I was in the Syracuse airport yesterday on my way home from visiting Ian upstate NY, trying to ignore everything around me, but I couldn’t block out fucking CNN. Why does every airport have CNN blaring from their TVs? I deliberately ban CNN from polluting my life, but I don’t get that choice when I’m flying. Anyway, there was someone in a suit on the TV, spouting gibberish and sounding idiotic. I listened for a minute, wondering who this clown was. Then, I realized, partly by glancing at Twitter, that it was Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary. I had never heard him speak before, and I was gobsmacked that this cretin was the press secretary. He could barely put a sentence together, and it sounded as if he had a hard time relaying a thought from his brain to his mouth. I tweeted:
Spicer gabbled on for several minutes, but I tuned out. Too bad, because I missed his stupidest comment of the presser, and that’s saying something. He was talking about the meaningless attack on Syria–by the way, can we talk about that for a second? This president unilaterally decides to bomb Syria, mostly as a stunt, and partly because of his daughter’s tears, and he’s fapped by the press for being presidential for the first time. It makes me sick that our media has learned nothing from W.’s fictitious war and how they reported on it. Also, this same president waxing poetic about the suffering of Syrian children won’t let them into this country. In additoin, there are children in Flint, Michigan dying of lead poisoning, but no one seems to give a shit about that.
I digress.
In talking about the bombing and why Assad is the worst dicator ever, Spicer said this:
You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.
When I heard he said that, I couldn’t believe it. I know he’s an ignorant and stupid man, befitting the president for whom he works, but did he really say that? I was certain I was being trolled, but I wasn’t. Yes, the president’s press secretary didn’t know or forgot that Hitler gassed 6 million Jews. To make matters worse, when asked to clarify his remarks, he was forced to admit Hitler did use chemical weaponry, but insisted there was a difference, saying;
I think when it comes to sarin gas, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way Assad is doing.
I literally recoiled inside when I read this. The naked anti-Semitism in this statement is astonishing. Also, ignorant. Also, blind nationalism is never a good thing. First of all, it’s OK to use chemical weapons on people if they’re not your own people? What the fuck is wrong with you? Second, Jews CAN be German. The fact that Spicer doesn’t know this or won’t acknowledge it is fucking scary.
He also said something about ‘Holocaust centers’, which apparently is the day spa version of concentration camps. In other words, it was a whole ball of WHAT THE FUCK sprinkled with a generous portion of NOPE.
He’s apologized for it twice, saying he shouldn’t have made the comparison, but it’s too little, too late. The fact that this is his mentality proves what we’ve long since known–that he shouldn’t be WH Press Secretary.
The problem is, though, he’s perfect for this president. A no-nothing, egotistical, bullying, patronizing, ignorant man who is going to lead us into WW III one way or the other. My brother picked me up from the airport last night and asked me plaintively why this president hasn’t been impeached. I still maintain hope that he will be gone in two years (ideally one, but I’m being, ahem, conservative at the moment), but how much damage will he do in the meantime? Sean Spicer isn’t a bug–he’s a feature. I just read that Betsy DeVos rescinded the protections President Obama put in place to help people crippled with student loans not get fleeced by student loan services. She also recently compared charter schools to Uber or Lyft, pushing the tired old meme that private companies get the best results. I bet she thinks public transit is a waste, too, even though I bet she’s never been on a bus. Speaking of public transportation, Amtrak just got screwed by this administration as well.
Let’s not even talk about AG Sessions or the way the Republicans stole the SCOTUS seat. That’s the problem with this administration–there is something horrible to talk about every day. Several times a day.
I never want to hear that America is a meritocracy again. I knew it wasn’t true before this administration came into being, but it’s highlighted in stark relief by the horribleness of this current president. I wrote earlier about the United Airlines incident in which a doctor of Chinese descent was dragged, screaming from a flight because United needed to seat some of their own crew members on the flight and had no volunteers to be bumped. What happened next was even more disgusting. The local media were Dr. Dao lived dug into his past and did a hit piece on him, detailing his troubled history. This is a defense usually reserved for black and brown people, but I guess it’ll do for the yellow man this time as well. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the cops beating on the victim in the current moment doesn’t have access to his full history, so it don’t mean shit. In addition, we rarely get the same treatment for white victims. Indeed, white perps often have their histories soft-pedaled by the media, especially if they’re athletes of any kind. I’m thinking of Brock Turner who raped an unconscious woman and got only a slap on the wrist. He was a swimmer at Stanford, and that was mentioned in nearly every article about him. The picture accompanying the story was usually one of him looking all clean and collegiate. There were sob stories about his family being torn apart by this incident, and it was disgusting. When the judge sentenced him to a walk in the park, the judge said he did so in part because of how jail would be hard on Turner.
Excuse me???? Isn’t that the goddamn fucking point? Jail is supposed to be hard, goddamn it. But not for a delicate flower like Brock Turner, apparently. Who looks as white as white can be and is from the good old heartland of Nebraska.
Do I sound bitter? Of course I am. This man raped an unconscious woman, sent pictures of her tits to his friends, showed no remorse at all, and yet, jail would be too hard for him. He was treated as if he was the victim, and you can bet your sweet ass the judge wouldn’t have been so understanding if the perp had been black.
Same with the United Airlines situation. I have a hard time imagining that the airport cops would have dragged out a white man in the same manner, but that’s not really the point. It’s the media and how quick they were to dredge up Dr. Dao’s history. There’s some question as to whether it’s even the right Dr. Dao, but that’s not the point, either. Minorities know that we’re here on sufferance. Yes, Asians are the ‘model minority’* but only as long as we continue to excel and don’t make waves. The incident with Dr. Dao shows how quickly that honorary status can be taken away. We PoC know that we have to be twice as good as white folks to be considered not trash.
I bring this up because I cannot imagine how this president and his administration would have been received if this president were black. Wait, yes, I can. All I have to do is think back to the last president and remember how he was treated as if he were a criminal, even though he wasn’t. I wrote a post asking you to imagine how PBO would have been treated if he’d acted the way this president is, and you can bet it wouldn’t have been the same. I will say that this president is the benefit of lowered expectations, even during his campaign, because everyone knows he’s not fit to be president. This should be a reason to be more exacting with him, but that’s not the way America works. Qualified black man handles presidency competently, and he’s run through the ringer by the press. Incompetent white man is an utter failure as a president, and he’s treated with kids gloves. That’s our America, love it or leave it.
Speaking of leaving it, my brother and I talked about leaving America. This would seem a good time for it, and believe me, I’ve given it serious thought. However, like it or not, this is my country–and believe you me I do not like it. I’m old, tired, frustrated, and scared, but this is my fucking country, too, damn it. Even if others don’t think so. I’m here to stay.
*This is wrong, by the way, but this post isn’t about that.