“This time we got him!” The corporate media implied last week after the (latest) indictment of former President Donald Trump. Now days later it’s, “Oh my God, oh my God, Trump might actually win this thing!”
How do I know this?I have been reading between the lines of any commentary, editorial or story, post August 3 indictment.
Case in point, a recent editorial by the Miami Herald editorial board that has warns of the existentialist dangers of re-electing Trump. I encourage you to read the editorial in its entirety, but for the sake of brevity, I am going to focus a few especially choice excerpts.
For this column I will present the excerpt as written, followed by my satirical take of what the editorial board really means. In other words, reading between the lines.
First, the lede:
In 2016, voters went for Donald Trump, the showman, the bigot, the iconoclast, the sexist, the mean-spirited charmer quick with jab, joke or derisive nickname.
Now, given the mile-wide lead that the former president has in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, a majority of Republican voters seem ready to embrace Trump, the authoritarian.
Translation:
You voters ignored our polls that showed Donald Trump had no chance of defeating Hilary Clinton . We get it: You were swayed by Trump’s celebrity, which caused you to mindlessly embrace Trump’s racist assessment of who was entering the country illegally through the US/Mexico border.
And how dare you not condemn Trump for insulting Senator John McCain’s valor as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. If that wasn’t bad enough, you ignored our breaking news of the Access Hollywood recording of Trump which should have buried him. You also turned a deaf ear to Trump’s disparaging comments against Rosie O’Donnell . (Who cares if she insulted him first? His response was like a bully.)
Finally you laughed at all of nicknames for opponents such as “Crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Ted “, “Little Marco” and “Crazy Nancy.”
Now Trump’s back with huge leads in the polls (after revelations that his campaign was spied upon, “Russiagate” was a perpetrated by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and he urged J6 protestors to leave peacefully). Reelecting this guy will lead to a power transfer back to the …people. That would be devastating for this country.
Trump and his campaign have been crystal clear: Should he regain the White House, he will consolidate every last bit of power he can into his own hands. The three equal branches of government will not be equal any more. The former president plans a sweeping makeover of the presidency and the constitutional foundations that actually make America great.
“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence (emphasis mine),” Russell T. Vought, one of Trump’s policy advisers told that New York Times, “and seize them.”
Translation:
Our side has been working to gather all the power into our hands, we naturally expect Trump will do the same.
And can you believe the gall of demanding a transparent Department of Justice and attorney general? Those pockets of independence should be outside the purview of the Executive Branch. (skip to 2:20 listen to 4:06)
Trump promises to wrest control from the Justice Department and order a criminal investigation into his predecessor, Joe Biden, an abuse of power that would top the Nixon White House and Watergate. Trump also says he will order the now-independent Justice Department to investigate charging decisions by local prosecutors, superseding constitutional separation of federal and local authorities.
You mean that same Department of Justice that “President” Biden has weaponized against his opponent President Trump and tried to give Hunter Biden a slap on the wrist?
Translation:
Trump will curb the current weaponization of the DOJ against the enemies of the Uniparty and instead have it go after criminals. (Wait…what?)
But Trump is promising something else: He will continue to reject our constitutional order and replace it with one-man rule, where he is the authority over laws and how they apply.
Translation:
Trump will… reject “our constitutional order” means he will govern not according to our modern interpretation of subverting the Constitution, but as the Founders intended. “One-man rule” is our way of saying dictator ( as we use racist, sexist or homophobe) to frighten people so they don’t hear the message of our enemies. The truth is we’re not giving up our authority over laws and how they apply.
He’ll undermine Americans’ ability to govern themselves. And he’ll create more chaos, because it serves him. We saw that, unforgettably, on Jan. 6, 2021, when he worked up supporters at his rally until they stormed the U.S. Capitol to block Biden’s victory from being certified.
Translation:
We’re in the process of undermining Americans’ ability to govern themselves. What do think the Covid mask and vaccine mandates were about? The same goes for our efforts to criminalize parents efforts to intervene when their kid wants to become the opposite sex? (Excuse us… gender designation at birth, not sex) The last thing we need is Trump screwing that up with the Founders’ belief about self -governance.
When Trump called for people to protest the election results on January 6, the numbers scared the hell out of us. Sure , the protestors didn’t burn down structures , vandalize police cars and beat up innocent people. That’s the difference between peaceful protest of BLM and Antifa and the chaos of Trump white supremacists.
Just because we called Trump’s 2016 election illegitimate, due to Russian interference, doesn’t give his racist , hayseed followers the right to do the same . So his commanding lead on November 3, 2020 evaporated over night after key states stopped the vote count. The nerve!
And now for my favorite paragraph, the conclusion;
Americans already have endured an unsuccessful coup. To prevent one that succeeds, more of us must pay attention, learn from history and act like the true Americans we can be.
Translation:
So far, most Americans reject Trump’s claim of a stolen election (although that number is shrinking). To make sure he doesn’t succeed, more of you must watch and gather information only from our news, learn from our version of history and act like the real Americans we want you to be (compliant, passive and unquestioning).
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And so ends our first exercise in reading between the lines. I tried to take a humorous approach. Humor works when it’s based on truth.
