What Exactly Is A President For If Not Reassurance?

First it was just one old guy recalling his boxing days, Now 

he's actually the president with an influence on steroids. As he

calls for civility, will he change his stump speech attacks?

A time consuming writing project forced me away from my typical opining on current events, which has worked out fine because my Super Bowl 50 champion Broncos suck almost as much as our president, and there are only so many ways you can ridicule John Elway or Donald Trump before YOU start to look like the idiot and not them.

My two Trump loving followers who read that previous paragraph are thinking to themselves, Trump doesn't suck, CNN sucks. Even they, however, are smart enough to keep those words inside at a time like this. Our president is not. He is too small a man to simply call the targets of terror and offer his words of sympathy.

As it stands, Trump has postponed his own verbal attacks on CNN and the rest, but he smiled and listened to the ritual chant- "CNN Sucks"- of his campaign crowd,  just one day after FBI agents arrested the pipe bomb terrorist who targeted CNN and others declared enemies by Trump himself.

If news is nothing more than what WE find interest in, these recent acts of terror and violence are mostly news worthy out of decency for the victims not because they are unique, irregular or terribly interesting. I've forced myself to opinionate on this "way too regular" fringe violence crap because I find myself- once again- a normal, Regular American longing and waiting for my president to comfort me into rationalizing away America's violent nature, like presidents usually do. 

I'm still waiting.

If the president of our country were simply capable of saying the right thing at the right time, WE could all feign sadness and quickly return to whatever television show we binge watch over the weekends so we can mentally recharge for our understaffed, underpaid work weeks.

Despite the 11 people murdered at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, following 5-days of pipe bomb terror all over America, President Trump continues to do and say everything except the reassuring words regular Americans need right now.

In reality, there will always be extremists behaving extremely. Regular Americans understand this even as WE wait the 2 hours of post-tragedy grief that is customary before we argue over gun rights, the NRA or just return to our television binging for mental health escape.

WE, the regular People of America, don't blame George W. Bush for wars or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even if we believe Saudi Arabia deserved the brunt of our anger, and maybe still does. Some of US might blame Bush, but the lion-share of America understands the industry of war, the necessity of war and the hair-triggers that cause violence of all kinds.

WE also understand that, sometimes, we war with ourselves whenever weapons of war become tools of terror in our streets, because Regular Americans understand the parable about living by the sword and recognize the inevitability of all this. When things grow beyond our ability to explain, Regular Americans know enough to follow the trail of money to clarify confusion. War an violence bring tons of money even as they bankrupt those who overuse them.

When it comes to war of any sort, presidents are often nothing more than the guys who listen to the advice of the generals and sign or decline their documents to proceed- especially now that Congress has abdicated that role among a few others. A president can choose to fight another day or in another way, but the industry and the machinery chugs along with our without their 4-8 years of consent. Violence in our streets is a byproduct of war in our world. It is a sad reflection of our inner-most nature to confront difficult challenges with rage.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, predicted

 the end of American greatness. Is he right?

And if so, what will be our demise?

As it relates to violence in general, WE, the People, are a peculiar lot. We continue to market our land with milk and honey even though guns like the AR-15 have long since become the item most reflective of modern America and its nightmarish Dream.

The eerie connection between the Dream of America, our gun lust and that caravan from Latin America is a lengthy conversation all by itself.
(The Latin American gun leak. -- LA Times. Jan. 6th 2015)



Any notion that people willing to walk over 2,000 miles for a dream could be lazy is even more silly than the idea that ISIS would fly to the Guatemala just to join their death defying journey. The Trump administrations attempt to stoke fear of migrants by claiming Middle Easterner infiltration of the caravan. Making descendants from the Middle East analogous to terrorists is possibly more shameful than his refusal to be a president for Real Americans when Real Americans need it.

In some ways, WE are a land of type-A personalities who breed, attract and inspire those same personalities from near and far to come, live in our land and argue alongside US about what it means to be American, or how America can ignore the dangers of our violent compulsions, yet, still remain the best country in the world and not just a nation conforming to one man's distorted view of greatness.


WE will never lose our partisan divide even if the lines get blurred by another flawed, reactive socialized program or two that Regular Americans discover they need too much to let go of, flawed or not. Regular Americans want our degrading social programs to be replaced with sensible, dignified hand up legislation because Regular Americans realize that the sacrifices of the American Dream are also the exact formula for achieving it. Regular Americans still believe in the dream and see their dreams as clearly as they see the obstacles because regular Americans understand what it takes to keep ALL of our dreams alive.

On the fringes of American society, we will always have pessimists who think all this a nightmare. Because fear and misery demand company, those on the fringes have no choice but to bring the rest of US into their nightmares just to legitimize their own miserable fear induced realities. The reasons for those on the fringe are numerous and real, but no more real than the fact that the extreme fringes are not the majority. The majority of US love this land for what it is and can be, and are enjoying our chase of the dream the best WE can.

WE the People, know quite clearly what happens if we remain silent when they come for the Jews, so we depend on the civility of our president whenever those on the fringes terrorize our neighbors until we no longer understand how to feel about our country, or ourselves. 

While Democrats focus on the rhetoric of the pipe bomb terrorist, 

Republicans deflect by pointing to his Native American race.

Maybe this pipe bomb terrorist is not a Nationalist like our president recently  announced himself to be. And hopefully this Pittsburgh killer doesn't avow himself to Trump either. Regular people don't really care about the political leaning of killers who terrorize US even if our debate over weapons of war makes it look like WE do.

At moments like this, WE need to be reassured that WE are much more similar than different.

According to Trump, some 

of these are fine people.

Trumpians might have found a feeling of reassurance in the words Trump robotically read before he stepped all over them with some weird attack on the media and a few false equivalencies about congressman Steve Scalise, but Regular Americans are still empty.

Whatever Trump called his moment of reassurance only stoked terror and the debate further. With every shallow call from our president for "all sides" to improve, I am hard-pressed to understand what Trump wants to see from the media, or what he intends to change himself? I am beyond baffled as to who will change first when our president hasn't even declared what change should look like...."on all sides".

If there's anything the media should change if they could, what exactly should it be Mr. President? Lead US! Reassure US, if you can.

I will give Trump this concession on behalf of the media. If Congress was at all worthwhile, guns wouldn't be so rampant and presidents wouldn't be allowed or expected to send troops to war because war would only happen as the Constitution prescribes- via congressional order.

If this current Congress was at all fulfilling it's coequal duty, they might consider this president guilty of yelling fire in a theatre from campaign speeches that have stoked his fringes to act against a hit-list of opponents and other undesirables. It is perfectly legitimate to question the impetus of recent radicals. It is unthinkable that any president would call for civility while running so hard away from it at the same time.

Let me say this once more, for effect! The day after catching the pipe bomb terrorist, our current president was not wise or courageous enough to discontinue the "CNN Sucks" rant while campaigning. Is that a high crime or a misdemeanor? Did those two black people at Kroger die from just being black in Trump's America and or did they die from Trump's inability to promote the very civility he calls for? 

Will  there continue to be more unexplained terror stoked and promoted by our Nationalist president until a seemingly clear connection is no longer avoidable? 

If the next pipe bomber goes a step further after a Democrat mid-term takeover of congress, Trump could easily be considered a cause of this and could be impeached from the deadly toxicity of his presidency alone.

In reality, high crimes and misdemeanors can mean whatever Congress wants it to mean when they are convinced that a president is no longer fulfilling the call of the office. And what is more vital to the call of the office than what WE need from a president at moments like these?

Americans don't like the impeachment of a president, so smart Democrats like Nancy Pelosi won't let her party forget that truth. Unless, of course, the next wave of pipe bomb terror comes at her. How Pelosi managed to avoid pipe bomb terror is as mysterious as why none of them exploded.

Trump: "You should have had an armed guard in your 

church....and capital punishment. God bless all."

From military to economic, Trump has waged war with his own advisers and appointees, yet, none of them seem to care or seem compelled to follow his radical lead in areas of such vital significance. Republicans in Congress have tried to cater to his whims, but even they could only pull off a tax cut for themselves and a controversial Supreme Court pick that might work against them come November 6th.

The quandry for the GOP is that they will either l retain their majority and have to explain why they still can't agree on anything useful enough to turn into law, or they will lose their majority and have to fend off the kind of congressional oversight of the president that used to be part of co-equal governance. Anything left to be accomplished in America can not pay for itself, something Republicans promised their tax cut would do.

The bully pulpit of the president has always mattered because it is essentially their only weapon. Presidents function on influence alone, although nothing is more powerful than being able to influence the media cycle and popular opinion. Congress used to be powerful, but those days are a distant memory.

Presidents don't write the bills they eventually sign, and they obviously can't even force their own party to buy a wall they promised Mexico would pay for. Obama used his influence to complete universal healthcare, but he did it using the Republican plan based on pressure from his own party even though he didn't get a single Republican vote for his conciliatory effort.

Unless the president of the U.S. is attempting to comfort US with their yearly State of the Union- or a monthly address from another act of terror- presidents don't really have a whole lot they can do but comfort US when our world appears frenzied.

Until WE all screwed up and allowed Russia to suppress and influence enough voters into our orange accident, WE had always elected a president with the capacity to speak words of reassurance to the bulk of US and not just those fringe folks who terrorize or tacitly approve.

Now WE have a president incapable of rising above tough coverage, Saturday night live spoofs or the  insults about his spray tan to still do the only thing WE need presidents to do.

And it's sad.