Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

OF ALL THE HUMAN personality characteristics in our vast portfolios, none do I find as odious as sheer pettiness. Anger, resentment, holding grudges rank highly among them, but for basic contemptuousness, small minded, avoidable vindictiveness, to my thinking, has no equal. Just the other day a good friend of mine was mentioning a mutual acquaintance of whom neither of us is especially fond. My friend mentioned that the annoying man has an annoying penchant for calling my friend "bud". "I'm not your bud", my friend said he responded. He calls me "bud" too,I said, and it annoys me too, but I just let it go, I told my friend, because I have far lerger fish to fry, far greater concerns. My friend,by his silence, seemed to agree, if only tacitly. Let's not be petty ourselves, even when it seems merited, even when others do, if we an avoid it. And, we can, always. Of all the execrable behaviors of Donald Trump, and there are many, as we all know, it is his patent pettiness which I find most revolting, even more so than his pathological lying or incessant slandering and insulting of people wholly undeserving of such verbal garbage. So the Associated Press decided to call it the "Gulf od Mexico", and to leave it at that. And, at a press conference, an AP reporter used precisely that term. Down came the edict from his malignant majesty on high: henceforth no members of the Associated Press shall be given admittance to press conferences of any other media event centered around the prevaricating president. And it only gets worse. Donald Trump is a weak, insecure little personna whose personality portfolio never fully developed beyond a childish childhood level. What he lacks in intellect he over compensates for by his bluster, his incessant urge to dominate every conversation and situation, his vitriolic speech. Sounding like another presidential emotional cripple, Richard Nixon, Trump recently exclaimed: "He who saves his country cannot break the law". He can, of course, but cannot, according to the Supreme Court, be prosecuted for doing so. Saves his country? Is what precise way does Trump the Deluded really think he is saving the country,, or has alreday saved it? Saved it from what, decency and integrity? Trump's egregious, reprehensible words and deeds go well beyond mere pettiness. They enter the realm of the absurd and diabolical, well beyond merely the Gulf of America. Wosrt of all perhpas was his pardoning of violent insurrectionist criminals, the pardon given only because their violence suited Trump's personal, traitorous purposes. With the stroke of a pen, his sycophanticic gangster criminals go free, to do harm elsewhere on behalf of their mafia-style don. Trump's attacks on the media, all petty, do not end with the AP. He has threatened to pull the broadcast license of CBS, presumably for having the etemerity to disagree with him, and to explain precisely why. He wants to sue "Sixty Minutes", or has perhaps already filed suit against the iconic television program, for that very reason. Expose and delineate Trump's perfidy, he breaks your kneecaps. National Public Radio has been threateed with similar extinction, and is fortunate that less then one percent of its funding comes from the government. Trump's handing over the economy to billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk is well documented, and his petty apointees are all in agreement that Trump's Attorney General, a MAGA mainstay, absolutely must use the "law" to go after not only duly authorized invistigators of Trump's criminality, but also, his critics. Critize Der Fuhrer, down you go. The infamous Sedition Act of 1798 reincarnated. Fortunately, this has not yet been codified by Congress, and thus, so far, means nothing. But stay tuned, as we say, lest we would be reduced to awaiting another Thomas Jefferson to void it. Oh, how I wish that Trump's goons would come after me. The upshot is that no decent citizen should even consider supporting Trump, and, in fact, no decent citizen does.