As I noted in an earlier post today, extreme Trump Derangement rants are less tolerable from genuine professionals of whom the public reasonably expects better than from the Robert De Niro, Bette Midler, Jimmy Kimmel, Rob Reiner, and “The View”-type celebrity pundits who are loud of mouth, large of ego and megaphone, and short of wisdom. Thus the letter Steve-O-in NJ reveals and critiques in his Comment of the Day is particularly disturbing. As you will see, it is sloppy, miserably researched, steeped in emotion and bias, and, frankly, I’m embarrassed for my profession after reading it. That the writer, as he informs us by way of appealing to his own authority, was on short lists for a cabinet position either speaks to the incestuous nature of our political elite, or the frequency of age-triggered cognitive decline. And he wants this self-indicting swill widely circulated! The lack of self-awareness among the Trump Deranged is a source of wonder.

I also need to say that I have not recognized Steve’s often detailed, erudite and perceptive comments frequently enough. I attribute this to taking blessings for granted (one of my myriad flaws): so many of his posts are outstanding that I’m not sufficiently impressed by them any more. My fault, and my apologies to Steve.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Jimmy Kimmel Provides a Vivid Case Study in Trump Derangement.”

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Paul Grossman, supposedly a conservative, wrote the following, which should tell you all you need to know about Trump Derangement. He’s is a nationally known employment defense lawyer at Paul Hastings and a Republican. He has encouraged that it be shared.

“April 5, 2024TO:

My Friends and Acquaintances

FROM: Paul Grossman

SUBJECT: The Upcoming Presidential Election

In most elections, candidates differ in philosophical approach regarding how best to solve commonly appreciated issues and shared challenges such as the large federal deficit.In 2024, we are faced with a departure from this normal paradigm in which we can presuppose the integrity of the candidates and their desire for a better United States now and in the future.

For the first time in my lifetime, one of the two major candidates for President of the United States has proven himself to be not just unfit for office but affirmatively evil. I am a Republican. Until our former President came along, based on the issues, I voted for The Republican candidate for President. Ronald Reagan wanted me to run the Department of Labor for him. I had serious hopes of being Mitt Romney’s Secretary of Labor. I would have happily voted for Nikki Haley over Biden, with whom I differ on numerous policy issues. But for the reasons set forth below, in this election differences in character are more important than the underlying policy issues.

Please vote. Sitting out this election is not a reasonable choice.Is the former President evil? Yes. There can be no doubt. Consider the following: He incited the January 6th riots. He refused to take action for hours that day while watching the riots on television. He has promised to pardon the convicted rioters despite the deaths and destruction they caused. He calls racists “good people.”  He still claims the 2020 election was “stolen” – he lost it by 7 million votes. He calls his opponents demeaning nicknames – a tactic used by grade school bullies. He is a serial liar.  His trade policy is protectionist – he ridicules serious economists.  He has engaged frequently in unwanted sexual touching of females – as he put it in a recorded statement, he “grabs pussy.”

He has been found by a court to be guilty of sexual assault. He avoided military service; at a military cemetery he labeled those who served “suckers.”  He initially denied the existence of the recent pandemic. He rejected medical evidence in relation to the recent pandemic and demeaned medical experts. He makes fun of climate change. He embraces nonsensical conspiracy theories.

[My problems with Biden include his age, immigration, the Afghanistan exit, unconditional sympathy for trade unions, overspending, and contentions the wealthy are not paying their “fair share” of taxes. But I must admit despite my reservations about Biden, the economy is doing quite well.]

[Donald Trump] makes fun of people with disabilities. He dehumanizes immigrants – all four of my grandparents were immigrants. Those who have worked most closely with the former President are unstinting in their assessments: He has been privately labeled a “moron” by his First Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. He has been called dangerous by his former Secretary Of Defense, Mark Esper, who will not vote for him. He has been accused of undermining our NATO alliance by his former Secretary of Defense, James Mathis. His Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao resigned in protest of his January 6th related actions and inactions.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the January 6th mob violence a “failed insurrection.” He tried to bully his vice president to refuse to perform his vice presidential duty and certify the election results:Mike Pence, an honorable conservative, has announced he will not vote for the former President. He used to be pro-choice – he switched when he became a Republican and needed the evangelicals. He admires Putin and for good reason – both are evil and serial liars.

He could not care less about Ukraine’s heroic stand against Putin and Russia.Please join me in voting for the candidate who is a decent human being, and against the candidate who is evil.

Please forward this email to your circle of friends. I truly fear for our democracy if the evil candidate again becomes President. I think it possible, perhaps likely, that if elected in 2024, as the 2028 elections approach, despite the Constitution, he will do whatever he deems necessary to stay in power. Prominent conservatives including Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Lisa Murkowski have publicly announced they will not vote for the former President. It is not clear whether they will abstain. But an abstention or a vote for a candidate who has no chance makes it easier for the evil candidate to win. Thank you for considering my views.”

The TDS is strong here. There really isn’t anything in this bowel movement in written form that isn’t the Democratic party line. It doesn’t take much thinking to parrot the party line. It doesn’t take much analysis to simply put together a bunch of things that other folks have already said and send them out. A lot of this stuff is demonstrably false. You know that he is already off his rocker when he characterizes the former president as “evil.”

Only someone who doesn’t know history would characterize any of the United States presidents as “evil.” History is seen its share of evil people. Attila the Hun was evil. Vlad the Impaler was evil, although some Romanians might take issue with that. Mao Zedong was evil as well as blindly stupid. The three pashas were evil. Stalin was evil. Of course a certain German Chancellor with a toothbrush mustache tops the list of the evil, although some of his lieutenants were evil in their own right, and a lot of them paid the final price for it. 

There are a few United States presidents who were less than competent, like the feckless Warren Harding, like Franklin Pierce who spent his one term addled by grief and drink, like James Buchanan, who didn’t even try to stop the Civil War, like Andrew Johnson, who was never intended to be president and had the hardest act of all to follow. There are a few United States presidents who were heavy-handed. FDR governed as an elected king and basically ignored any kind of opposition. Teddy Roosevelt pretty much ignored anyone’s opinion but his own. Andrew Jackson created a humanitarian disaster in the form of the Trail of Tears.

I hesitate to call any of them evil on the level of the genuine dictators and genocidal murderers that I just listed above. Trump certainly isn’t and did not rise to that level. Those who call him evil are just the small-minded types who call anyone who disagrees with them and does not spout the party line that they agree with evil. You know the people I’m talking about. We have all heard the black coworker who never got past High School spout off in a piercing voice that white people and conservatives are all racist, but that some of them are just better at hiding it. We have all heard the Hispanic acquaintance spout off about how Trump wants to deport her grandmother. We have all heard the women in our lives spout off about how abortion is the most important right of all, and nothing else matters. These are the kinds of people who call Trump evil. Consider that when you consider what they say.

The letter is a classic case of half-truths and buying into the idea that January 6th was an insurrection and that Trump behind it. Anyone who has bothered to look at the evidence knows otherwise. Anyone who looked at the facts knows that this was no insurrection. If anything, the riots that swept the country in 2020 were a lot closer to insurrection, but somehow those don’t get mentioned much anymore. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias. 

300 idiots armed with nothing stronger than bear spray were not going to overthrow the government. Trump never called for them to assault Congress. If you keep buying into that you are accepting the Democratic Party’s boogeyman narrative as real.

Where Grossman really loses me is when he says Biden is a “decent human being” after going over Trump’s alleged social sins. It is simply a lie. Biden is as bad a sexual harasser as Trump and he’s quite possibly a pedophile as well, someone who pursued and married the babysitter and still cannot avoid acting like a letch around young girls. He is at least as big a liar as Trump, but, as was pointed out in the post, the mainstream media isn’t keeping track of his lies. I wonder what the number would be if they were. 

Biden is also a bully who seems to think he can just push his way around anything and everyone. He is also quite possibly more arrogant than Obama was, acting as though any criticism of him is just something for him to ignore and how dare critics disturb his vacation. 

The results of Biden’s malpractice as President speak for themselves. Yet the letter just blows right by them like they are trivial. He is severely cognitively impaired and getting worse every day. There is also a real question as to whether he will survive complete his second term at the age of 86. A vote for Biden is effectively a vote for a President Harris, which we know would be a disaster. 

You know this guy is reaching when he is dredging up Trump’s characterization of a reporter who was hostile to him as mocking someone with a disability. There is no proof that that was the case, but it’s just another one of those things that those who’ve already made up their minds grab hold of to make themselves a grievance. 

Somewhere buried in the letter, if you don’t don’t want to take the time to wade through all of this, is the fact that this guy had high hopes of being Mitt Romney’s Secretary of Labor. That obviously didn’t come to be, partly because Romney thought he could run a gentlemanly campaign against an opponent who was practicing the politics of personal destruction against him. To this day Mitt and his supporters remain bitter about the fact that Trump achieves what they could not by using tactics they disdain. If you don’t believe me, then look back at the post about Romney’s bio. He spends most of the book justifying his own behavior and speaking ill of Trump. They say that when you hear something you should consider the source. In this case, the source is a bitter Romney supporter who is also a Never Trumper.

I don’t think he even believes half of what he was saying, but he will advocate taking the country down four more years of the disaster in the last 4 years have been rather than admit that Trump has any redeeming features.

Lying and deception can be evil, particularly when the liar belongs to a profession that is obligated to be trustworthy. Gaslighting borders on evil. Embracing incompetence and calling it competence enables terrible harm—that also enables evil. What the letter proclaims is little different from the garbage that the CEO of Expensify spouted four years ago to customers who probably didn’t give a damn about his views: Vote for Biden and only a vote for Biden will do! It is partisanship of the worst and most blunt kind. If that’s not evil, it’s still too close to it for me.