Trump Being Trump, Being Petty

NANCY PELOSI TRIED to get the president off the hook. By merely suggesting that he postpone the annual state of the union speech until such time, if ever there is such a time, as the entire federal government is back up and running, open for business, and nearly one million hard working American government employees are no longer struggling to feed their families and survive. It certainly sounds like a reasonable proposal, at least on the surface, and indeed it is, with a little deep digging. The purpose of the state of the union report, which can be either spoken or written or both, is to inform the nation of its current state of health. With twenty five percent of the federal government inoperative, that state is obviously not good, and the president would have, will have to portray a rather negative picture. It is, however, a picture which could change in a heartbeat with a little compromise, reopening the government, restoring the country to wholeness, so to speak, and providing the president the opportunity to wax glowingly. Instead, he will doubtless use the occasion to spread blame like a shotgun scattering pellets, aimed mostly at Democrats. However, polls indicate that we the people aint buying it, and won't buy it, particularly when we hear it from the pursed lips of the great prevaricator. Polls consistently indicate that we the American people largely blame Trump, not congress, not the Democrats, for the currently unfortunate of affairs. Try to do Trump a favor, nd what does he do? obviously oblivious to his own impending humiliation, thinking he can turn any situation to his advantage, which he certainly cannot, Trump took Pelosi's kind offer as an attack, or some sort of slight, and promptly cancelled her planned trip abroad, even as she and her congressional delegation were heading towards the tarmac. In response to a mere suggestion intended to help the president, the president reacts by torpedoing a foreign policy initiative, a good will tour by members of congress. This, my fellow Americans, is about as petty, spiteful, vindictive, and down right low as it gets, even in Washington, even by American standards. In all fairness to the president, Pelosi and the rest of the congressional delegation are perfectly free to travel abroad - on their own dime. Even the president can't prevent that without good cause legal recourse. Only, they can't use government lanes, and travel at government expense, as they had planned, says the gangster if chief, as Mr. Trump and all other presidents routinely do. Pure spiteful pettiness. The president seems to be doing his dead level best to impersonate a fourth grader impersonating a mob boss, and doing it credibly well. Trump's approval rating, always historically low, has lately been tanking, largely because we the American people blame him for the government shutdown. This is appropriate, since Trump took full credit for it, before he didn't. Aside from that, it may be that the constant cascade of blatant, outrageous lies emanating from the White House, and Trump's persistent pattern of childishly vicious behavior is beginning to wear a bit thin among independent swing voters, as most Americans are. More significantly, there has been, according to recent polls, an erosion of support from among his base, consisting mostly of white males with not much education, and evangelical Christians. This should be especially alarming for the president, because if these two groups of people are starting to see the light, the rest of us are awash in illumination.