Macho, Macho Man

The other day, Trump did what Trump so often likes to do – swagger around with a bit of sashaying thrown in for good measure to make him seem what his base apparently thinks is oh-so macho.  That’s when he said that he wanted to lead the Insurrection to the U.S. Capitol but the mean old Secret Service agents wouldn’t let him go.

Just a quick reminder, this is the same Secret Service that, when Trump was in the hospital recovering from being infected with COVID, he forced them to drive him around the block with the windows all closed.  But I digress.  Back to Mr. Macho.

But there he is, insisting he really wanted to lead the Insurrection to the U.S. Capitol, where police were being beaten, people died, federal laws were broken, and the Insurrectionists were calling for politicians to be killed, including Trump’s own vice president. 

This is, of course, a very convenient and easy thing to say when you did actually go, even though you did have the opportunity and could have overruled the Secret Service like you did when you risked infecting them with a deadly disease, and the Insurrection was long-since over by more than a year, not at risk of being charged with a federal offense, you were safe at home, and over 1,000 miles away where it happened long before.

But then, this is a thing Trump loves to do.  Seem macho, if only he had the opportunity which he always just misses, darn it.

Like also after the high school shooting at Parkland, Florida, Trump went into Faux-Macho Mode and said how if he was there when the shooting started, he wouldn’t have run out of the building, but he would have run in with a gun.

This is a very convenient and easy thing to say, of course, when you weren’t there, you were about 1,000 miles away and you said it well after the fact and all the shooting and death was long-since over.

And it’s like when one of Trump’s supporters gave him the Purple Heart that the soldier had himself been award.  Trump was thrilled and said he’d always wanted to get a Purple Heart, which is a very oh-so Macho Man thing to say, showing how tough he wanted others to think of him.

It is also, of course, and once again, a very convenient and easy thing to say when there is no way you ever had a chance to be awarded a Purple Heart or would ever have the chance, most notably because you did everything you could to ensure you wouldn’t win a Purple Heart because you got a deferment from the military during Viet Nam based on your doctor claiming that you had “bone spurs, so you weren’t ever in the military by choice, and you were about 8,600 miles away from the opportunity to get wounded in the war.

But then, Trump also likes to seem tough and macho by telling others they should be violent towards others, like when he told his supporters at his rallies that if any of them beat up a protestor and got arrested he’d pay for the bail.  Or when he told policeman that they should be rough with people they arrested when putting them in patrol cars (never mind that being arrested does not mean guilty, and doing so would risk getting arrested themselves for police brutality).  And that he said his one regret when in office (ahhh, there’s that Trump “well-after-the-fact” regret) was that he didn’t send troops into Seattle to attack generally-peaceful protestors.  It’s all so very fascist of him, since promoting violence is one of the main tenets of fascism – even when you aren’t willing to be violent yourself but incite others to it.

My one regret.  What I would have liked to have done.  If I only had the chance.  But…but you do it.  Not me.

It’s so Trump.  Fascist.  Cowardly.  Fake-tough. 

And the Republican Party thinks it’s great.