So did you hear the one about Trump inviting golf club members to interviews for Secretary of State?
So did you hear the one about Trump inviting golf club members to interviews for Secretary of State?
If impeach isn’t a word that comes to mind when Trump plays chicken with nuclear-capable nations, or when his closest advisors dally with the Russians, or when he relies on neo-Nazis as his top aids and changes position on critical issues like immigration and trade more than once in a single interview, then maybe the recent story from a leaked video from inside President Trump’s New Jersey golf club showing him inviting members to “come along” to see him interview candidates for top government positions will do the trick.
On the tape, the recently-elected president is heard thanking members of the Bedminster club for their support throughout the campaign. He quips, “I see all of you. I recognize, like 100 percent of you, just about.” To laughs he continues, “If you come tomorrow you’ll be all over television … We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow, generals, dictators, we’ll have everything. … We’re going to be interviewing everybody — treasury, we’re going to be interviewing secretary of state…if you want to come around, it’s going to be unbelievable … so you might want to come along.”
The shambles of a sideshow continues with Trump saying he’d like the club’s members to help him pick a member of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) — an agency that determines if the American public will have a free, open internet (aka “net neutrality”) or a more censored, corporate-controlled one. To his 1 percenter golf buddies, he says, “I’ll tell you what, you are special people, this is a special place. This is just the beginning.”
Does this mean his golf buddies will be his advisory team? Is he saying they and their golf club are more special than, say, our nation’s inner city neighborhoods and public schools?
For anyone who thought that a four-times failed businessman (who won’t release his tax returns), self-absorbed, garish, TV personality and political neophyte would be a good choice for the most powerful leader in the world, it’s time to see and hear with an open mind what this dangerous man is doing to our nation. Trump’s words are brazen, thoughtless, and show uncontrollable power-madness. Despite what Trump claims about the news media being his lying enemy, reports like this one of the disarray and danger this unworthy, untrustworthy man is bringing to our nation are not false or overblown.
The only life Trump knows and continues to create is one where the power of the already elite grow at great cost to the rest of us. Every day brings another reason (or 10) for all Americans to come together to put pressure on Republicans to take the helm away from Trump and the frightening array of right-wing extremists surrounding him before this ship — and the whole world — go down in flames.
Janice Palma-Glennie is a resident of Kailua-Kona