In his latest column, Charlie the K bemoans “the refusal of an unbending left to accept the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.”
Sighs Charlie, “It’s not just the demonstrators chanting “not my president.” It is leading Democrats pushing one line after another to delegitimize the election, as in: He lost the popular vote, it’s James Comey’s fault, the Russians did it.”
Well, Charlie, Trump did lose the popular vote, by a margin of almost three million. Arguably it is James Comey’s fault. No one can prove that his unprincipled letter to congressional Republicans, alerting them to the fact that Mrs. Clinton might possibly come under further FBI investigation—in defiance of all FBI protocol and knowing that they would take the opportunity to announce to the world that new evidence had been uncovered to “prove” her guilt while the FBI itself remained discreetly silent—determined the outcome of the election in the pivotal handful of states that gave Trump his electoral majority. No, no one can prove that. But it was a grotesquely partisan distortion of governmental process, in keeping with a long-established Republican tradition of rewriting the “rules” whenever it suits their purposes.
After that long exhalation, I will concede Charlie’s point that Russians didn’t do it (swing the election), but they clearly were aggressively involved in the notorious hacking of the DNC computer files, something that Trump furiously and deceitfully denied for weeks. And, since Charlie wrote his column, Trump has also gone back to saying that Mrs. Clinton is “guilty as hell”. Yeah, nothing but class. Why should we respect this man, when he respects nothing?
Wasn’t I saying that Charlie wasn’t all bad? Right, I was. Well, if you read past his pro forma venting at the “unbending left” (and why should we “bend” to accommodate Trump? I certainly won’t), Charlie proves a bit unbending himself, righteously and rightfully disgusted by Trump’s repeated embrace of vaccine deniers:
“In a week packed with confirmation hearings and Russian hacking allegations, what was he doing meeting with Robert Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist pushing the thoroughly discredited idea that vaccines cause autism?
“We know from way back during the Republican debates that Trump himself has dabbled in this dubious territory. One could, however, write it off as one of many campaign oddities that would surely fade away. Not so, apparently.
“This is not good. The idea that vaccines cause autism originally arose in a 1998 paper in the medical journal the Lancet that was later found to be fraudulent and had to be retracted. Indeed, the lead researcher acted so egregiously that he was stripped of his medical license.
“Kennedy says that Trump asked him to chair a commission about vaccine safety. While denying that, the transition team does say that the commission idea remains open. Either way, the damage is done. The anti-vaccine fanatics seek any validation. This indirect endorsement from Trump is immensely harmful. Vaccination has prevented more childhood suffering and death than any other measure in history. With so many issues pressing, why even go there?”
I don’t know, Charlie. Maybe because Trump is an unscrupulous demagogue entirely unfitted to be our president, a man whose bullying and deceit ought to be met with unbending resistance? Is that a possibility?
