Capitol Report
By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
At the time this article was written, Donald Trump’s inauguration was a scant 10 days away (January 20, 2017). But, not surprisingly, the president-elect is up to his old tricks: engaged in yet another verbal assault via his Twitter account. Meryl Streep is the latest target of Mr. Trump’s ire and vitriolic rant.
Ms. Streep took aim at Trump in a speech at last Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards, although she didn’t mention the president-elect by name.
The actress was incensed about Trump’s remarks during the campaign, when he appeared to mock New York Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits the functioning of his joints.
As we saw all too often during his GOP presidential campaign, the perception that he’s being attacked, criticized or held to account, invariably throws Trump into a tweet tantrum.
While you might think America’s, president-elect would have better things to do than tweet about the Golden Globes, you’d be sadly mistaken.
Trump took to the social media platform last Monday morning to express his displeasure about Meryl’s acting caliber and to deny that he ever made fun of the disabled reporter (even though it happened and was caught on video). Trump responded by asserting: “Meryl Streep is one of most over-rated actresses in Hollywood.”
Pressed into damage control mode, yet again, Kellyanne Conway (Mr. Trump’s indefatigable apologist) made the media rounds. Like her boss, Ms. Conway contends that no insult of the disabled reporter was intended or occurred. She also insists that we disregard what comes out of his mouth, and instead pay attention to what’s in his heart. Really, Kellyanne? Really?
In truth, the Kovaleski incident epitomizes the whole tragedy of Donald Trump: the scorn, the bullying, the pettiness, the lying, and the self-delusion. Moreover, Conway is being completely disingenuous in explaining Trump’s proclivity for going off the rails.
She does know this man is about to be president, right? She realizes, doesn’t she, that a president’s words can incite revolution? That they can move the stock market? That they can get people killed?
More importantly, it begs this chilling question: Does Donald Trump possess the necessary temperament, judgment and restraint to be the caretaker of the powerful nuclear arsenal on the planet?