Donald Jumps into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine

The numbers break down this way. There are 435 members of the United States House of Representatives. 235 of them are democrats, 197 are republicans, one is an independent, and two seats are vacant. When the 116th Congress cranked up for business in January, 2019, 86 members of the house began their first terms. In other words they are and will be, until re-elected, considered, "freshmen."

Over the last two hundred plus years there has been a traditional distribution of political power in Washington D.C. The president is at the top of the pyramid, followed by the Speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader and then others scattered throughout the executive and legislative branches. Each level is less influential than the one above it. At the very bottom of this whole massive pile are those 86 freshmen members of the House of Representatives. When it comes to the great game known as national politics they have just a tad more juice than congressional pages.

Which, of course, begs the question--why the fuck is everyone, especially the current resident of the White House, going stark raving bats over four freshmen congresswomen, no matter how left their politics are?

It certainly isn't because they've accomplished anything of note, other than attracting an undue amount of media coverage. It isn't because any of them are a threat to become President, at least not any time soon, or Speaker of the House. In fact none of them, at this point in their careers, chair a committee which could initiate a bill, or investigate, let's say, Paul Manafort's former housekeeper.

In reality "The Squad," as it's known, which consists of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, Ilhan Omar, D-MN, and Ayanna Pressley, D-MA, are so legislatively insignificant they can't even jam up democratic measures which they consider too corporate, or conservative. In short, middle of the road democrats don't even need their votes.

There are a couple of theories rolling around like dice on a craps table about what caused The Big Orange Guy to go off his nut the other day. The most sophisticated is that DJT told the four congresswomen to go back to where they came from because he wants the main stream democrats to publicly defend them.

Perhaps. After all Trump and the GOP in general are busily trying to label all democrats as radical socialists who are out to destroy The American Way of Life. Putting Nancy Pelosi and other democrats in a corner where they are defending, "The Squad," even if it is from overtly xenophobic tweets allows republicans to go to their base and say, See, they're all in it together.

In support of this, House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, ignoring every poll and demographic in the land, has already tweeted that The Squad is representative of the new socialist majority in the democratic party.

There are, however, those of us who believe such subtleties are beyond Donald Trump. Indeed, the thought process could well have gone along the lines of, Those bitches have been sucking up too much air time and in a political campaign the media must always be focused totally on me.

Well, if that was the motivation, as always, he immediately got what he was going for. God only knows how many times his name has been mentioned on MSNBC, CNN, and FOX the last couple of days.

Or, in the end, maybe those bombastic, racist, tweets were sent to the world simply because he woke up rocking out on Red Bull, and Frosted Flakes dusted with cocaine. Within moments the massive early morning rush let that insanely crude, Mr. Hyde which dwells within him to suddenly come alive and grow furious and obsessive. His mind, like Morrison once said, began squirming like a toad--then came the twisted revelation--Hey, they don't like me, they are women, they aren't white, and they are here. 

Whatever the case he jumped straight into Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine and turned the dial to the late 1960's when the fashionable car accessory for conservatives was a bumper sticker which read, "America, Love It or Leave It."

Isn't it nice to know the more we think things have changed, the more they've actually stayed exactly the same.


7-16-19