“The truth is a trap”

I stopped writing about DJT’s campaign when he failed the Khan test. Khizr Khan’s speech at the DNC made little sense. The US constitution does not authorize unrestricted immigration. The benefit of accepting potential heroes is immeasurably less than the risk of letting in potential terrorists. But Trump failed to make these obvious points.

Now, a certain lady is implying she was fat-shamed by Trump, twenty years ago, into hanging out with gangsters and having sex with a stranger on camera while engaged to someone else. Trump recalls that, in 1996, the beauty queen gained much more weight than her contract permitted but he let her slim down instead of firing her. That’s probably true: Trump did her a favor and she repaid it with venomous interest.

All too human and forgettable. Trump’s in the right – but he’s taking it far too personally for his own good, swallowing the bait. Far more interesting politically, and more in line with Trump’s agenda, is how that Venezuelan demimondaine obtained US citizenship.

How come US citizenship gets handed out to people with a long history of associating with Latin American organized crime? (Incidentally, Mexican drug moguls are among Trump’s bitterest opponents because of the Wall.) Perhaps that lady had provided valuable information to the US government, and it overrode the good moral character requirement. Perhaps, but not a hint of this possibility so far.

A smart propagandist would have long turned the Machado affair into a blazing example of the US selecting prospective citizens for very peculiar skills and experience. Instead, the brouhaha looks rather Pavlovian for the time being.

2 Comments

  1. Mentioning somebody’s weight in public is an enormous taboo in the US. It’s such a sore point that nobody will hear or care about anything after that. Machado could be roasting infants for breakfast, and nobody would care.

    But Trump is too damaged mentally to understand that the best thing he can do is forget Machado ever existed and never address any comments to her or about her.

    • I’m trying to avoid judgment on the folly or wisdom of Trump’s campaign: he has put more sophisticated observers than I to shame. At any rate, it was an opportunity to remind voters interested in politically relevant facts that Secretary Clinton had congratulated a drug lord’s paramour on becoming a US citizen and encouraged her to vote.

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