Los Angeles and San Diego: A Small Price to Pay?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I TOLD YOU SO YESTERDAY!    In fact, I even titled yesterday's post:  "Grandpa has  Gone Off the Rails" because with each syllable that slides down the drool from Donald Trump's mouth, it is more and more obvious that he is detaching from reality.  Bizarre statements weave their way through what should be carefully prepared and delivered presidential addresses, while millions of hard-working Americans go about the business of just getting by each day while pretending the emperor is not naked and that what he is saying is important and makes sense.

Yesterday when I was speaking with genuine concern about the mental stability of the President, I was not even aware of his comments the previous evening at a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, where hs seemed to be offering Iran advice on American cities it could target.   Trump's underlings and supporters immediately went into damage control and claimed his remarks were "misinterpreted" and "taken out of context."  Meanwhile, Trump's critics saw what he had said as being deranged and dangerous.

In talking about high gas prices, a topic of concern for most Americans who drive to work each day because there are damned few public transportation options at the local level in the US, Donald Trump said these words to the assembled crowd in Grand Island:

"Remember, with the war, it's just artificial.  It's a little bit high.  It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.  They can take out a city.  Let them take out Los Angles, let them take out San Diego.  This is a very small price to pay."

Trump's apologists counter that he was trying to weigh the price of gas against a nuclear holocaust that he envisions could have occurred if he hadn't stepped up bravely and attacked Iran when he did in order to halt its nuclear research program - pay more for your gas today and California will be safer tomorrow.

Yeah, right.  Whatever.  Others heard something else entirely.

California Governor Gavin Newsom called Trump's remarks "deranged and dangerous," and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles characterized what the President of the United States had said as compromising local safety and threatening American lives.  San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said that "SanDiego is not collateral damage, we are not expendable, we are never a small price to pay."   The San Diego mayor went on to demand that Trump "keep our city out of your reckless war talk."

If Trump was trying (ineptly) to show that his war and the unfortunately higher gas prices were, in the long run, protecting American cities, it is significant that he chose the two largest cities in California as his examples, an area of the country that he has disparaged ad nauseam in the past.  He could just as easily have said Tulsa and Mobile, or Dallas and Little Rock.  But, no.  If your words might ultimately be seen as a specific challenge to the enemy, why not go for the gold and name two cities that never vote for you anyway?

Accusing Donald Trump of babbling incoherently and having no control over the words he spoke on Monday evening in Nebraska would be kinder, in fact, than assuming he knew exactly what he was saying.  He was either sitting out in the twilight zone somewhere picking daisies, or he was giving voice to a long-simmering disdain for two major cities in a country that he is supposed to be running.  That's not how leadership should be operating.

The United States needs a leader who doesn't speak gibberish - one who knows where he is and what he's doing - and what he is saying.

25th Amendment now!