Mindy Newell: Star Trek’s Commodore Donald? I Can’t Even…
The absolute shit that is coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth is just…
I can’t even.
I’m writing this on Thursday, when I should (finally) be packing, because my daughter is picking me up at 1:30 this afternoon for my flight to Denver and the Comic Con. But this column appears on Monday afternoon and I’ll still be in the Mile High City, so I got up early, made myself a cup of tea, and sat down to talk about how I’m looking forward to the convention, my first in years…
… but I put on Morning Joe (on MSNBC) and I’m sitting here with my mouth open and my political side spinning as I watch Joe and Mika and Willie and their panel and their guest report on and talk about the absolute shit that is coming out of the Republican nominee’s mouth.
This week Trump has:
(1) Said that President Obama has “something else in mind” concerning ISIS and terrorist attack, then saying “I’ll let people just try to figure out what I said” when questioned by the press as to exactly what he meant by that… and retweeting an article from the news organization Breitbart that Obama supports terrorists. In case you didn’t figure it out, Trump has accused the President of treasonous actions.
(2) Banned the Washington Post from covering his campaign because of “inaccurate reporting.” Which news organization is next? He’s already banished BuzzFeed, Politico, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, The Des Moines Register, and others.
(3) Tweeting “i told you so!” and “appreciate the congrats” and that he is the only one who can stop “them.” after the Orlando attack. (Yeah, that’s right, it’s all about him.)
(4) Said at a speech in Greensboro, North Carolina that “Iraq, crooked as hell. How about bringing baskets of money? Millions and millions of dollars and handing it out? I want to know, who are the soldiers that had that job because I think they’re living very well right now, whoever they may be.” (Yes, 115 U.S. soldiers were convicted of theft and bribery in Afghanistan and Iraq – but since the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, “2.5 million members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and related Reserve and National Guard units have been deployed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars,” according to Department of Defense data. You do the math. The man is insulting the thousands who were killed and the hundreds of thousands who will carry scars, physical and mental, from those wars for the rest of their lives.)
(5) Told his own Republican party to just “be quiet” if they can’t support it, saying that he’ll “go it alone.” In other words, butt out!
Actually, that’s exactly what a growing number of Republicans are now starting to do. I almost feel sorry for them, as Ryan and McConnell and House Republicans and Senate Republicans find themselves drawn into “The Doomsday Machine,” staring down into its monstrous maw like Commodore Matt Decker as his shuttle is drawn into the beast, like Captain James T. Kirk waiting to be beamed back to the Enterprise as the Constellation gets closer and closer to the beast:
Kirk: (on the Constellation) Beam me aboard.
Spock: (on the bridge of the Enterprise) Energize.
Kyle: (in the Transporter room) Bridge, it’s shorted out again.
Scott: (in the Jefferies tube) Och, what’s wrong with it?
Kirk: Gentlemen, beam me aboard.
Spock: We can’t Captain. Transporter is out again.
Spock: Mister Scott, twenty seconds to detonation.
Spock: Mister Scott?
Spock? Mister Scott…
Spock: Try inverse phasing.
Sulu: (on the bridge of the Enterprise) Sixty kilometers, fifty, forty…
Sulu: (voice heard on Kirk’s communicator) Thirty…
Kirk: Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard.
An absolutely brilliant episode written by award-winning science fiction author Norman Spinrad. Of course Kirk is rescued at the very last second before the man-made Doomsday Machine is “killed.”
Trump is also “man-made,” by a Republican party that put power and control over everything else – including love of country. He is their Frankenstein monster, “The Doomsday Machine” that is now running amok and destroying the very thing that created him. And the Republicans have no script, no award-winning author to write the page on which the brilliant engineer jimmies the Jefferies tube and fixes the transporter to save the heroic captain at the very last second
I can’t even.
