And why? Because he’s uninformed or pathological? Which explanation is the least disturbing?

By Sid Schwab

My recent leave-taking resumes after today. There’s only so much …

Nevertheless, the latest torrent of atrocities by the person squatting atop our government ought not pass uncommented. Nor should the continued obeisance of his adoring mob.

Though Trump’s lies and insults to decency have been unrelenting for years, what pricketh me just now is his insane claim, at a recent “I’ll-speak-of-my-greatness-while-you-shout-your-affirmation” rally, that the just-passed opioid bill received “hardly any votes from Democrats.” The actual vote was 98-1 in the Senate, with the only no vote coming from a Republican. In the House, it was 393–8. That’s sickness.

And, of course, there’s the calculus — to which some well-known preachers unashamedly have subscribed — that murdering a reporter, cutting him into pieces while still alive, lying about it, providing a series of increasingly bizarre explanations, must be overlooked so we can sell $110 billion worth of weapons to the perpetrators.

Which is also a lie. $110 billion is a fantasy, consisting of promises extending for decades, deals done by the previous administration, and about $4 billion actually in the pipeline. Plus, every time Trump mentions it, he up-puffs the numbers of potential jobs created: 400,000, then 500,000, then 600,000. Most recently, 1 million. Says the Pentagon: maybe 40,000.

Claiming unspecified Russian cheating, Trump would end Reagan’s nuclear treaty, to build short-range nukes. Coincidentally, wanting to deploy them around his borders, Putin proposed the same, ten years ago. Puppetry?

Trump said his people were working “around the clock” on a middle-class tax cut before the election. White House staff hadn’t heard of it, so they’re scrambling to pretend it’s real. (Esquire: tinyurl.com/scramble2fix)

What do such ridiculous lies (MSNBC: tinyurl.com/2dumb2know) tell us; about the “president” and about those who excuse them? Is there an explanation that doesn’t foretell the end of our Republic? We’re in a dystopian world, arguing whether a “president” of the formerly exceptional United States isn’t really lying because he’s too stupid or uniformed to know truth; or whether he lies deliberately, dismissing his supporters as too dumb or Foxified to awaken to it; or whether he’s a diagnosable pathological liar. Which explanation is the least disturbing? Which suggests there’s room for moral awakening among his enablers?

Oh, but Democrats want mob rule! If Lindsey “ignore-what-I-used-to-say” Graham buys it, so should you. Democrats want open borders, oppose the rule of law, would end Medicare by improving it, turning the U.S. into Venezuela; are paying caravans of criminals to come to America to vote in November. The more preposterous, the more evidence-free, the more it’s repeated by Trump and right-wing TV propagandists and air-jockeys. And swallowed whole by Trumpists.

Whose rallies are actual mobs spewing hate at reporters, demanding locking up former opponents, ignoring the law? For that matter, who benefits from refugees heading this way? George Soros, or those fear-mongering and demonizing them right before the election? A “national emergency,” says Trump. They’re walking. A thousand miles.

Across the country, Republicans are purging voter rolls, refusing legitimate voters (assisted by Brett Kavanaugh’s first SCOTUS decision), distributing falsehoods about polling places and closing them in Democratic districts. When you can’t win the battle of ideas, you block the doors to the arena. It’s what the “party of Lincoln” has become.

I know intelligent, thoughtful conservatives who claim to dislike Trump but who’ll vote for his party anyway, who pretend it’ll miraculously cleanse itself, requiring no action on their part. Who, one concludes, dislike Trump’s transgressions much less than they profess.

Beyond his ludicrous lying, we’ve just learned Trump is considering going after transgender people, because … well, because he can. Because the same national “Christian” leaders who place money above morality — it’s their own business model, after all — will praise his “defense of Christianity.” It would harm more than a million Americans, helping none. Other than Trump, that is, who’s made a career of hurting others to his own benefit.

Trumpists don’t like being told they love him because he hates who they hate, nor having it pointed out that their acquiescence to Trump’s malignant mendacity can be explained only as preference for lies. By now, though, it’s undeniable. If his lips are moving …

And this, just in: Trump doesn’t encourage violence or praise people who body-slam journalists. So those bombs sent to everyone Trump targets at his rallies? False flag! (Daily Beast: tinyurl.com/flag2fly)

November approaches, America. It’s now or never.

Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.