Or how my political apathy got busted after only two days. My experience on Black Friday and on through the weekend was very disconcerting. I had managed to lose my door key on Friday so ended up having to check into a hotel over the weekend. I have lost my keys before, I am not the most organized person in the world, but this time was especially upsetting. I got through the weekend watching the news on TV and getting more and more burned out on politics, and went over into near-apathy. However, I got awakened today by reading an “explanation” of TFG’s dinner with Fuentes and Ye that was so out there, that I found myself responding, and deciding I would write my own viewpoints, mine with backup information that is out there to be seen by anyone looking.
Last Tuesday, TFG had dinner with Kanye West, now known as Ye. Ye has been under a cloud of his own creation for lopping insults and whistle calls against Jews. As a result, he has lost many of his business agreements. Surprising, perhaps, to him, major businesses don’t want to be associated with a person who expresses horrible attitudes toward Jews, or any other ethnicity.
TFG is now saying that he met with Ye to counsel him. Council him in what way is left unclear. Was he going to tell him to cut out the racially loaded language? My guess is not, he was probably quite ready to tell Ye to racket it up and “fight hard”. We know how TFG catered to the most racist of people on the right while in office, and even before. He is also claiming that Fuentes, a known White Nationalist (also called an out-and-out racist rightfully) snuck in under Ye’s banner.
It was then asserted by some that the excuse made no sense, and certainly, the claim that he didn’t know who Fuentes was is as nonsensical as his claim not to know who David Duke was during his first campaign. If he personally was that unaware, his security force either the Mar-a-Lago security or the Secret Service force that he still has would have known. Of course, the Secret Service is now saying that it was the Mar-a-Lago Security that dropped the ball, but one of the two obviously did. Maybe the Secret Service has perhaps rightly just stopped trying to look out for TFG’s best interest in such matters.
In the aftermath, what we have gotten from TFG’s former defenders in the Republican party has been lukewarm comments about “poor judgment” for the most part, showing once again their complicity with the antics he engages in.
The conservative blog that “triggered” the end of my apathy was one with a blurb saying that probably he had been set up by Hillary. (when has the right not blamed Hillary, Obama, or Biden for things they have done to themselves?) That was so nonsensical that I just had to write about this issue, even though even here, I haven’t given the TFG’s name any airplay.
Now also, the others at the summit of bigotry at Mar-a-Lago have spoken. Ye claims that he went to announce that he is running for President and that TFG should run as his Vice President. In addition, he also criticized him for not doing more for the Jan 6th insurrectionists…pardoning them and/or paying for their legal fees. He also strongly criticized TFG for allegedly insulting Kim and vouched for the idea that TFG is really impressed by Fuentes. Fuentes, meanwhile, apparently referred to TFG as “his hero” and verbally went after DeSantis for even letting the suggestion be out there that he might challenge TFG in the 2024 election.
In addition, Milo Yiannopoulos, the extremist racist and right-wing gadfly who apparently turned on TFG in 2020 and who is now apparently the campaign manager for Ye’s presidential run has weighed in to announce that he arranged this met and greet to “get revenge” on TFG. I am not clear on why – probably for not going strongly on defending the insurrectionists which would be the same accusation Ye hurled.
Further news ties even people like Marjorie Taylor Greene into this supposed abuse. So, when people that favor racist positions and run contrary to democratic norms run amok, the situation gets very convoluted. There is no need to think anyone outside their ranks “infiltrated” or pulled a fast one.
Oh, and now the conservative Jewish organization that awarded TFG is now angry and is expressing its disgust. We know that TFG is not popular with liberal Jewish groups like Jewish Voices for Peace, but now even those hard-core Jewish supporters of Isreal’s government are taking exception to his action.
Supposedly, although TFG has consistently refused to listen to any of the adults in the room over the last 6-plus years, his campaign is now saying they will work to make sure that Fuentes and Ye never get access again. Although some of them apparently tried this time, they failed, so we will see what we see. My guess is that more of the same is forthcoming.
So, let the right blame Hillary or any of their other boogymen or women, we know the truth. TFG is continuing to do what he has for the last 6 years. As some Democrats have wisely said since this debacle, he told us who he was, now the Country needs to just believe him. He is either a racist and a bigot or at least the tool of those that are, that much is obvious to any observer that isn’t buying the rhetoric of the right.
