Trump is (Still) the Enemy
A Day at Lafayette Square
It was a raucous Sunday afternoon at the White House yesterday, various demonstrations, two presidential candidates (more on that later) and a police intervention.
AIPAC, the Israeli “let’s just give america away” lobby is meeting at the convention center, so Lafayette Square was the staging area for a counter demonstration of Palestine supporters, joined by a group of liberal, yet Orthodox Jews. Who knew?
(It is said that if two Jews get together there will be three opinions.)
Later, a much larger crowd of Turks showed up for a rally regarding the treatment of Syrian refugees as well as the recent killings of Turkish soldiers in Idlib by Russian fighter jets.
It’s never apparent when these groups show up what their exact purpose is; appearances can be quite deceiving.
Meanwhile, I just stand with my “Trump is the enemy of the people sign”, smiling and nodding as people ask if they can either take a photo or be in one; “Yes, of course”, I say.
A twentyish thug-type white guy marched up pulling a small roller case, wearing fat headphones around his neck, demanding that I “explain myself” in an aggressive, “I am master of the world” tone.
Did he think he was at a Trump rally?
I responded that first I had a simple question for him; he balked but I plowed ahead.
“Was Barack Obama born in the United States?”, I asked.
He replied, as 99% of Trump snowflakes do, that there was “speculation about that” or some other form of sorry-assed racist denial.
I told him that he was either racist or ignorant or both and then I announced quite loudly, to all and sundry, that my “right honorable friend was racist and ignorant as he declined to admit that President Obama was a U.S. citizen.”
He appeared both outraged and stricken, having been called on his bullshit, and, as Trump snowflakes do, became even more aggressive, moving within an inch of me while grabbing my sign.
We traded barbs and within a minute a police officer was behind me telling the fragile snowflake to take his hands off me.
Trumpees confuse public space and free speech with the douchebag’s rallies where he insults all his enemies with impunity; they are truly shocked when they get push-back.
Welcome to my rally.
Two of the Lafayette regulars, Melody and Bruce, are running for president, Bruce is a very vocal and in-your-face homeless educator and Melody is a self-styled Christian evangelist mixing her mostly-read-out-loud sermonettes with some excruciating attempts at singing.
The Turks pushed Melody out of her usual spot and she relocated close to another regular, a homeless vet who is a character, to say the least.
He has various signs such as “Clean Honest Government.com” and “Constitutional Expert.”
He is quite a sizable fellow, curmudgeonly as they come, with a booming voice and a formidable intellect and he will train both on anyone he pleases.
When he comes after me I tell him my mother said never to talk to crazy people; he may be the sanest one there.
Melody’s close proximity to my veteran friend was a failure from the start; he is a strict rationalist and she out to save souls; all afternoon he heckled her endlessly as I (and others) clapped with sheer joy at his razor rejoinders.
As the sun set behind the Eisenhower building, I called it a day.
