Two days ago, five journalists were “killed in action” in Annapolis, MD, more than double the amount of soldiers killed in Afghanistan in all of 2018 (icasualty.org.) America is spinning off its axis, and Donald Trump, who has publicly called the American free press the “enemy of the people,” should be considered a terrorist.
The stunning topsy-turvy casualty count should serve as a reminder that in the grand scheme of things, the enemy is not “them”...not foreigners, Muslims, Mexicans, or the “brown people” that Trump and his racist posse of cowardly republican party enablers and embarrassingly defective right wing media want you to blame. It’s them. “Blame the other side of that which you are guilty.” That’s out of Josef Goebbels' Nazi propaganda playbook. Trump and the GOP have adopted it as their new blueprint for America. The ethnic animosity and gleeful bigotry Trump exudes from every pore of his bloated, spray tanned body, and his outward hostility toward the 1st Amendment-protected press, demonstrates his full embrace of fascism. This is not a drill.
So, hey, patriots. Yeah, you. The ones with the American flag profile pic and the Gadsden flag bumper sticker, the ones who lose your fucking marbles when black NFL players kneel during the anthem, or when rational citizens recognize we have a runaway gun problem in this imploding country of ours, here’s a little suggestion:
The rights of peaceful protest and a free press are enshrined in the Constitution just like your beloved AR-15s. If you’re not celebrating those things next week during Independence Day, you’re not a patriot, you’re just a garden variety bigot who has signed onto fascism as the thing you mistakenly and dangerously think makes America “great.”
Yeah, we know you’d rather fellate a troop in uniform than shake the hand of anyone who works at CNN, but the real danger to America right now isn’t coming from the mountains of Afghanistan, it’s coming from the Oval fucking Office. And it isn’t the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade that’s protecting liberty in America right now nearly so much as it is Jim Acosta, or Rachel Maddow, or the five journalists murdered at the Capital Gazette, and thousands more like them, who have had bullseyes painted on them by our Commander in Chief.
You want to be a patriot, Mr. ‘Murica? Find a journalist this July 4th, and thank him or her for their service.