Abnormalization

July 1, 2017

Let’ see, this week there were mass shootings in a New York, Little Rock, St Louis, Chicago and DC – body count thirty-five, and week’s not over yet. We still need make it through July’s first Saturday night to survive a whole seven days – great.

The five cities with the highest murder rate are St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans and Newark. The five most dangerous cities, according to the FBI, are St. Louis, Memphis, Rockford (Il), Baltimore and Detroit.

So, of course, the Donald is sending federal agents to Chicago. The Chicago Gun Strike Force was announced by AG Jeff Sessions on Friday and the irony in a KKK guy from Alabama, the state where LBJ deployed federal troops to protect civil rights workers, sending federal “help” to Illinois, a Yankee blue state, is emblematic of the new normal.

I mean, we have an Exxon CEO as Secretary of State, the president in a gossip column brawl with a couple TV show hosts, Germany emerging as the leader of the free world, open nepotism in the White House ignored by our, typically tight-assed, Republican friends and a documented sexual predator, with a thing for Russia, calling the shots. And that’s just the sort list.

It’s not our daddy’s normal anymore. Even the “liberal Press” is acting out of character. Hell, yesterday Chris Mathews, while discussing Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, suggested that Mussolini had a redeeming quality in that he executed his son-in-law. (Wow, right? Use to be, indirect death threats are reserved for right-wing loonies like Breitbart and Sarah Palin.)

In keeping with the new normal, we would like to respond to Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski’s, recent claim that the Donald is “the Ernest Hemingway of Twitter” by mostly supporting Corey. Yes, the Donald holds the potential, but needs commit to the role. Let’s remember, fifty-six years ago tomorrow, July 2, Hemingway drank himself into a stupor and shot himself in the head.

Just saying, the stage is set and history favors those who seize the moment… (Too far? Or just the new normal?)

Who would have guessed that in only two-hundred-thirty-five post-election days we could have gone from The Sun Also Rises to Death in the Afternoon? Frankly, the republic takes issue with any comparison between Trump and any man or woman with something to say.

In Peace and Justice,
osv