be neutered for that reason alone. Not happening.
On to November 6.