Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:38 pm
Donald Trump came to a neighboring town (that would be Spartanburg, South Carolina) Friday, November 20. He brought his still-viable campaign to Wofford, a small, well-respected, private Methodist college, founded before the Civil War. There were few empty seats out of the 3,500 in Benjamin Johnson Arena. The curious and overwhelmingly right-wing audience was there for his “expert” takes on foreign policy, security and sundry other issues in his bid to capture the Republican nomination for the White House. Given recent events, he leaned heavily on ISIS and immigration.
As for the Paris atrocities, Trump told the assemblage “If they (the victims in the concert hall) had guns in that room, they would have been much better off.” Let’s review. There were apparently 4 shooters, minimum. There could have been more. They were armed with AK-47s. The standard magazine is 30 rounds. You can after-market those numbers up to 50, 75, even 100 rounds, but let’s just assume 30. For terrorist’s purposes, we’re probably looking at full auto. A full auto gives you about 600 rounds per minute; a semi-auto, 300.
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Are you going to carry a real live full auto into the Bataclan Theatre? Could four people kill 89 concert goers before most fans could (A) pull their weapon (B) find the shooter or shooters (C) aim at the shooter or shooters (D) hit a shooter and not an innocent bystander; (E) duck inevitable return fire (and push family and friends out of the way) It isn’t just the bad guys you should be concerned about, because the other packers don’t know if you’re friend or foe, not to mention the arriving cops and military, weapons drawn. Ugliest shooters first? And (F) does the gunfire continue until the last shot is fired? Also remember, the shooting started mid-song, so the theater was, in effect, dark.
It’s not very sexy, but the options are, if possible, get the hell out of there, seek the nearest hiding place, or as many did in Paris, play dead. Start firing away and you won’t have to “play” dead.
A typical crowd shooting doesn’t’ start with the perp yelling “Hey, I’m up here with the spotlight shining on me. I’m going to count to ten and start shooting.” Nope! It doesn’t work that way. Typically, it’s a frenzied, wild-eye, evil b*****d with mayhem and murder uppermost on his mind and he doesn’t care if the victims are men, women or children. He’ll squeeze off a hundred rounds before you’re remotely aware of the circumstances of the horrific event.
On other subject matter, if you were paying attention, the watchword of Trump’s speech was irony. Let’s start with his repressive immigration wall and other strategies to keep people out of this country who don’t meet his citizenship standards. He bragged (because that’s essentially all he does) to his Upstate audience that millions of Americans are drawn to his walled-in immigration strategies.
Atlantic magazine has an interesting story that Trump’s principles on immigration would have kept his own grandfather home-bound in his native Germany some years ago. Here’s the story. That being the case, where would papa Fred have lived? I’m guessing Germany and the Trump story wouldn’t be an American story at all.
In the U.S. Fred was the single-handed enabler of everything Trump initially accomplished. The racist father staked “The Donald.” to his first executive job at 28, loaned him a million bucks at a crucial time and left him about $40 million worth of his business.
Yeah, Trump has admittedly increased that largess by a whole lot, but, then again, I suspect most people would.
Hearkening back to papa Fred, it’s no wonder Donald desperately wants to go to war. He never misses a chance to push “taking on ISIS.” His father cleaned up during WW 2 and I’m sure Trump would do the same. After all, Fred Trump was an opportunist with a racist streak. He got in hot water with the Justice Department when it was established that he wouldn’t rent the many apartments he owned to blacks. The Village Voice recently wrote the story of the Urban League sending out both black and white would-be renters of a Fred Trump living space, and invariably whites were welcomed and blacks weren’t. Despite fed pressure, the old man hardly relented in the practice.
Trump’s late father would be proud to know that his son has expanded that racist mindset to most humans of brown and Muslim persuasion. Ironically enough, Wofford has a very active International Studies program reaching around the globe. Foreign study options include the Muslim ally countries of the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Even China, Russia and Mexico are included; countries Trump seems to loathe.
While not a party to the study program, Syrians are right up there in the Trump xenophobe collection as well. In earlier statements, Trump has indicated he wants to require Syrian immigrants to register for a database. Will he soon unveil an upon election he’ll issue an executive order that Syrians in America wear the Holocaust version of Jewish yellow badges?
Wofford’s recently appointed president’s name is Nayef Samhat. Nayef is a common Arabic first name meaning Highness and grace. He must have been at least mentally squirming in his seat, sitting so closely to America’s highest profile practitioner of U.S. hatred of millions of non-Americans, especially Muslims.
For the record, and again ironically, The Institute of International Education has repeatedly included the Trump campaign stop in its top ten rankings for those higher education centers with the strongest foreign study programs.
Blatant racism, notwithstanding, a majority of the Carolina crowd cheered for the billionaire mogul. The older folks were the loudest. From later comments quoted in the local paper, it would seem some of the younger generation gets it. A Wofford sophomore mentioned Trump’s stereotypical view of Muslims, pointing out that “A terrorist can be just an ordinary American.”
Like say, the guy in Charleston who killed nine African-Americans, in a church of all places.
Otherwise, the candidate repeated the empty hyperbolic promises that his presidency would see “…job creation like never before and companies would have incentives to stay in the country instead of moving jobs elsewhere.” And exactly how is that going to come to fruition? “We’re going to have the greatest negotiators in the world. We’re going to create jobs.”
Trump is going to prevent businesses from leaving the U.S. thereby strengthening the nation. He gave Nabisco at example of a company turning its back on America with their announcement that it was moving some of its Chicago operations to Mexico. His deeply thoughtful and learned solution to such corporate disloyalty? “I don’t eat Oreos anymore.”
Genius, I tell you; pure genius.
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Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
Follow me on Twitter @demwriter
