(part one) POTUS FOCUS
EXCERPTS FROM MY LETTERS & HMPRESENTLY PUBLISHED IN A COLORADO ONLINE MAGAZINE…click dates to read articles
(3/11/19) — “You know, I don’t know, maybe you know.”
You can probably guess who said that in a speech that went on for more than two hours. The speaker explained what may have seemed obvious: “You know, I’m totally off script right now,” he said. “And this is how I got elected, by being off script. True. And if we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks.”
What comes next in the speech is what marketing gurus might describe as the call to action. After suggesting the country’s in trouble “if we don’t go off script,” the speaker goes on to explain why dumping the script is so necessary. Evidently, “Cause we have to get it” — meaning the country — “back.”
(3/26/19) — We’re hearing the terrible S-word again. The President and his fellow Republicans are all over Democrats, calling them Socialists. They’re even suggesting America could topple to Socialism because of Democrats…Like all those Southeast Asian nations falling to Socialism in the 1960s? Are Republicans kidding? Are they screwing with everyone’s mind?
(7/5/19) — America’s current president seemed awfully excited about ‘brand new’ Sherman tanks he was planning to have in the nation’s capitol on July 4th. As reported in the media, it was way back in the 1950s when Sherman tanks were actually brand new. That WWII-era battle tank, that saw action in the Korean War, was replaced, a long time ago, by M48 tanks. After a number of years, the old M48s were replaced by M60 tanks, powered by diesel engines…that was quite something, at the time. The aging M60s were then replaced by the state-of-the-art Abrams tank. The Abrams, currently, is a key weapon of war in the nation’s military arsenal. Brand new Sherman tanks this Independence Day? Shouldn’t M48s and M60s get some equal time?
(7/30/19) — PR people like me…we’ve shaped what others say. And now, there’s political rhetoric that takes the game to a whole new — and disturbing — level. What some politicians are saying is more twisted than a pretzel. Their patriotic-sounding words mask the actual purpose of their rhetoric, to denigrate and attack anyone whose beliefs differ from their beliefs. Political opponents are unpatriotic, they hate our great nation!…The press is the enemy of the American people.
(9/13/19) — I heard the word — ‘bonehead’ — in the news, another one of those old-style words the current U.S. President likes to use. Especially in tweets, when he wants to bend someone to his will. He aimed the word at the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, because the president wants the Fed to lower its interest rates all the way down to zero, or maybe below zero. That could impact any number of things, including the interest folks earn on a savings account. If zero equals zero, people may lose interest, so to speak, in having a savings account…(But) Back to bonehead…That’s another one of those old-style words in the President’s lexicon….Old-style words are interesting, like the word — ‘lout.’ It’s defined as an “awkward brutish person.”
(9/23/19) — Almost daily, it seems, one thing and another is being rolled back, without much input from hundreds of millions of people living in America. Protections for national parklands are being rolled back. We may be seeing oil drilling rigs dotting areas of our favorite parks. The government also seems intent on opening more coastal waters to oil drilling. Protected animals will have to fend for themselves, as initiatives safeguarding them are being rolled back. Safety nets for vulnerable folks in our nation are being underfunded, or signed out of existence in executive orders — those documents you see the President putting his name to, with a flourish. Who said, “Go ahead! Do whatever you want.” Who gave the green light to act without regard for wellbeing? To run roughshod?
(3/9/2020) — Their rhetoric still sounds old and outdated…The president and others in his orbit keep talking like they’re back in the 1960s, or even the ’50s. Like when the president called Washington’s Democratic governor a snake during a presidential visit to the state, last week. Calling the governor a snake sort of sounds like something from one of those Old Wild West shows, when one cowpoke would call another cowpoke a snake in the grass…The next thing you know, the president’s maybe calling someone a dirty double-crosser? I first brought up outdated rhetoric in a letter I wrote in the Daily Post, a year ago. POTUS and his followers were calling Democrats radical lefties, words dating back to the Vietnam War. He talked about sweetheart deals, and he let everyone know who calls the shots…That letter ‘O’ in the abbreviated name of the Republican Party, the GOP, does stand for old, you know.
