He'll Be in Tulsa on the 20th, and You Know Why

45 will be in Tulsa on Friday, June 20. Of course he will. And you know why.

Never mind that it was supposed to happen on Juneteenth Day, the day on which the slaves in Texas finally got the word that the Civil War had ended and that they were free. Never mind that it's the 99th passage (hardly an anniversary) of the rioting in Tulsa in which as many as 300 blacks were killed, mostly out of meanness, prejudice, and spite, with units of the Oklahoma National Guard actively taking part and no local official taking any action to restore order and calm until after the damage had been done.

Those are exactly the reasons he's going to blather his endless supply of phony nostrums and innuendoes, as if he's never done so before. He'll be a victim again. He'll make white folks, or perhaps those white folks who bother to listen, victims again.

That he postponed the rally a day, bowing to massive political pressure, doesn't excuse it in the least. The point is that he was quite willing to conduct the rally on that day in the first place is yet another example of his utter callousness and bullying. He is not removed from blame. He continues to be diminished in his shamelessness.

You see, this monster pivots upon anything unusual that's happened and tries to make it look like he's been involved with it in some mysterious but positive way. It's what he did with the death of George Floyd the other day, for instance, saying that Floyd would be smiling down at us because the economy had improved, based on erroneous unemployment statistics that have since been proven to be premature and incomplete. Unemployment has gone up in the last month, not down.

But 45 attempted to connect Floyd with something he says he's responsible for, when in fact, like all else connected to the coronavirus, the state governors are responsible for it, having 'opened up' their states' businesses to varying degrees. And, as we have learned, it hasn't worked so far. Not only that, but new outbreaks of the virus are already evident.

The connection is ridiculous, but so is 45, in any conceivable way. But that doesn't stop him, and it certainly won't stop him in Tulsa next week.

Count on him to bring back Joe Biden's unfortunate faux pas of saying that any black person who supports 45 "isn't black." Though Biden apologized for that remark, 45 will bring it back as if he's said it yesterday.

With Stephen Miller, his chief apologist, writing a speech about race relations, it will be filled with catch-phrases and deceptions. You will have to listen carefully, just in case 45 plans on following any of it (which he might not; he goes off script regularly, in which case it'll make just as little sense). Remember, Miller is the author of the policy that has created the awful situation at the border. He considers himself a guardian of the white race. He believes 'making America great again' means that whites must control everything, or at least have an attitude that they should.

He will also comment upon the coronavirus as if his government, which has taken no responsibility for curbing the threat--he said it himself--has been winning over it all along. Never mind that if he had taken the strong step of shutting the country down in February, he could have prevented tens of thousands of the more than 114,000 deaths that have occurred so far. Never mind that if he had done so, many of the dull-headed people who have put their rights up front would have listened to him and significantly slowed down the advance of the virus.

He will say that many more lives would have been lost had he personally not intervened, when in fact he did absolutely the least that could have been done. Taking credit for that is the worst kind of shambling, the worst possible stance that anyone, not the least of which is our supposed national leader (he certainly isn't), could take.

He is beyond disgusting. He is a useless placeholder, even a dangerous one. Having people sign a waiver guaranteeing no lawsuits upon getting sick is a monument to first, the stupidity of those who wlll attend; and second, the utter fecklessness, the utter cowardice, of his approach. Whatever I do, he keeps saying, there will be lawyers who can cover for me. He did it when he got impeached, didn't he? He's done it to the women he slept with, didn't he? He's done with his tax returns, right?

There will be a few surprises, too, but that's the gist of what's going to happen. He will invite people to die to hear him. That is the ultimate, ridiculous place that Americans have gone. It will take a long time and deep reckoning to come back from this. This is a mess that will not clean up easily.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark