Break It Down!
I’ve been thinking about this one for moment.
So, Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement made famous the retort, Eff (you know the word) your feelings. The underlying premise being, Democrats in general, and liberals in particular, never have the facts on their side. They simply make pronouncements, based upon their ever-present feelings. Before going any further, I must note, Trump and MAGA are the perennial Kings of projection. In other words, they assess their faults and short-comings, and rush to blame “the other side” for doing the deed they have not only participated in, but often perfected…raised to an artform.
So, it is patently rich, when Trump and the eff your feelings crew, boldly announce that the President launched a pre-emptive strike on Iran because, hold my beer, he had a feeling. Not only that; then Mrs. Leavitt, his official Town Crier echoes his pronouncement, underscoring and illuminating the fidelity of his eff’n feelings.
But let’s add some context. Trump’s feelings games is not a Johnny-come-lately kind of thing.
Six years ago this week, as Americans were starting to come to terms with the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump said he didn’t believe the World Health Organization’s assessment on fatality rates. To support his contention, the president pointed to nothing in particular.
“This is just my hunch,” he said.
Just weeks later, Trump touted ineffective COVID treatments that had no scientific merit. Asked about his rationale, the president told reporters, “I feel good about it. That’s all it is. Just a feeling. You know, I’m a smart guy.”
His “feelings” proved wrong, of course, but the rhetoric offered a peek into a ridiculous perspective: Trump, a former television personality and the least experienced president in American history, not only has a great many hunches, but he also has an unnerving habit of assuming his hunches are true and as a result, subsequently acting on them.
Suffice it to say, Trump’s feelings surfaced anew last Wednesday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last Wednesday that President Donald Trump made the decision to strike Iran because he ‘had a good feeling that the Iranian regime was going to strike’ U.S. assets and personnel in the region.
The Trump administration has said that U.S. faced imminent threats from Iran, which necessitated the strikes that began early Saturday before last. The U.S. has not, however, communicated specific intelligence or information beyond the fact Iran possesses ballistic missile capabilities, as it has for years.
When pressed further, Leavitt suggested the President acted on his feelings.
“This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America, and the president’s feeling, based on fact, that Iran does pose an imminent, direct threat to the United States of America,” she told reporters.
The press secretary’s comments are unlikely to inspire greater confidence in the unpopular conflict, but they were part of a bigger picture. As an analysis in The New York Times explained:
In a meeting inside the Oval Office with the German Chancellor Tuesday, President Trump offered a brief moment of insight into his decision-making process on the most consequential of matters: whether to take the country to war.
His decision to order the attack on Iran was mostly a matter of gut instinct about Iranian intentions.
“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” Trump said, adding, “I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen.”
A normal American president, before launching a war, might consult with the National Security Council, among others. The incumbent president, however, appears to prefer his gut, which wouldn’t be quite so terrifying if (a) he had some idea what he was talking about; and (b) we weren’t talking about matters of life and death. “Feelings: That Old White Magic!”
I’m done; holla back!
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BREAK IT DOWN! 