Big headlines will budge nothing

Now he's convicted

Oh captain, my captain. It is Friday and a former U.S. president is in the news. Just like he seemingly is every day. Over a span of, what is it now? Eight years? Nine? I saw someone at the Willie's checkout this morning with a Star Tribune newspaper. As big a headline as you could expect there. As if WWIII had broken out or something. 

And I totally understand the size of the headline. If I were to question it, it would be with the phrase "what's the use?" Nothing has worked up until now to try to reveal the danger that Trump poses for America. We wait and wait for Republicans and conservatives to calm down, get a grip and maybe realize that Trump should not be "their man." But of course that time never comes. 

So why should it come today, on a day when our state's flagship newspaper has the WWIII-type headline? I paused for just a moment to wonder if we had really reached a watershed where people like Michelle Fischbach, our Seventh District congressperson, might be willing to retreat from the Orange Jesus. 

I wonder about the older guys who sit in the middle section of DeToy's Restaurant in the morning. Really it's a lost cause to hope for a turnaround there. Now all these people are having to answer for a man convicted of some real serious stuff. It has gotten to that point: conviction. Put an asterisk there, as Trump has been found responsible for sexual assault in a civil proceeding. 

That civil judgment should have spelled the end: no more Trump hovering like an amoral specter over this whole nation. 

Nothing I say in this post or out and around town is going to change anything today. The "conservative churches" dot the landscape around Stevens County and their orientation is not likely to change. The evangelical Christians got Trump elected in 2016. The community of Hancock was really committed to him. 

Trump won but once again there's an asterisk: he got three million fewer votes than the Democrat. 

The word "Democrat" now equates with evil around Stevens County. Listen to the guys early in the morning at DeToy's as they mock Biden. I heard one of them comment on what he called "the black attorney general" of New York state. So it has come to this. 

Fischbach could play a role now if she really wanted to be a leader. How valiant and courageous that would be. 

I personally grew up around the valiant cause of protesting the Vietnam war. Let us note that the same type of people who today support Trump also supported the Vietnam war in the '60s. The irony is that today, Trump who got excused from military service on dubious grounds is totally against U.S. foreign military intervention. It is truly hard to explain these things. People in the '60s who reflected his attitude would have been decried as "soft on communism." 

Today Trump appears to be in full embrace with Putin who of course leads Russia and would like to re-establish the old Soviet Union. Strange. It is futile to try to present rational arguments to Trump supporters. 

I was astonished to read this morning a back-and-forth between Dan Abrams and Megyn Kelly. The Trump people like Kelly will concede absolutely nothing. Her attempted rejoinders with Abrams came across like a boy who says "so?" Almost in the same way a seventh grade boy in the lavatory would. "So?" 

So it becomes truly impossible to have a conversation with these people. 

I remember in Truman Carlson's last couple years, I was made to feel like Dan Abrams. He was having nothing of the skepticism about Trump. No agreeable conversation whatsoever. Finally he would just smile. 

I point out the late and beloved Carlson because he was typical of so many. I have drifted away from a close friend I once had in Cold Spring. He came right out and told me he was starting to ignore my blogs. Yes, ignore the opposing side's arguments. Out of sight, out of mind. Put your head down and root for Trump to become total autocratic leader of the U.S. To take over the Federal Reserve which is something I try to warn about. 

But why do I try any more? This morning's headlines are not going to dislodge anything or anyone. And Thom Hartman is warning "what happens to a cult when it loses its leader?" Indeed, if Trump is forced into incarceration, then what? 

Trump is warning us this morning that "if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone." It comes off as sounding the alarm for Americans paying off porn stars. I have never done anything even close to that. I'm not worried, at least not about that. 

I am becoming worried about what a new Trump regime might do to people like me. First he'll take care of the Bidens, maybe with capital punishment. He'll probably have Paxton the Texas guy as his attorney general. So many "conservative" leaders are from the Deep South states. This has worried me for a long time. They will attach themselves to Trump whatever his agenda is, even if we start to take on the traits of a violent dictatorship. 

Purge your enemies and critics. Poison them maybe. Maybe Trump has learned such tricks from Putin. And we simply will not rise up and object? Object from our conservative church pews? Or, continue to be led along by the orange Jesus? Even if he's in jail. 

I have said all I can. It is futile now to even say a prayer, to even say a prayer to the same God that MAGA people choose to worship. So many of them appear to have no sympathy for the Palestinians. Many of the Palestinians are Christian which is more than you can say for the Jews of Israel.

Michelle Fischbach

For the record:

Congressperson Michelle Fischbach's statement from the last 24 hours:

"The American people are rightfully seeing through the attempt to abuse the judicial system against political opponents."

Ah, makes you wonder what the response of Steve Boyd would be. He's coming at Fischbach from the right in GOP ranks. Well why not? That is obviously the drift out here in western Minnesota. I wouldn't bet against him. And Fischbach voted against certifying the 2020 election results. Even Tom Emmer did not do that. 

And now Fischbach might not be good enough for the area's right wingers? What hath God wrought? Does Fischbach support women's reproductive health rights?

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com