CASH MICHAELS
NO CODE OF COMMON DECENCY
by Cash Michaels
Do you know how many columns I’ve past up not writing about Donald Trump’s racism? Plenty! Why? Because as a subject, it’s too easy. Shooting crabs in a barrel. The master hatemouther is always saying something or doing something that makes you shake your head wondering when will it all end, and it gets to the point where, if you’re not careful, the ignorant white supremacist moronic musings of a brain half-filled will be all you write about.
Life is too short.
And yet, the felonious clown who just can’t get 2020 out of his head is the president of the United States, so it’s really damned hard to ignore him if you’re in the news business.
But it’s because Trump is POTUS, you have to wonder just how much damage has he done and is doing to the office that actually belongs to all of us when he runs his filthy mouth or does his dirty deeds. As American citizens, we’re all supposed to have a common expectation of decency from the office of the president, if not from whoever is occupying it.
That’s really all we ask. If you’re going to lead us, please do so with a code of common decency and respect for the fact that this is a diverse country of human beings who work hard, are law-abiding citizens, and strive to earn the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of liberty and justice.
Common decency - that’s the key. That’s what assures each of us that of all people, our elected leader is the last one who will exploit our physical, cultural and religious differences, and will be the first to protect them if ever they’re ever threatened or called into question.
And one of the reasons we’ve always counted on that common decency is because of the rule of law, that long ago established code of civilized behavior that all of us are supposed to follow, and count on to give our elected leader the authority to protect us, and assure us that our citizenship, and inalienable right to it, will never be threatened without a forceful, civil response.
When you have a leader who upholds these values, you have a leader who, by his (and hopefully one day her) very presence, commands our highest and deepest respect, because that leader adds value to our living, and to the nation we all call home.
The kind of common decency I’m talking about takes real courage and honor, because that leader must insist on putting our constitutional values first, especially those that state that all men (and women) are created equal.
But what happens when your leader has no code of common decency, has no respect or regard for the rule of law or the Constitution?
Then you have Donald Trump. A man whose very existence is transactional. A man who has no higher value beyond himself and his desires, along with what else he can do to uplift himself and his legacy.
When you have a leader like that in the highest, most powerful office in the world, take away his common code of decency, and you have a monster, someone whose very nature is contrary to all that is natural and normal.
All that is decent.
If you've spent the last few days trying to understand what would possess a leader to post a crass, sophomoric video attempt to disgrace a former president and his wife - a former First Lady - as laughing primates in the jungle, and then show no remorse for such a racist, despicable, deplorable act of hatred and mental disorder, I've given you the reason.
No common code of decency.
You see, it’s way too easy for me to call Donald Trump a racist. This is a monster of his own making (with a little help from his Ku Klux Klan daddy, Fred Trump). To just call Trump a racist and leave it at that would wrongly suggest that he knows better.
Hell no, he doesn’t! He’s not capable. He's that blind.
Remember, Trump has told us himself. He only sees the world as winners or losers. And he justifies counting himself among the winners because of the color of his skin, the wealth that he’s amassed and the power that he wields. It’s really as simple, and as dangerous, as that.
Trump sees GOD’s audacity to create a sacred rainbow of humanity as some sort of permission to lord over people who don’t have his power and wealth. In his mind, they were never meant to have it. But he does.
Here’s the kicker, though. The real reason why what Trump says and does seems so absurd and anti-social to the rest of us is because, in reality, he can’t see beyond his own nose. That means he’s never wrong, because everything he does is for the ultimate benefit of self.
That’s why when Trump got royally slammed for that racist, since-deleted video chimpanzee trope of former President Obama and First Lady Michelle, not only did he refuse to apologize, but he lied about how it came about, and then defiantly declared, “I didn’t make a mistake.”
And he defiantly declared that during Black History Month!
Trump was striking back at perceived enemies with that video. In this case, two former occupants of the White House who remain, to this day, trusted and beloved, something he knows he’s not! Thus, all of his silly architectural signature self-memorializing around Washington, D.C.
Trump extraordinarily resents that the Obamas have retained the love and respect of a good portion of the nation and world. So he viciously attacks them, hoping to diminish them, without apology.
As far as Trump is concerned, Pres. Obama is one of the few people on Earth ever to publicly ridicule him and get away with it, and Joe Biden is the only person ever to actually beat him in an election, which is why Biden has also been a target of Trump’s deepest discontent and ire.
What was it that Trump admitted at the National Prayer Breakfast recently?
“They rigged the [2020] election. I had to win it….I needed it for my own ego. I would have a bad ego for the rest of my life. I really have a big ego… Beating these lunatics [in 2024] was incredible. What a great feeling!”
Trump spewed all of that madness at the National Prayer Breakfast just last week!
Imagine what he’ll say at the next Republican National Convention.
One man, an accomplished Black man, Trump hates because he’s eternally jealous of him; the other he hates because he can never admit to losing to him.
And to make matters worse, Trump has a White House staff and political party (the Republicans) who’re willing to lie for him, cheat for him, defend him, and protect him no matter what because they are so desperate to be on the trigger-finger side of power. They protect his sick lust to hurt and dominate.
The most powerful man in the world can’t see beyond his own nose, his own hatred. That makes Trump truly a monster of his own making, and we have to put up with him because the Americans who elected him in 2024 were suffering from the exact same affliction.
That’s right! MAGA voters - you know, the Bad Bunny haters - also can't see beyond their own noses. All they care about is giving some old, deranged, rich racist criminal has-been reality TV star a shot at being in-charge only because he's brazenly lied to them about what he would do for them, if elected.
And now we’re stuck with him, and ALL of us are paying for it!
I grimly say we’re stuck with Trump because none of us knows what’s really going to happen in 2028. This clown may announce at the end of this term that he got “cheated” in 2020, so the country owes him four more years, and he refuses to leave office standing up.
He may have some crazy plan of succession by executive order.
Trump may literally declare himself king, and do more damage to the country than we ever dreamed.
All of this because he has no common code of decency. No North Star towards honor and justice. Only an outsized super-narcissistic ego he wants the rest of us to bow down to.
And the part that really burns my britches is that Trump is able to successfully and fiendishly hide his indecency behind a false mask of patriotism. "Make America Great Again" is nothing more than a false flag distraction from all of the evil and illegal stuff he's getting away with, using the power of the presidency to perpetuate.
This is what makes Donald Trump so additionally dangerous!
Tell you what, Mr. President. Since you want to be remembered as the "greatest" ever in history, why not send North Carolina $2 billion in federal funds to fix the eastbound lanes of Interstate 40 on a five-mile stretch of the highway near the Tennessee border, that the Pigeon River washed away during the Hurricane Helene floods.
I’m sure our Republican-led legislature wouldn't mind naming that project after you.
I mean, after all, dear Donald, it would truly be the “decent” thing to do!
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