~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Are the undocumented immigrants living in my town eating my neighbor’s dogs and cats?
Once-President of the United States Donald Trump said pet eating was happening in Springfield, Ohio, a place where 15,000 legal immigrant Haitians now live. He heard a man telling the story on TV, as he related several times during the presidential debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday, Sept. 10, in Philadelphia. The man has no sense of humor, but this story produced disbelief and then laughter.
Did you know that Kamala Harris started the Russian attack on Ukraine?
Once-President of the United States Trump said so, and if he says so, he’s sure it’s true. He then says it a hundred more times and soon we have it imprinted on our brains. She did not start the war in Ukraine.
Did you know that Kamala Harris For the People is a Marxist?
Once-President Trump said Harris was indeed a Marxist because her father taught Marxism. No mention from Trump that his only world leader friends are this era’s version of Marxist/Communist/strongmen – Russia’s Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Hungary’s Victor Orban – it’s a toss-up which one he loves best. They adore him, because once they praise him, he rolls over.
Our country’s allies do not want him as a friend and fear him as an irrational man easily flattered.
Did you know that Trump believes that abortion after birth is a common occurrence in our country?
This is an illogical impossibility. No place in America is there killing of babies at birth. It’s an obscenity to even suggest it. Is this a lie? Mere misinformation? Stupidity? A mental health problem?
Did you know this is a “failing” country according to Trump, who never passes up a chance to say it to us?
The U.S. is in an increasingly successful boom and has been for the last four years of Biden excavating our country from the pit Trump left behind. Biden’s tenure has resulted in more jobs, higher pay, vigorous union activity, more progress and prosperity in industry, advancing health care, including cheaper meds to more people.
Did you know that Trump called this his “best debate” out of the seven he’s done in his lifetime?
It didn’t look so. He was red-faced much of the time, bombastic as he non-answered with his raggedy, overused playbook of lying – “Everybody knows that I’ve had the biggest rallies of anyone in history.” “Everybody knows that Joe Biden is the worst president in our history, Kamala Harris the worst vice-president.” And his old chestnut, which he forgot to mention at the debate but which is my favorite: “Everybody knows I’m a stable genius.” He ignored more questions than he answered as he tried to talk his way out with the self-satisfied stupidity of his know-nothing existence.
Did you see how he went into his reactionary, uninterrupted flow of words to gain more minutes from the moderators?
The first words out of his mouth after he fled from the stage were that he was going to sue ABC and get their broadcasting license revoked? They were biased against him, he said. He is never at fault, you know, if things don’t go his way.
The presidential debate of 2024 between David and Goliath is over. Isn’t it a fine feeling to be on the winning side? The Biblical tale of an unhappy, frowning, demeaning bully expecting to defeat the new kid on the block played out on Tuesday evening in the City of Brotherly Love. Fitting. Our modern Goliath has no brotherly love in his heart or mind, and to see him shrink before my eyes and put in his place by a calm, factual and smiling adversary deserved my wild cheering as well as a sudden deep-seated assurance that the underdog has deflated the hulking opponent like the airbag he is.
He will continue lying – in fact, he began immediately after the debate, complaining about the moderators of ABC and the lying of his opponent. This beating up on his opponents has too often resulted in a fatal attack, but this time it didn’t work. His projection of his own behavior onto his opponent gainsaying him did not work this time. After all these long, wearying years of his every single day utterances, he finally met someone with absolute integrity and no fear.
His lying was openly questioned by her, his lack of planning for healthcare laughed at, his ignorance of foreign relations and its consequences revealed. His purposeful blindness of advancing climate terror along with national terrorism mirrored right back at himself for once … the man who thinks only of himself was challenged to the point of running off the stage as soon as the debate ended.
Going to bed after a well-done win of my team was the sleeping pill I’ve been looking for. I awoke refreshed and eager for a living, breathing future for my country instead of a funeral.
