by Michael DePaoli

BEATTY, DUNAWAY, TRUMP

And THAT is why Donald Trump is President.

Up on the stage for Hollywood’s biggest night, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were supposed to announce the award for Best Picture. They were handed an envelope that should have contained the name of the winner. But, on the envelope itself was plainly imprinted these words: “Actress in a Leading Role.” If either Dunaway or Beatty had bothered to read the envelope they would have known something was wrong.

When they opened the envelope, the card inside was supposed to contain the name of the Best Picture. Yet, after they opened the envelope, they saw the card was imprinted with these words: “Emma Stone, La La Land.” The name “Emma Stone” on the card inside the envelope should have alerted Dunaway and Beatty that something was wrong.

Instead of paying attention to the actual words that were plain to see, Dunaway and Beatty ignored all of the letters on the envelope and they ignored more than half the letters on the card, and they just announced that La La Land was the winner.

We all make mistakes. We all misread things. Nobody is perfect. It is simply human nature to ignore the details, to overlook incongruities. We see what we want to see, regardless of the facts. That is who we are, as human beings. To be educated is to fight human nature.

This explains why there are still millions of people who support Donald Trump. They overlook the reality of Trump being a pathological liar. They ignore all the evidence that Trump does not know what he is doing. They skip over the lack of an economic plan, the lack of a foreign policy, the lack of a health insurance plan, the lack of a tax plan. The Trump supporters ignore the words, they ignore the reality, they just proclaim whatever they want to be real.

Trump’s campaign strategy boiled down to making empty and hollow promises, again and again, without regard for the truth. He knew that his people would ignore the details. His people would not read the envelope. His people would not understand what was really written on the card inside the envelope.

And, Trump knew he would manipulate the news media in the same fashion. And, it worked. It is still working.

NEW YORK TIMES SHUT OUT

The fact that the Trump White House excluded The New York Times from a press briefing should not be a surprise. That is who Trump is, and that is who Trump was during the campaign. By now, it has become embarrassingly and painfully obvious that our POTUS is a pathological liar who will continue to lie as long as anyone is willing to listen.

From my perspective as an anti-political lawyer/poet who hates political parties but loves the Constitution, my response to The New York Times is this: Blame yourself for Trump! (Ed. Note: I’m confused. Is it PriceWaterhousCooper’s fault of The New York Times? And have we not consider SterlingCooperDraperPryce as the perpetrator?)

Let us go back a few months. The New York Times online edition for Sunday, October 30, 2016 (just nine days before the election) had published on the front page several articles that obscured the reality of the upcoming election. One of the articles was titled “How Hillary Clinton Met Satan.” (Ed. Note: Click bait!!!!) Seriously? Would the NYT have printed that article if Hillary had been a man? Sure, the article has a twist to it. But, clever wordplay has no place when the Constitution is at stake. The title of the article reinforced the negative image of Hillary being with the Devil.

On the left side of the screen that same day the NYT published four different articles about the alleged controversy involving Hillary Clinton and the email issue. All of these articles reinforced the negative image of Hillary, despite the fact that the FBI had previously determined that there was no crime involved with the email issue. The New York Times was still keeping the issue alive and up front. The only article that should have been written on the front page that day should have been “Still No Evidence That Hillary Clinton Committed Any Crime On Email Issue.” Because, that was and still is the truth. Instead, The New York Times tried to create controversy by promoting the email issue with multiple articles.

Where were all the articles about all the numerous times that Donald Trump had actually committed fraud? Where were the articles about all the times Donald Trump had refused to pay his contractors? Trump was lying about having a plan to replace Obamacare. Trump was lying about having a plan to defeat ISIS. Trump was lying about his ability to create twenty-five million jobs and pay off the entire Federal Debt. On October 30, 2016, where were the articles about Trump?

Instead of printing the truth about Trump being a pathological liar (his own Republican Party opponents confirmed this), this is what the NYT published about Trump that day: An article that jokingly explained that Trump was saying “big league” and not “bigly.” Because, apparently the diction and pronunciation of Trump was so much more important than actually reporting all of his lies, all of his flip-flopping on issues, his Russian ties, his alleged molestation of women from numerous accusers, his economic plan that was completely bogus, his stated attempt to commit Constitutional violations by targeting Muslims, his racist proposal to build a wall along the Mexican border, and his refusal to accept the results of the vote (unless he might win).

Admittedly, the NYT endorsed Hillary Clinton. But, such endorsement rings hollow when the NYT failed to report on the real Donald Trump prior to the election.

And now, five days after being shut out of a press briefing, how does the NYT report on Trump’s speech last night to Congress? Did they get tough? Did they scold Trump and strenuously object to the fact that Trump failed to give any concrete details about his healthcare plan, or his ISIS plan, or his economic plan, or his tax plan? Of course not! The NYT online edition front page states today (March 1, 2017) the following proclamation: “Trump Offers Up A More Hopeful Vision.” (Ed. Note: Very slight overlap of NYT readers and undecided and/or Trump voters, no?)

Mardi Gras in St. Martin

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