Don't Let It Be Forgot: The July Update

Back in March, 2022,  I wrote an article about the long, long, incredibly loooooong list of utterly reprehensible things that Trump and Republicans have said since he took office.  It was based on two concepts:  the first is that so much of this is said, and pours down like an unending tsunami that the public gets SO busy reacting to the latest horror said that the last one gets pushed aside and forgotten, and it's important to keep them remembered.  The other is that when confronted with deeply uncomfortable realities, the common GOP strategy these days is to deflect with "What about's...?" -- the false equivalence that suggests one transgression equals 100.  And so, I thought it would be a good idea and public service to provide a handy list people could save and link to the next time they get a "What about...?" and say, "Well, answer these first."

I noted that I would repeat the list from time to time, so that, indeed, it wouldn't be forgotten.  And also to keep upgrading the list, with new Trump/GOP transgressions and old ones that did get forgotten but came to mind (or that I was reminded of).

It's not only been much too long since the last update, but also -- given the media's seemingly 24/7 coverage of President Biden's terrible performance and calls for him drop out of the race from magazine covers to front page editorials, while virtually ignoring the same angst, outrage and calls for Trump despite his non-stop lying during the debate, his 34 felony convictions, being found liable for rape, guilty verdict for fraud, and his signs of early dementia -- I thought that this was a good opportunity to bring the article back again and add some updates.  Just so people can remember precisely who Trump is and it's not forgot

If you haven't read the full list, here 'tis.  But if you have, just scroll down to the latest addendum, easily marked  -- "* * *   UPDATE:  NEW MATERIAL ADDED   * * *" ​

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                                    Don't Let It Be Forgot
                                         March 9, 2022

​Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief tarnished moment
That was known as Scamalot.
 
The Republican Party spins downward so fast these days, it’s difficult to keep track of past transgressions going back to when Trump ran for office and then took over the party.  And so each travesty gets buried and then forgotten as the new pile of garbage gets dumped on top the old every day – even though in ordinary times such galling, often ghastly outrages would be the unforgettable headline for months and often actual scandals.
 
So, all this morass just covers up the other garbage, which gets pushed aside to make room for the latest.
 
The other day, I noted the official statement made by the Republican Party that the January 6 insurrection was supposedly nothing more than mere “Legitimate Political Discourse,” something so deeply defining of the GOP as fascist – yet even that has been shunted into the dusty corner as more new indignations take its place at the top of the pile. 
 
I thought it would be valuable, therefore, to put together a list of just some of the Trump and Republican Party rubbish that has collected over the past few years – keeping in mind that anything “just Trump” has also been enabled and supported by his party.  And these are only what I’m able to recall at the moment, others buried and lost in time.  But the list isn’t final – I’m sure I’ll remember more and be reminded of others.  And of course, there will be new GOP and Trump transgressions all the time.
 
But there’s another, equally-important reason for having this list – which I plan to re-post from time to time as it grows.  Not just to be a reminder, but also as an easy page to bookmark as a defense against far right “But What About-ism.”  That’s the GOP standby gambit when you’re in a conversation about the latest Trump/Republican high-end debacles, and the only response your Republican enthusiast can offer in return is to try to change the subject with “But what about…??!” – and then try something like “…when Barack Obama wore a tan suit after Labor Day?!!!”  As if that was an equivalent, let alone remotely on topic.  (Or worse, when they “But what about…” something that didn’t actually happen, like “…stole the election,” “bugged Trump,” “hacked White House computers,” “want to get rid of the 2nd Amendment,” “eat babies in the basement of a pizza restaurant.”)  Or when all else fails, “…Hunter Biden!”  Or “Hillary’s emails!!”
 
So, the next time I – or anyone – is in a debate and making factual, substantive arguments, and suddenly a “But what about…??!” gets thrown in to change the subject – now, whether the “But what about…??!” is an empty one, a non-existent one, or even a reasonable, single – but woefully off-topic – one, it will now be possible to say in return, “Ohhh, okay, so you want to play ‘But what about…??!”, do you?  Fine.  Here’s a list, here’s a link – so, then, what about ALL of this?!!!  All of it.  Answer that first, and then after we finish discussing this point we’re actually on, finally I will be happy to address your off-topic question.”

Until then, though…what about –
  
                                                   *    *    *
 
The Republican National Committee calls the January 6 insurrection attempt to overthrow the government “Legitimate Political Discourse.”
 
Trump calls murderous Russian dictator Vladmir Putin a “genius” as Russia invades democratic Ukraine.
 
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praises Putin, saying “He is a very talented statesman. He has lots of gifts” and “I have enormous respect for him – I’ve been criticized for saying that.”
 
Former Trump Attorney General William Barr writes a book that slams Democrats for “demonizing” brutal Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, while saying he looks forward to a “positive future” with the despot
 
On camera in Helsinki, Trump says he trusts Russian dictator Putin, leader of America’s top adversary, and says doesn’t trust all the U.S. intelligence services.

At the director of Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, the Republican Party removed the plank from the party platform to provide military support for Ukraine in 2016.  And kept it out of their party platform in 2020.
 
Trump tried to blackmail the president of Ukraine by not releasing money for Ukrainian defense that had been mandated by Congress, which got him impeached.  For the first time.
 
Paul Manafort is convicted on eight felonies.  Trump pardons him.
 
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene addresses a white supremacist conference.
 
At the State of the Union Address, Rep. Lauren Boebert heckles the U.S. President talking about his dead child who served in Iraq.
 
Fox “News” claiming that DOJ lawyer John Durham exposed Hillary Clinton’s hacking crimes only to have Durham himself explain that he wrote no such thing about her.
 
Both Democratic and Republican state senators in Arizona vote to censure Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers after she made “violent and discriminatory comments” at a white supremacist conference and also attack Ukraine President Zelensky on social media.
 
Trump makes a deal with the Afghanistan Taliban to return the country to them by a specific date – after he’s out of office – with not concessions in return from the Talibon.
 
Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo poses for a celebratory photo with the co-founder of the Taliban.
 
Trump cited for 16,000+ documented lies.
 
Trump calls Mexicans “drug dealers, criminals, rapists” and that “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals.”
 
Trump caught on tape laughing about grabbing women by the "p*ssy.”
 
Trump publicly asks Russia to hack computers in order to find his election opponent’s emails.
 
Trump pulls the United States out of the Paris Accord, the only country in the entire world not to support the environmental protections to help save the planet.
 
Trumped pulls the United States out of the nuclear sanctions against Iran – which soon after was cited for restarting its nuclear program.
 
Trump calls third-world countries “sh*t holes.”
 
Trump calls the press “the enemy of the people.

Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly caught on video joking about using a ceremonial sword to kill journalists.
 
Chef of Staff John Kelly publicly slams black Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson for taking credit for getting federal funds to build the FBI field office in Florida – and when video of the event surfaces and shows Kelly to be completely wrong, he never apologizes.
 
Rep. Paul Gosar puts out a cartoon video that has him portrayed as an anime-hero killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and attacking President Biden with a sword.
 
Trump slams Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel for being “Mexican” – even though the judge was born in Indiana (not that that should matter).
 
Trump relentlessly promises to not only build a Wall, but also keeps promising that he will get Mexico to pay for it, adding “Trust me.”
 
The Trump administration separates children from their family who enter the country illegally and put the children in cages, a policy supported by Republicans in Congress.
 
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) tells his supporters that they should raise their sons to “grow up to be monsters.”
 
Trump said that the neo-Nazis had some “very fine people.”
 
Trump told white supremacist groups to “stand by.”
 
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) tweets about the United States that “We are not a democracy.”
 
The Trump administration ignored all advice by the Obama Transition Team, who counseled them on pandemics – including given them an extensive playbook manual and left storage of medical supplies, both of which the Trump people said didn’t exist.
 
Trump closed the Pandemic Response Unit in 2018, before the pandemic hit.
 
Trump cut $8.5 BILLION from CDC budget, before the pandemic hit.
 
Trump fired the CDC expert in China in July, 2019, before the pandemic hit.
 
When asked about his responsibility in the spread of the coronavirus, Trump – who was in charge of everything -- said, "I take no responsibility at all."
 
Trump said the coronavirus will just “go away like a miracle.”
 
Trump said the coronavirus was just like the flu.
 
Trump said that children couldn’t get COVID-19.
 
Trump suggests that drinking bleach and hydroxychloroquine and using deadly UV rays could kill the coronavirus. 
 
Again, just as a reminder, all of these issues with Trump were met with near-unanimous silence by the Republican Party, with no push back or even just disagreement, thereby enabling him and those positions.
  
The Republican Party gets “outraged” when a publisher makes a business decision to drop six, very old books from its catalog written by Dr. Seuss that haven’t sold much in decades and have some parts in them that they felt are problematic today.
 
The Republican Party gets “outraged” when the maker of the Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head toys decides to package them together to save money.
 
The Republican Party gets “outraged” when they claim Disney has censored The Muppets, though in reality they just moved a few episodes behind a pay wall, and all the episodes are available.
 
Trump said he’d have a beautiful” health care plan in 2016.  Over four years, he kept saying he’d have a “beautiful” health care plan, very soon, so beautiful you wouldn’t believe it.  He never released any health care plan.
 
Trump says he brutal, murderous despot Kim Jong-un of North Korea “wrote me beautiful letters, and we fell in love.”
 
Trump said he and brutal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping have a “great relationship,” and “We love each other” and shared “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.”
 
Trump praised Philippine despot Duterte who has compared himself to Hitler, bragged about personally executing criminals, and whose bloody war on drugs has killed 7,000 people – condoning him with an invitation to the White House.
 
Trump invited Egyptian dictator el-Sisi who seized power in a coup that killed over 800 protestors in one day – and invited him to the White House.
 
Trump says the hated and brutal Turkish autocrat Erdogan is “a good man,” “a friend,” and “a hell of a leader,” someone who is “highly respected” around the world.
 
Trump abandoned our Kurdish allies, who were holding 11,000 ISIS prisoners, by removing troops from the Syrian border with Turkey, letting Erdogan’s army invade, ISIS prisoners to escape, hundreds killed, and creating 130,000 Kurdish refugees, dismissing bipartisan criticism as “It’s not our border” and "If Turkey goes into Syria, that’s between Turkey and Syria” – quotes to remember the next time he tries to claim he’d have stood up to Putin invading Ukraine.
 
White House senior advisor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner supported a Saudi blockade of U.S. ally Qatar while trying to get a personal $1.8 billion loan from Qatar for his family business.
 
Jared Kusher advised his friend Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after reports surfaced that American resident journalist Jamal Khashoggi had been murdered and dismembered on orders from bin Salman.
 
Rep. Lauren Boebert says the United States should liberate Canada.
 
Trump said he said he wasn’t allowed release his taxes (like every single president has done since Richard Nixon first did half a century earlier) because he was under audit – of which there was no evidence, but would have been perfectly legal and allowed even if he was), but kept saying he would release them.  He never released his taxes – though did sue in court to keep them from being released, but lost.
 
The Republican Party voted unanimously against emergency relief to Americans that polls showed 75% of the country wanted.  Democrats passed the bill.
 
Trump said there were airports in the Revolutionary War.

"* * *   UPDATE:  NEW MATERIAL ADDED   * * *

Trump ranted to a rally -- 'What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater, and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there? By the way, lot of shark attacks lately. Did you notice that?"  Never mind, by the way, that batteries are not only well-insulated, but unless  you are directly in its path, there is zero risk of electrocution.
 
Trump continued his obsession with electricity and this time confused solar power with everyday, basic electronics, ranting to a rally, “All they know is electric. They want electric army tanks. They want electric planes. What happens if the sun isn’t shining while you’re up in the air?”  Never mind that airplanes have actually (and obviously) had electricity since the very beginning -- and solar-powered devices store power so that they can be used when "the sun isn't shining"!!
 
Trump has explained why he thinks whales wash up on shores. "The windmills are driving them crazy. They are driving the whales, I think, a little batty.”  (Replied Andrew Read, head of the Marine Mammal Commission, “He displays an astonishing lack of knowledge of whales and whale strandings.”)

As it happens, Trump has a long-standing fear of windmills -- though to be accurate, they're not windmills, but wind turbines.  "I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know." To which he's added, "They're noisy. They kill the birds."  (A 2015 study showed that 2.4 billion birds were killed annually by cats.  Wind turbines were far down seventh on the list, at half-a-million.)

Trump has also claimed about "windmills" that "They say the noise causes cancer.”

It's not just "windmills," but the wind itself that is an issue for Trump. "There's no wind – the damn wind just isn't blowing like it used to because of global warming, I think."

On a Fox Town Hall broadcast, Trump said, “I want to be a dictator.  But only one Day One.”  Of course, wanting to be a dictator for even just one day is contrary to democracy, but also, it's near-impossible to think of a dictator who, by choice, gave up his autocratic power after one day.
 
Trump echoed the words of Adolf Hitler, saying that immigration is "a very sad thing for our country; it's poisoning the blood of our country."  And “"We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,"
 
Trump praised the fictional movie cannibal mass murderer as "The late, great Hannibal Lecter…a wonderful man.”

Trump's difficulty with speaking is generally referred to as just "slurring," but it's actually what psychiatrists and psychologists call "paraphasia," which is making up fake, similar-sounding words when the person can't think of the word they want, and then quickly changing the thought, which they say is a sign of early dementia.  Among his many examples are --
 
“Renoversh” (renovations)
“Mishuz” (missiles)
“Pivobal” (pivotal)
“Succential” (successful)
“Venerzuale…ohhh” (Venezuela)
“Patri-skfjsk” (patriots)
“Chrishus” (Christmas)
“Space capiscle” (space capsule)
“Combat infantroopen” (combat infantry)
“President U-licious S. Grant” (Ulysses S. Grant)
“Sahlven country” (sovereign country”)
Carrydite-byeraye-(sigh)-en” (carried out by radical)
“Illegal adlinthin” (I have no idea what this is supposed to be…)

JD Vance, currently a contender to be Trump's VP selection, praised Hungary's authoritarian strongman Viktor Orbán, saying, "I think Orbán made smart decisions that we could learn from in the US."  For the record, Orbán seized control of universities,  rewrote the the country's Constitution and undermined the power of Hungary's courts.

Marjorie Taylor Greene periodically complains that people call her stupid.  Yet all on her own, without any prompting from others, she posted a tweet about eight signers of the Declaration of Independence -- and six of eight never signed it.
 

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