Racism Sexism

Equal And Opposite

by GrayMatters
Cartoon Trump curtseys for Saudi cash.

There’s been a particularly useful new saying making its way around Twitter lately:

“Newton’s fourth law: for every trump action there is an equal and opposite trump tweet.”

This is a joke, sort of, but start digging in to everything he whines about on Twitter, and compare his tweets with the actions he takes. It looks to be true from the complaining about President Obama’s golfing and vacation spending to armchair-quarterbacking the Middle East.

Remember Trump shooting missiles into Syria on a whim while bragging about it to Chinese President Xi?

Melania Trump didn’t wear a head covering in Saudi Arabia this week. Neither did Ivanka:

This brought to mind posts where Republicans are defending Gianforte’s assault on a reporter, Kushner’s headlines today about contacts with the Russians that he didn’t report, and the CBO for Ryan’s tax bill (AHCA) intended to replace the ACA.

You don’t wait to judge the actions of a potential congress person until you know what party he represents. Assault is a crime no matter who the perpetrator is. And violating another person’s First Amendment rights is wrong no matter who they are. If Gianforte can’t stand the heat, he shouldn’t have asked for this kitchen. He’s chosen a party of bigots, thugs, thieves, and hypocrites; life isn’t easy for representatives who choose the party that is currently out to hurt their constituents. The hard questions are just beginning, and this little man is in for a rough ride.

If HRC had won the presidency, and her son-in-law was under investigation for multiple (undisclosed) meetings including trying to establish a “secret line to Moscow,” would Americans be defending him, making excuses, like they are for Jared Kushner? I believe people would be losing their fucking minds that Chelsea or her spouse, Marc Mezvinsky, were anywhere near the White House. Nepotism is illegal in the government. Trump’s children and their spouses have no business there. Period. Even if either of them were qualified (which they most certainly are not) they shouldn’t be there. If it’s not okay for a Clinton, a Bush, or an Obama, it sure the hell isn’t okay for a Trump.

Republicans are showing remorse already for the pile of garbage they recently rammed through the House. Now that the CBO scores are coming out they’re starting to find out just what they are trying to do to people. Today it was Mark Meadows who teared up thinking of his sister (a breast cancer patient) and what people like her and their families will go through because of what he’s done. Back when Congress was working on the ACA, they debated and reviewed and scored for more than a year before it was good enough for that bill to pass. Why, then, is it suddenly okay to yank everyone’s insurance in such a huge hurry? Do these health insurance execs seriously need their cut immediately? They are already making ridiculous salaries. Why does it seem like a terrific idea to defend these execs, to remove our own protections, the ones that make it possible for us to afford health insurance for our families, so those guys can get their bigger slices?

All I’m saying is before we jump all over someone for speaking up, and before we defend something we think we agree with, we need to put someone else in that spot. If you’re defending Trump for doing something (for example, weekly golf vacations on our dime, colluding with the Russians, or removing our environmental protections for clean air and water) replace him with President Obama or President Hillary Clinton. If they were doing exactly the same thing, would you still support and/or defend it? If it was Maxine Waters who assaulted a reporter for asking questions of her, would you defend her like you defend Gianforte? If you’re freaking out about Hillary Clinton’s email server not being secure enough (back when she was Secretary of State, when there weren’t really rules about that sort of thing), have you stopped to think what your current president and all his people are doing right now? They’re working on a lot of unsecured tech including phones and email servers, and there are rules in place now. And we now know that Trump is intentionally sharing classified information (did Jared manage to get that line to Moscow for him?). It’s not like when something might have gotten intercepted accidentally. This is for real, and it’s intentional. You’re suddenly okay with it? even though we’ve learned? Well, some of us have.

If it had been Obama who pushed the Prime Minister of Monterrey out of the way to get to the front for a picture, would everyone be fine with that?

What if (President) Hillary Clinton had shared highly classified information with Russians in her office? What if HRC hadn’t allowed American reporters in for the meeting but she had allowed Russian media? What if HRC had given out highly classified information at least twice that seriously damaged our relationships with our allies and endangered our chances to acquire/share intel in the future?

If it had been Obama instead of Trump who curtseyed to the Saudi King, would everyone have been perfectly fine with it?

A few links for thought:

We might get some more mileage from this one:

I particularly like Ms Bertrand’s version where it’s Newton’s Fourth Law:

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