Trump Just Does Not Know When to Shut His Big Fat Mouth

After being forced almost at gunpoint by his staff to woodenly read a script condemning the Nazis who killed a woman on Saturday, Trump just could not shut up:

President Trump reverted Tuesday to blaming both sides for the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., and at one point questioned whether the movement to pull down Confederate statues would lead to the desecration of memorials to George Washington.

Trump categorically refuses to admit that all the alt-right marchers have evil intent: they denigrate the humanity and want to take away the rights of people they don't like -- Muslims, Jews, Mexicans, blacks, women, Democrats, liberals -- and forcibly eject many of them from this country. That's what "take the country back" means, Donald, and they mean it literally.

With his various statements it is now obvious that Trump either shares their goals, or he is going to great lengths to con them into believing that he shares their goals to use them as stormtroopers to keep his hold on power.

By doing this he condemns himself in the eyes of the vast majority of the country.

His statement is loaded with crap. Trump pretends that the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Odinists and Confederate sympathizers were marching quietly peacefully to prevent the destruction of the statue of an American hero, General Robert E. Lee. If so, why were they shouting "Sieg Heil" and "Jew cannot replace us?" Why did they carry torches like angry villagers in a black-and-white horror movie from the Thirties? Why were they wearing helmets and body armor, carrying shields, clubs and automatic weapons?

Trump says that if we "change history" by getting rid of statues erected to honor traitors, George Washington will be next. It is preposterous to compare George Washington to Robert E. Lee. Both were slaveholders, yes. But Lee was a traitor to the United States and killed thousands of Americans. At a time when the country -- the entire world -- was dismantling the most evil institution mankind has known, Lee took up arms in rebellion to kill his fellow citizens.

Many of the Founding Fathers knew that slavery's days were numbered, and many wanted to abolish it outright in the 1770s. But they knew the South would never stand for it, and it was essential for the Union to remain whole if the Revolution was to succeed. It was a change that they knew would have to be addressed at a future time.

Sixty-four years after Washington was president, it was time for the institution of slavery to end: by then it had been dying for centuries. The Atlantic slave trade had been banned by the United States in the 18th century. Slavery was abolished across Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century. The Haitian slave revolt (1791-1084) showed that slavery's days were numbered, that it was impossible for modern societies to keep slaves: ultimately the number of guards required would outnumber the slaves. Mechanization and industrialization were making slave labor inefficient.

States throughout the north passed laws against slavery and indentured servitude throughout the early 19th century, and banned repatriation of escaped slaves. In 1820 slavery was banned in the United States north of the 36th parallel. Britain banned slavery throughout the empire in 1833. In 1845 the Royal Navy had a fleet of 36 ships dedicated to wiping out the slave trade. Even the Russians abolished serfdom in 1861.

But the American South kept slavery because the slave owners told poor whites that if the plantations lost their Negro slaves white southerners would have to take their place in the fields. Poor Southerners didn't fight the Civil War for God and country: they fought because they were being threatened with enslavement themselves. Plantation owners subverted the clergy to justify slavery with religious nonsense like the Curse of Ham.

It was only after the war that the South changed course and started making up excuses about states' rights being the just cause they were fighting for. Most of the Civil War monuments erected to honor and ennoble Confederate traitors were put up in the early and mid-20th century, coinciding with attempts to repress the civil rights of blacks.

With his conflicting statements on Charlottesville, Trump is just doing what he always does: create chaos. He says one thing, issues a statement contradicting it, makes a joke, reverses course, contradicts himself, sometimes in the same sentence. He says nothing and everything, hoping something will stick. This way, no matter who he's talking to later on, he can always claim that he said the thing he thinks they wanted to hear. He insults the intelligence of his listeners, thinking they won't remember what he said a month, a week, a day, an hour or a minute ago. Sadly, far too many people don't remember.

The guy is a con man, and a bad one at that: anyone listening to him talk should be able to tell that Trump is either lying or stupid.

But, ironically, the biggest reason Trump voters say they like him is that, "He tells it like it is." They, too, are either lying or stupid.

This is why Trump is always in such hot water, and why his popularity is in freefall. He never knows when to shut up, whether it's about Russia, or neo-Nazis, or women, transgendered military members, or the media, or North Korea. He seems to think that if he keeps yelling louder, nastier and more outrageous things, he will eventually bully everyone into submission.

Here's hoping he's wrong. Again.