Joe Biden Proves He Is Mentally Stable, And Hits A Home Run In His Acceptance Speech At The Democratic National Convention

Joe Biden had a masterful performance last night, as he accepted the Democratic nomination for President!

He proved he was mentally stable and competent, and his speech was flawless.

It demonstrated the man he is–one of empathy, decency, compassion, competence, experience.

He made clear that America is in a crisis, and that he, with Kamala Harris by his side, will have the best people available to assist him in dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Second Great Depression, racial matters, and the crisis of climate change.

He will make it an issue of patriotism for the American people to have a national commitment to wear face masks and sacrifice for the common good, as otherwise, the pandemic will destroy us if the American people do not cooperate.

I have followed Joe Biden for a half century, and while I have not always agreed with him on every issue, I believe he is a unique politician, as he truly cares and is sincere, in a manner rarely found in politicians.

He will, when elected, follow through on progressive reforms, in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and especially, Barack Obama.

And Joe Biden will have his college professor wife, Dr. Jill Biden, by his side, and she will become of the most outstanding First Ladies in American history.

The crimes of the Trump Presidency must also be pursued and prosecuted, as that should be a priority of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Early public opinion polls since Biden chose Harris show him gaining more of a lead, a good sign, while Donald Trump is flailing aimlessly!

41 comments on “Joe Biden Proves He Is Mentally Stable, And Hits A Home Run In His Acceptance Speech At The Democratic National Convention

  1. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 5:31 am

    So the standard for mental stability in 2020 America is being able to stand on an empty stage and read from a teleprompter while maintaining eye contact with cameras, is it?

    Plus ~ given that virtually Everything the progressive, democratic socialist wing of the Party wanted included in the Platform and the Agenda was ignored ~ : What “progressive reforms” is Biden going to follow thru on?

    And how many votes do You think he lost when he doubled-down on his national face mask mandate? Especially when he chose to wrap it in The Flag?

    To demand that people wear a mask ~ or do anything ~ because it is their “patriotic duty” is one hallmark of Fascism, and every other form of statist collectivism that places “the Nation” above all other considerations; especially above the mere Individual.

    And finally: If Mr Biden [or any of the other speakers over the past four nites] said anything at all about ~ ending “The Forever War” and trillion dollar “defense” budgets, avoiding Cold War II, dealing with America’s $26.7 Trillion and growing by leaps and bounds national sovereign debt, or the looming bankruptcy of its multiple government “entitlement” Programs ~ if he or any of them said anything at all about any of that, i must have missed it.

    But, at least now we know what the ruling elite have deemed to be America’s alternative to Trump this year: Another corporatist, crony capitalist, neo-liberal/neo-conservative career SwampLander, just like in 2016.

    As Thomas Jefferson once put it: “If there is a Just God, i tremble for the future of my country.”

    ###

  2. Ronald August 22, 2020 8:26 am

    Why is it, Jeffrey, that other nations have NOT had the disastrous toll of deaths and cases of the United States?

    Because people stopped acting like spoiled brats, and did their patriotic duty to save lives and think beyond their own comforts!

    That is how a nation overcomes trials and tribulations–SACRIFICE—and you are clearly part of the rebel group that is only concerned about oneself, and yells “FASCISM”, instead of realizing that it is Donald Trump who is the FASCIST who wishes to destroy our democracy and the Constitution!

    You are blind as a bat, and revealing not so nice things about yourself, that you make a complaint about a simple thing which helps to bring down infections, and has done so in many democratic nations, because the people are understanding that this is the one thing they can do to help fellow citizens to avoid death!

  3. Pragmatic Progressive August 22, 2020 9:36 am

    The complaints about lack of policy statements is tone deaf. The policy statements are there, interwoven in the messages of community building, care for our neighbors, rebuilding America’s positions in the world, and the return of human decency and its benefits.

  4. Ronald August 22, 2020 9:39 am

    Thank you, Pragmatic Progressive!

  5. Princess Leia August 22, 2020 9:51 am

    When other candidates were offering nifty ’12 point plans’, V.P. Biden was framing this election as the battle for the “soul of the nation”. V.P. Biden realized that he would be combating a truly evil and twisted candidate (Trump) who has threatened to dismantle U.S. democracy. V.P. Biden is betting that U.S. voters want an inclusive and empathetic U.S. as opposed to an authoritarian and nationalistic state. I think he is right.

  6. Rational Lefty August 22, 2020 9:52 am

    Schools start remotely in our neck of the woods on Monday. Already, we have 3 teachers who have tested positive for the virus and 15 in quarantine.

  7. Pragmatic Progressive August 22, 2020 9:58 am

    Seconded, Leia.

  8. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 11:00 am

    RF: “Why is it, Jeffrey, that other nations have NOT had the disastrous toll of deaths and cases of the United States?”

    Before answering that, let me ask You a question: f the Case and Death toll in America is all Trump’s fault, is the collapse of the Economy also all his fault, as well? How much did “lockdown” and “stay-at-home” recommendations and/or orders from the federal and state governments have to do with The Second Great Depression?

    i assume You’ll ignore the rest of this, but i will send it anyway, just to exercise my little grey cells, as Inspector Poirot once put it.

    At the risk of endlessly repeating myself and being continuously ignored, i will first of all remind You of the difference between Raw total numbers of Cases and Deaths, on the one hand, and PER CAPITA Cases and Deaths, on the other.

    How much more “disastrous” are America’s Per Capita numbers than any other developed nation’s?

    And ~ to go back to my opening questions ~ how are all those other developed nations’ economies faring thru this whole thing, as compared to America’s?

    The WHO didn’t come out and firmly recommend the wearing of masks until Jun 5. If You look at Daily Case and Death Numbers, You will see that bothe numbers of Cases and Deaths ~ both globally and here in the US ~ have been going up since that date.

    How did Sagan put it: “Does correlation equal causation?” Well, we just don’t know, do we? But the so-called “Second Wave” ~ if that’s what it is ~ started after WHO recommended masking. You then answered Your own question:

    “Because people stopped acting like spoiled brats, and did their patriotic duty to save lives and think beyond their own comforts!”

    The people in all those nations, East and West, that were hit hard by COVID-19 before Cases and Deaths finally started to level off [and WHO came out for masks] and then decreased were acting like “spoiled brats, etc”? And then all of a sudden “got patriotic”?

    Given the fact that the overwhelming majority of the early, “first wave” Cases and deaths were overwhelmingly among those age 65 and over with pre-existing, general health-compromising conditions, did the Case and Death rate in Europe or the Middle Atlantic States level off because those folks suddenly got patriotic? Or because the most vulnerable had been taken victim; as always happens in any kind of disaster, natural or man-made?

    Your simple and pat answer is exactly that, Professor: very simple and very pat, and, because it explains nothing, very trite. You continue:

    “That is how a nation overcomes trials and tribulations–SACRIFICE—… ”

    Wrong. Sacrifice is NOT how a nation “overcomes trials and tribulations.”

    It overcomes them by identifying the Root Source Causes of those tnt’s, and then doing what is necessary to gather the resources and ability to confront, combat, defeat, and destroy those RSC’s and the people, institutions, and systems that maintain and sustain, perpetrate and perpetuate them.

    That only becomes a “Sacrifice” if people prefer the trials and tribulations. If they determine to end those trials and tribulations, what they do is not “sacrifice,” but acting to gain something that is of higher value to them than simply enduring and merely trying to make the best of those tnt’s.

    “… and you are clearly part of the rebel group that is only concerned about oneself, and yells ‘FASCISM’, instead of realizing that it is Donald Trump who is the FASCIST who wishes to destroy our democracy and the Constitution!”

    With all due respect, Professor: Bullsnot. i have already explained to You my feelings about masks and what i do about them; so do not presume to include me into any of Your “rebel groups,” at least when it comes to proposed national mask mandates.

    And do not presume to tell me that i am not aware of the fact that Trump is a Fascist. How could he not be, and be President? [Refer to my post about QAnon, the “Deep State,” and him.] Oh, not the Mussolini and Hitler type of Fascist [at least not yet]. But the Obama, Cheney/Bush the Lesser, Clinton, Bush the Elder/Bozo, Peanut Farmer Fascist And, of course, the LBJ, FDR, and Woody Wilson kind, in presidential continuity.

    All Trump is doing is carrying on in the grand tradition of his predecessors of both Parties, getting ~ as all Presidents do ~ all the regular help he needs, wants, and must have if the Game is going work, from the folks down there at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. And, of course, the boys over at The Fedral Reserve, America’s Fourth Branch of the federal government. You concluded:

    “You are blind as a bat, and revealing not so nice things about yourself, that you make a complaint about a simple thing which helps to bring down infections, and has done so in many democratic nations, because the people are understanding that this is the one thing they can do to help fellow citizens to avoid death!”

    i have not complained about wearing face masks, Ronald. i have complained about government mandates regarding wearing face masks; and primarily because of questions i have about how such a mandate could possibly be enforced nationally. And if the cost of that enforcement [and not just in dollars, but in the whole already badly-rent fabric of America] will be worth the right-now-only- theoretical return in reduced cases and saved lives.

    The Federal Government ~ the whole of SwampLand ~ has screwed up just about every aspect of The COVID-19 Event [including the attendant “2d Depression”] that it has come into contact with and just about as possibly as it could have so far.

    Just like it has screwed up virtually everything about its “Forever War,” and how it screwed up everything about and since the 2008 financial ¢risi$ [in terms of those RSCses], and its past and present “Wars” on, among other things, Indochina, Poverty, Drugs, and Illiteracy. Just like it screwed up handling the Peace after World War II, and “The 1st Great Depression,” on the way to that War.

    Given that History of Failure, what makes You think that its “War” against the SARS-CoV-2 Virus is going to be any more successful just because one Facist in the White House is replaced by another, albeit one of a different degree, and holding a different pedigree?

    ###

  9. Princess Leia August 22, 2020 11:14 am

    Rational Lefty – Because of that, I very highly doubt that schools in our neck of the woods will start in person learning in September.

  10. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 11:24 am

    And what, Pragmatic Progressive, do “messages of community building, care for our neighbors, rebuilding America’s positions in the world, and the return of human decency and its benefits” have to do with a explicit statement of intent [let alone a campaign commitment] to:

    1. End “The Forever War” and the MIC’s trillion dollar “defense” budgets?
    2. Avoid Cold War II?
    3. And particularly, deal with America’s $26.7 Trillion national sovereign debt, and the looming bankruptcy of Social Security, Medicare, and other multiple government “entitlement” Programs?

    Does anybody actually really think that making the “Rich” and “the corporations” pay “their fair share” of taxes is going to solve Item 3?

    Well that will depend entirely on who defines “the rich,” and how they go about defining “fair share,” doesn’t it?

    Or think that any politician can be elected promising to make Item 1 actually happen? Ms Harris made any Biden administration stand on budget cuts to our global Empire maintenance, sustainment, and expansion very obvious when she helped defeat Sanders’ 10% cut proposal.

    And as for Item 2: That’s been The Plan since Cold War I ended back in 1991: Have a new existential threat for the MIC to terrorize the American Peoples with until Russia can come back from the collapse of the USSR, and China can bury the madness of Mao, and become genuine, no kidding, military and thus economic and thus political threats to American global hegemony.

    And we are just about there, even as we speak.

    Orwell had his Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania with its Big Brother. We have Russia and Putin, China and Xi, and America with its either Trump or Biden.

  11. Rustbelt Democrat August 22, 2020 12:19 pm

    The economic situation is absolutely Rump’s fault because he didn’t take the virus seriously.

  12. Former Republican August 22, 2020 12:23 pm

    Professor is right. Troll is wrong, as usual.

  13. Pragmatic Progressive August 22, 2020 12:27 pm

    Only thing we can all agree on is the need for an edit button.

  14. Princess Leia August 22, 2020 12:36 pm

    In no way, shape or form was Obama a dictator.

  15. Pragmatic Progressive August 22, 2020 12:40 pm

    Nor Clinton, Carter, LBJ, FDR, or any of the others the fool listed.

  16. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 12:40 pm

    Nobody said Obama was a “dictator, Princess Leia. He was described as just another garden-variety American Fascist. Just like his predecessors and just like his successor.

    Do You know what Fascism is?

  17. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 12:43 pm

    And nobody said any of those folks were “dictators” either, Pragmatic Progressive. Altho a very, Very strong case can be made for attaching that label to FDR, even before he got his War.

  18. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 12:46 pm

    We’re not talking about Dictators here, folks; we’re talking about Fascists, be they of the Communist, Socialist, National Socialist, Democratic Socialist, or any other garden variety.

  19. Former Republican August 22, 2020 12:47 pm

    Ladies – The fool lives in a fantasy world.

  20. Princess Leia August 22, 2020 12:51 pm

    Yep. The rest of us totally second that, Former Republican.

  21. Rustbelt Democrat August 22, 2020 1:18 pm

    Ha. Ha. When Rump stresses us out and we’re in need of a good laugh, this is the place to come.

  22. Ronald August 22, 2020 1:53 pm

    Jeffrey, glad to see you are an expert on Fascism (NOT)!

    None of the Presidents mentioned were Fascists, and really, even when disagreeing with Nixon and Bush II, they were not Fascists either.

    You are not contributing anything worth responding to, shaking my head! 🙁

  23. Southern Liberal August 22, 2020 2:13 pm

    This election is about more than just policy. The biggest issue is about the character traits the Professor mentioned, all of which Trump lacks. We can’t have 4 more years of him. Vote Blue and vote early.

  24. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 2:39 pm

    Vote early. And Vote Often.

    And remember what Papa Joe said: “It ain’t who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.”

  25. Jeffrey G Moebus August 22, 2020 4:34 pm

    Given how seldom You or anybody responds to anything i submit, what’s different this time? In any event: Give it a break, Ronald.

    i make no claim to being an expert on Fascism; i am merely a student of American and World history, particularly of the late 19th, and the 20th and 21st centuries, and the rise of the Nation-State, and with it, the rise of both Communism and Fascism, in Europe, Asia, and, particularly, in the United States [under the camouflage of the so-called “Mixed Economy” and, over the past 30 years, the “New American Century” of PNAC renown, now referred to as “The Forever War”].

    And like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart explained in 1964 as regards distinguishing between what is and is not “obscenity”: “I know it when I see it.”

    And i see Fascism all over this government with its Imperial Presidencies, its linkage to Wall Street and the perpetual Wars of its MIC going back at least to FDR and Wilson [with a sneak preview courtesy of Lincoln], and its control of the Media and Education, among more than just a few other things.

    Just to be clear, let me give You my definition of Fascism: A system of economic and political domination and control where property, capital, and business organizations, especially corporations, are privately owned, but all decisions regarding economic production, distribution, and consumption are made by The State. It is also a system of social and cultural domination and control in that it places “The Nation” and its Glory and Greatness above all considerations of the Individual.

    That is compared to Socialism, in its various guises: A system of economic and political domination and control where property, capital, and all economic enterprises are owned by The State, and all all economic decisions are made by The State, as in Fascism. And instead of “The Nation” as its primary icon, it is the Glory and Greatness of “The Party” and its leadership of “the Proletariat” that trumps the Individual.

    The only critical difference between the two systems is whether or not there is private or State ownership of property, capital, and business. In either case, it is The State that makes all the decisions as to what is to be done in the realm of the economy.

    Those who denounce America’s situation as one contaminated and threatened by Marxist, Communist, Leftist Socialists don’t understand that difference between the two systems.

    And those on the Right who denounce[d] Obama and Clinton as leftist socialist communist fellow travelers are completely ignorant of what Fascism is.

    And those on either the Left, the Right,or in the Muddled Middle who do not denounce the entire American system of government and governance as Fascism-Lite, at best, are ignorant of American and World History.

    And will get exactly what they deserve as this whole thing unfolds, and proceeds unmolested toward its tipping point.

    ###

  26. Former Republican August 22, 2020 6:08 pm

    Seconded, Southern Liberal.

  27. Princess Leia August 22, 2020 6:22 pm

    Perfectly describes how we ladies here feel –

    Coronavirus crisis contributes to the rage propelling many women toward November

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/20/1970865/-Coronavirus-crisis-contributes-to-the-rage-propelling-many-women-toward-November

    Donald Trump’s time in office was kicked off by the massive Women’s March, and women have followed through with elevated levels of activism. Now, polls show women as a key to defeating Trump, and that means … another cycle with a stupid “________ moms” media narrative. Because it’s 2020, though, soccer moms and security moms have given way to “rage moms.”

    There’s a lot here that’s real: “Women were more likely than men to report having participated in protests over the past two years,” The New York Times reports, “and mothers with children in the home were twice as likely as fathers to report participating in a protest, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from June.” Joe Biden leads with women by double digits in many polls. But let’s not go along with the glibness of “rage moms.”

    Women’s reasons to be furious are many and deep: The coronavirus pandemic has reminded us how unequally the burden of child care falls, with many women being forced to sacrifice their careers or their own wellness because the kids are home and fathers and husbands aren’t doing their fair share. Now the child care industry is on the brink of disaster, which will compound the pressure on mothers.

    But the child care crisis is also a jobs crisis, with one in five jobs in this overwhelmingly female occupation having disappeared since February. That’s not the only pandemic-related job loss hitting women especially hard: State and local governments shed 1.5 million jobs, and 63% of those workers were women. Both child care and state and local government jobs are also disproportionately held by Black women—in the case of child care, it’s increasing the race-and-gender pay gap, while in the case of the government jobs, it’s reducing it: Black women are earning more in state and local government than they do in the private sector.

    As Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in her Wednesday night Democratic National Convention speech: “We build infrastructure like roads and bridges so that people can work. That infrastructure helps us all because it keeps our economy going. It’s time to recognize that child care is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation—it’s infrastructure for families.”

    “The fact that we do not value child care, that we don’t value early education, this is not something that Covid created—it’s something that Covid exposed,” a doctor, activist, and mother of two told The New York Times. “The moms and parents around me are all feeling that very same thing.”

    ”I am so full of rage,” Alida Garcia, the vice president of the immigration advocacy group Fwd.us and mother of 1-year-old twins, told The New York Times. But, capturing the bind women are in, she continued: “We are exhausted.”

    And all of the things brought up by the coronavirus crisis are laid on top of the rage that propelled women into the streets for the Women’s March, like the fact that a man made it into the White House after bragging about habitual sexual assault of the kind too familiar to too many women. The way any woman who runs for higher office is subjected to endless sexist attacks and snidely misogynistic commentary. The ongoing unequal pay that puts Women’s Equal Pay Day in late March or April and Black Women’s Equal Pay Day in August.

    Women have reason for our rage. But trying to brand it as another voting bloc, another campaign-year curiosity, the flippant shorthand of “rage moms”—that’s just offensive.

  28. Former Republican August 22, 2020 6:26 pm

    Nails it! –

    Biden declares Trump’s era of American carnage over

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/22/1971414/-Biden-declares-Trump-s-era-of-American-carnage-over

    Actress and “veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus perfectly underscored the dissonance of Donald Trump’s macabre reign over America as she moderated the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

    “When Donald Trump spoke at his inauguration about American carnage,” Louis-Dreyfus said, harkening back to his ominous 2017 inauguration speech, “I assumed that was something he was against, not a campaign promise.”

    It was a searing observation. Every single sane person in this country has struggled at moments with whether to laugh or cry at the mindbending incompetence and ghoulish buffoonery Trump brought to the Oval Office on Day One, starting with his plainly ludicrous insistence that his inaugural crowd size was stupendous—unmatched! Hour-by-hour every day for more than three years, we never knew whether it was okay to let our guard down long enough to indulge an impulsive snort at the burnt orange carnival barker who was infecting every aspect of American life because something horrifically cruel—worse than we could imagine—was never far behind. Like the unthinkable family separation policy that traded the warm embrace of a child’s parent for cages, concrete floors and foil blankets. Or Trump’s personal attack on the pregnant grieving widow of a special forces officer who died in Niger. Or his blessing of the “very fine” neo-Nazis who marched in the streets in Charlottesville and ultimately took the life of a peaceful protester.

    And so, as Trump continually made a fool of himself in front of everyone on this planet oriented to time and place, we questioned whether his absurdity was worth even a brief giggle because the freakishness that undergirded it always carried much too steep a price.

    But right around February and March of this year, that dilemma melted away into a sea of anger and rage as we helplessly watched the mental and emotional anguish Trump exacted on first responders, medical workers, essential workers, the vulnerable, the elderly, the disenfranchised, struggling families, parents, and children. The toll Trump has taken on everyone who isn’t a cultist has been illimitable, relentless, and absolute. No sane person has been spared, though some have suffered greater losses than others and people of color have bore the brunt Trump’s hideousness more than any other single group.

    “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” Trump had promised on January 20, 2017, as he delivered a dystopian preview of the landscape that would become our lives. Trump was preparing to destroy the world as we knew it, moment by moment, bit by bit, until the only thing left of it was his demented reality.

    Indeed, that’s the grotesque distortion that was reflected back to us by speaker after speaker at this week’s Democratic National Convention.

    “If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can and they will if we don’t make a change this election,” warned former First Lady Michelle Obama.

    “The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, urging everyone to “come together” to defeat Trump. “The price of failure is just too great to imagine.

    And former President Obama delivered the most stirring of warnings, telling Americans that Trump and Republicans are “counting on your cynicism” as they erect every possible barrier to voting and then assure people their vote won’t count anyway.

    “That is how they win,” Obama said. “That’s how a democracy withers until it’s no democracy at all, and we cannot let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy,” he urged, telling people to make a plan right now for how to get involved and vote.

    We are a broken and grieving nation right now, thanks to Donald Trump. He has spent years wearing us down to little more than a nub, and this week’s most powerful speakers used their time to build us back up for the epic battle that awaits this fall. To assure us that we still possess the power to turn the page on one of our country’s darkest and most perilous moments in decades, if not over a century.

    Joe Biden just happens to be a man who has spent his life rebuilding in the wake of more tragedy than any one person should endure in their lifetime—rebuilding his kids, his family, his life, and his faith time and again after unspeakable losses.

    “How do you make a broken family whole?” asked Dr. Jill Biden, who helped her husband rebuild following the death of his young daughter and first wife in a car accident in the early ‘70s. “The same way you make a nation whole: with love and understanding and with small acts of kindness. With bravery, with unwavering faith. We show up for each other in big ways and small ones again and again.”

    Biden showed up this week for a weary nation, offering the kindness and empathy that’s been missing from the well of our hearts and the grind of our days. He assured us that he believes in us at time when it so often feels like we’ve lost our way.

    “This is our moment. This is our mission,” Biden said, toward the end of his nomination acceptance speech on Thursday. “May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight,” he said, pledging, “this is a battle that we, together, will win. I promise you.”

    It’s a battle we must win, we can win, and we will win. Believe.

  29. Former Republican August 22, 2020 7:32 pm

    Every face at the RNC convention will be the face of someone who has betrayed their country.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/22/1971384/-Every-face-you-see-at-the-RNC-convention-will-be-the-face-of-someone-who-has-betrayed-their-country

    It is often the most obvious things that escape our notice, and nowhere is that more true than in the bombardment of malignancy and criminality that has been the hallmark of the Trump administration. The shower of pure evil that has cascaded from Trump throughout the entire three years and seven months since he mouthed the words to the presidential oath has been nothing short of mind-numbing in scope. The American people have literally been saturated with example after example of his criminality, to the point where it’s become nearly impossible to rank them all in terms of sheer venality.

    The fact—revealed this week—that members of Trump’s cabinet actually held an informal vote on whether to proceed with tearing children away from their parents, sending many of those parents back to countries where their lives were under mortal threat—while shuffling their stolen children among a web of prisons and cages deep within this country’s interior—will stand as one of the most evil acts of any administration in our country’s history. That was a truly perfect example of what the political philosopher and thinker Hannah Arendt, speaking of Adolf Eichmann’s trial, famously called the “banality of evil.”

    But there is still one more act of this administration that defined its character more than any other—and that act implicates every Republican who continued to support him, including all of those who will display themselves willingly at the Republican convention this week. It was an act so despicable, so un-American in its character that it can only be described as pure treachery, the same type of treachery in act, thought and deed for which American soldiers would face court-martial and imprisonment.

    This was the act of willfully accepting, even encouraging whether explicitly or implicitly, the assistance of the Russian Federation and its head of state, Vladimir Putin, in the (ultimately successful) effort to surreptitiously manipulate the U.S. election to ensure the Trump administration would prevail in 2016.

    Every speaker at the RNC convention this week, every politician, every U.S. elected official who speaks in support of Trump’s re-election, every private citizen, celebrity, armed services member, mother or father who takes the stage or appears remotely this week—to spew their grievances, their anger, their family tragedies, or simply their full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump—is ratifying that act of betrayal. Every single word that is broadcast over the web, every face appearing on a Zoom link, every state delegate who will echo their enthusiastic approval of Trump’s renomination, does so under the knowing shadow of his treachery.

    And every flag (for there will be many, many flags) that is waved in front of the cameras will be a backhanded mockery of this nation’s ideals, tainted by the guilt and shame that only the willing and knowing betrayal of country can induce.

    Every. Single. One.

    The exhaustive investigation by Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign’s interactions with the Russian government, despite its domination of the country’s gaze for months, now seems to be a relic from another time. Trump was successful, through the constant effects of repetition, in turning that investigation into a referendum on his direct collusion with Russian intelligence. As the campaign had taken great pains to avoid leaving a paper or electronic trail of evidence, and because they were dealing, in the Russian GRU and FSB, with one of the most sophisticated intelligence apparatuses in the world, no “smoking gun” proving collusion was ever found.

    What got lost in the politically-charged finger-pointing, and drowned out by the howling maelstrom of outrage from the then-Republican House, was the fact that evidence of direct conspiracy or collusion was largely irrelevant. At a bare minimum, the administration was well aware of and actively solicitous of Russian involvement. There was never any action taken to discourage it, or even advise U.S. intelligence agencies of the degree to which Russians had infiltrated the servers of Democratic Party officials.

    That was the act of treachery, laid out in plain sight. Because what Trump, his family members, and his colleagues (several of whom have been convicted of crimes directly or indirectly associated with that treachery) did in 2016 went far beyond the acceptance of foreign “assistance” or “damaging information” as it has been characterized ad nauseum. The “assistance” was coming not from an ally, not even from a neutral party, but from a regime which has attempted, since the end of World War II, to undermine not just the United States, but all of our strategic allies worldwide. As reported by The New York Times last year, this goal remains the top priority of Putin’s intelligence services.

    [Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite unit inside the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination.
    The group, known as Unit 29155, has operated for at least a decade, yet Western officials only recently discovered it. Intelligence officials in four Western countries say it is unclear how often the unit is mobilized and warn that it is impossible to know when and where its operatives will strike.
    The purpose of Unit 29155, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is actively fighting the West with his brand of so-called hybrid warfare — a blend of propaganda, hacking attacks and disinformation — as well as open military confrontation.]

    Putin’s initial goal in undermining the 2016 election was never simply to get Trump elected, but to undermine the fabric of American democracy and weaken the U.S. strategically by fanning internal divisions within our society, and sabotaging our alliances. The Mueller report, if it did nothing else, made that explicitly clear.

    The assistance that Trump’s campaign sought, acknowledged or acquiesced in was a carefully constructed template of deliberate election interference with one end goal in mind—the degradation of elimination of the American Republic, with the end goal being its destruction.

    That is who Trump and his cronies were so eager to deal with in 2016. And this was not news to them.

    [The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies.
    The candidates were urged to alert the FBI about any suspicious overtures to their campaigns, the officials said.]

    For the Trump campaign, that briefing was pointless, as their knowing acceptance of Russian assistance was already well underway.

    None of these facts are unknown to the people who will be speaking at this week’s RNC convention. They are all of public record for anyone—every single American citizen– who does not make the voluntary decision to ignore them, to justify them, or to rationalize them. Donald Trump willingly sold out our country’s interests to a hostile foreign power to get himself elected. That was an act of treachery, one that cannot be rationalized by any American with even a dim sense of patriotic feeling. Those who would countenance or justify such actions, or those who would simply wink at them while turning a blind eye are as guilty of that treachery as he is.

    Author and historian Daniel Goldhagen ignited a firestorm when he published, in 1996, a painstakingly-researched book called Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Goldhagen’s primary thesis was that it was not only card-carrying members of the Nazi Party who enabled the Holocaust, but the active complicity and approval of ordinary Germans who knowingly allowed it to happen. The book elicited howls of indignation and provoked national embarrassment at the time among swaths of Germans, many for whom the period of 1933-1945 remained a living memory, but its basic point has been largely vindicated by the passage of time: Silence in the face of criminality is complicity.

    The response of Trump’s base of support to his act of betraying our country’s institutions to the interests of the Russian Federation has been a knowing conspiracy of silence in its own right. So this week’s RNC convention will, if nothing else, provide everyone in this country with a glimpse of Vladimir Putin’s handiwork. Americans would do well to keep that in mind as they listen to the screeds and bloviating that are bound to be featured in its presentation.

    Because every face on display, every speech, every endorsement, will be that of someone who has betrayed our country, whether they want to admit it or not.

  30. Rational Lefty August 22, 2020 10:05 pm

    I’m of the opinion that this nation is under a curse because of Trump. Now we have California burning up and two hurricanes headed to Louisiana.

  31. Rustbelt Democrat August 22, 2020 10:41 pm

    Not now, asteroid. We’re busy dealing with our own agent of destruction.

  32. Former Republican August 22, 2020 10:42 pm

    Trumpocalypse…MMD or Moron of Mass Destruction.

  33. Princess Leia August 22, 2020 10:43 pm

    Ha. Nice one, Former Republican!

  34. Pragmatic Progressive August 23, 2020 10:12 am

    Lol! Maybe it’s really the aliens coming to take Trump back home to planet Chaos! Lol!

  35. Jeffrey G Moebus August 24, 2020 3:39 am

    Wow. Just wow.

  36. Rustbelt Democrat August 24, 2020 8:59 am

    We don’t give Rump any respect, as he doesn’t deserve it.

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