Trump’s right: This one’s all about him

One of the few things I agree with Donald Trump about is that Tuesday’s mid-term election – for local, state and national offices – is all about him. If so, remember, this is a man:

• Who has told 6,420 lies (not falsehoods or misrepresentations or any of the other soft-pedal terms the media uses to avoid calling a lie a lie) in less than two years in office, as documented by the Washington Post, and who has made bald-faced lying into a widely imitated political tactic.
• Who said: “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
• Who paid $130,000 to silence a porn star he says he never slept with.
• Who said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 (Hillary Clinton) emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
• Who became only the second president in U.S. history to fire his FBI director, thereby (my opinion) obstructing an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
• Who repeatedly said Russia didn’t meddle (sample tweet: “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer-funded charade end?”).
• Who, standing next to Putin, said, “I don’t see any reason why it would be (Russia).”
• And who now says he is “very concerned” that Russia will meddle in the mid-term to elect Democrats.
• Who has buddied up to and praised the world’s most dangerous leaders.
• Who said of the late Sen. John McCain, who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp being tortured, “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
• Whose party effectively stole a Supreme Court nomination from President Obama (who, in my opinion didn’t do nearly enough to prevent it) by shutting down the confirmation process for the remainder of Obama’s presidency, thereby setting a horrible precedent (what, you think Democrats won’t do the same?) that may endure for generations.
• Who refused to withdraw his nomination of Judge Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court despite numerous credible allegations about Kavanaugh’s past conduct with women. (I also had major concerns about his veracity, his temperament and his relationship with alcohol.)
• Who mocked two Muslim American parents who dared to criticize Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Their son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died in Iraq in 2004.
• Who mocked a reporter with a disability. (Seriously, how low can you go?)
• Whose party has done everything it can to dismantle Obamacare.
• Whose party now wants to cut “entitlements” like Medicare and Social Security. (And they’ve made the term itself into a bad thing. These things are called entitlements because we pay for them – look at your paycheck stub – and deserve to get them. They’re not some kind of welfare hand-out, dammit.)
• Whose administration essentially kidnapped thousands of children at the border from their parents. Wikipedia says: “As of August 20, 528 of the children — about a fifth — have still not been reunited with their parents.”
• Who said of Mexican immigrants: “These aren’t people, these are animals,” and “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
• Who says it’s OK for the U.S. military and border agents to shoot so-called “caravan” immigrants seeking asylum if they throw rocks.
• Who has labeled the news media (except for Fox) as “fake news” because the facts they report don’t suit him. (And by the way, for those of you who can’t seem to tell the difference between news coverage and commentary, this column is my opinion.)
• Who said: “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.”
• Who, before he was president, participated in “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents,” according to a New York Times investigation.
• Who, minutes after a mass shooting at a Jewish synagogue, blamed the synagogue for not having armed guards.
• Who, of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally that resulted in the death of a protester, said there were “very fine people on both sides” and “I think there is blame on both sides.”
• Who doled out a massive tax cut benefitting the rich, increasing the nation’s deficit an incredible 17 percent in just a few months.
• Who has “joked” repeatedly about becoming president for life, to the point that it’s pretty clear he’s not joking.
• Whose words and deeds have been accepted, endorsed and even celebrated by many (not all, but their silence speaks volumes) rank and file members of the GOP, from the local level on up.

I’m voting against this man-child and all those who support him.

Whatever your views, I hope you vote Tuesday, too.

Image credit: Donkey Hotey