Trump is too loony even for Laura Ingraham
Opinion by
Columnist
September 1, 2020 at 2:33 p.m. CDT
President
Trump, during an interview on Monday with Fox News’s Laura
Ingraham, a spin artist for the president and a purveyor of anti-immigrant
sentiment, claimed that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is controlled
by mysterious people. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
In
concocting his tale, Trump fantasized of “people that you’ve never heard of,
people that are in the dark shadows.” Ingraham, as though trying her best to
stop his self-immolation, responded, “That sounds like conspiracy theory.” No
luck. Trump continued: “They are people that are on the streets, they’re people
that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain
city this weekend. And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with
thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and
that.” This is simply bonkers.
Ingraham
then stopped him from digging himself a deeper hole when he suggested police
who kill unarmed people are akin to a golfer missing a three-foot putt. “But
they choke, just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot [putt],”
Trump said.
Ingraham
leaped in: “You’re not comparing it to golf, because that’s what the media
[would say].” In other words, actual reporters would recognize what he was
saying was morally offensive and so lacking in self-awareness as to suggest
Trump cannot even fake normal behavior.
Trump
had no one around him on Tuesday to stage an intervention, so he repeated his
gibberish: "A person was on a plane, said there were about six people like
that person, more or less, and what happened is the entire plane filled up with
the looters, the anarchists, rioters — people that were obviously looking for
trouble,” Trump insisted.
“And
the person felt very uncomfortable on the plane.” He added: "This would be
a person you know. So I will see whether or not I can get that person. I’ll let
them know, and I can see whether or not I can get that person to speak to you,”
he said. “This was a firsthand account of a plane going from Washington to
wherever.” “Wherever” is the sort of filler you use when your lie becomes too
absurd to add any more detail.
The
unparalleled Daniel Dale from CNN dubbed Trump’s
people-on-the-plane story as “almost too stupid to fact-check,” before issuing
a reminder that Trump is infamous for his unfounded and bizarre conspiracy
theories (e.g., former president Barack Obama wasn’t born in America; windmills cause cancer).
In a
normal time, with a functioning Republican Party and a patriotic vice president,
this might be the end of Trump’s campaign and an invitation to invoke the 25th Amendment. We,
unfortunately, have spineless sycophants in the GOP and a zombie-like vice
president who feels compelled to show allegiance to a president plainly unfit
to hold office. Likewise, in most families, there would be a family meeting to
stop him from embarrassing himself. (Perhaps not in families where its members
stand to inherit millions of dollars.) No chance of that, but the thesis from
the president’s niece, Mary Trump, that there
is something seriously wrong with him looks pretty unassailable.
Surely,
some excuse will emerge. Maybe Trump was “just joking." Maybe Republicans
will actually insist the president was telling the truth, making them also
sound like they’ve also gone around the bend. The real sin here is the
right-wing media that keep protecting Trump, the pundits who will argue it does
not matter what he says, and the Republicans too timid to stand up to someone
incapable of doing the job. It does not help that the mainstream media pulls
its punches.
Something
is really, really wrong — and those pretending that it is not are endangering
the country and our democracy.
