by Written by Clarence Pagehttp://www.phillytrib.com/ The Philadelphia Tribune
President Trump has called for two professional sports teams to return to their previous names, which regrettably sound like racist epithets to many. This is just one more thing he has said in the late summer.
Is Trump only seeking trouble? Or is he inciting controversy to deflect attention from his other problems?
In reaction to criticism regarding the usage of Native American names and iconography, Trump urged the NFL’s Washington Commanders and MLB’s Cleveland Guardians to return to their original team names prior to their rebranding last month on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
Regarding the Washington club, Trump wrote, “I might put a restriction on them that I won’t make a deal for them to build a stadium in Washington if they don’t change the name back to the original Washington Redskins and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, Washington Commanders.”
Additionally, he said, Cleveland ought to treat the Cleveland Indians similarly.
Ah, the classic one-two combination of extortion and intolerance.
Trump also said, “MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN” (MIGA) for fun!
Correct. I don’t think his demand will impress Native Americans in any way.
However, I believe that this pause is just a way for him to remind his supporters of the things that unite the MAGA movement. They no longer have to take into account the sentiments of people from other races and countries because of Trump. Trump has also voluntarily used his position of authority to target the media, the arts, the bureaucracy, and universities—all of which are teeming with elitists who have attempted to force their opinions on racial discourse. Trump has the ability to harm these individuals and organizations both verbally and physically, and he takes great pride in doing so.
That’s what these posts are trying to tell MAGA. However, why now?
Trump is attempting to shift the focus of the news cycle away from the unsolved cases involving the late Jeffrey Epstein. More information has surfaced linking him to the late businessman and convicted sexual offender who committed suicide almost six years ago while inside.
When the Justice Department declared earlier this month that it would not make the so-called Epstein files public, the Epstein tale took an unexpected turn, even though Trump surrogates had spent months—and in some cases, years—making obscene promises to do so.
The Wall Street Journal then revealed the week before last week that Trump’s sexually provocative signature was found on a risqu birthday message that was sent to Epstein in 2003. Trump lost it and filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Journal, its owners, and the reporters, claiming there was no such letter or sketch.
But after the Journal later revealed that Trump was informed by his attorney general, Pam Bondi, in May that his name appears several times in FBI documents pertaining to the Epstein case, he sounded a little more subdued.
Trump has a serious weakness in the Epstein case. His attempts to stop the files’ disclosure are being resisted by a significant portion of the MAGA movement. Trump is accusing these individuals of being deceived by Democrats. He even went so far as to term those who are still demanding the release of the files weaklings and to suggest that he does not want their votes.
With a renewed pledge to bring charges against everyone involved in the ten-year-old probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the White House has been delving deeply into its arsenal of treason charges against former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well as his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.
Our president is that! Always prepared to resort to tried-and-true tactics, such as the well-known blame-the-media technique, when everything else fails. However, pointing the finger at the messenger doesn’t seem to be working as effectively as it usually does.
According to a CBS/YouGov survey released last Sunday, nine out of ten people believe the government ought to make all of its Epstein-related information public. Regarding the Trump administration’s handling of the incident, Republicans were nearly evenly divided, with self-described MAGA Republicans more likely to express satisfaction.
Regarding his overall performance, even though his approval dropped to just 42% of all survey respondents, an overwhelming 89 percent of Republicans were satisfied with the job he is doing as president.
This may be due to the fact that respondents did not regard the Epstein case as the most significant factor when assessing his performance. Immigration and deportation policies topped the list of issues that they felt were important (61%), closely followed by inflation, pricing, and the recently passed tax and spending bill in Congress (56%). About 36% of respondents stated that the Epstein case had a significant impact on their opinion of Trump.
However, the case will not be resolved anytime soon.
House Speaker Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home early for a month-long vacation from Washington to avoid a procedural vote that would have made details of the Epstein case public. Republicans would have had to choose a side in the vote.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer last year, has been sent twice to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice who is going to serve a 20-year term for trafficking in child sex. Is Blanche visiting Maxwell as a high official sworn to defend American citizens or as a personal fixer for Donald Trump? It’s difficult to tell if Trump is making a distinction.
I find it amusing that the MAGA masters are getting a taste of their own paranoid beliefs, since I have become pretty tired of the pandemic of conspiracy theories that erupted in the wake of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. However, I am also extremely concerned about what people will allow themselves to do in order to escape the Epstein dilemma.
