They Showed Themselves
On Tuesday, America got a full dose of Democratic Party petulance
My mom, who recently died, lived most of her life in the Great State of Washington. But, she grew up in Sparta, North Carolina, a small town located in Western NC, near the Blue Ridge Parkway, and had plenty of “Southern” expressions that she used until the very end.
A good one was “I don’t care if it hairlips the devil,” which she would throw out when something outrageous was at play. Another classic was “He (or, she) didn’t even offer…”, which should be self-explanatory. If someone didn’t attempt to do something that was just commonsensical, like, say, hold a door open when he saw my mom entering a building, well, you’d hear mom say, “And he didn’t even OFFER to hold the door open!”
My favorite, though, was a version of the phrase “show yourself”. She would say this when she would do something in public that was embarrassing, and would have us shaking our heads after the fact:
“I was at Fred Meyer and I “showed myself” when I asked the cashier for my senior discount.”
We often would joke about this. We knew something ridiculous had happened whenever any of us said “I showed myself”.
I thought about what it means to “show yourself” three nights ago, when I saw how members of the Democratic party responded to President Trump’s address to Congress. And if Trump Derangement Syndrome is indeed a real disease, the nation’s Democratic Congressional members showed themselves to be afflicted with a hive-mind case of TDS that is severe enough to make the Covid-19 pandemic look like the common cold.
Now, before anyone reading this gets worked up and goes straight to the punchbowl for a glass of “TRUMP IS BAD! YOU LIKE TRUMP! YOU ARE BAD!”, let me say this: I get it. You don’t like the president. That is to be expected. I have been alive for at least parts of 12 presidential terms, and I can say for certain that when someone is the President of the United States, at any particular time, he is disliked by half the country. Sometimes it’s more. Sometimes it’s less. In my lifetime, the only president who was unequivocally liked, if not loved by the majority of Americans was Ronald Reagan. And even if you claim to have never liked Dutch, you have to admit that he was untouchable when it came to the nationwide popularity contest.
So, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that all the Democrats would have some issues with Trump. After all, “Orange Man Bad” has been the Democrats main political plank for a decade, and the party has never gotten over Trump winning the presidency in 2016 when the Dems were convinced that Hillary was going to be anointed as the Empress of America. We all know that the Democrats have to oppose Trump on everything because…Well, that’s what they do.
However. I don’t think even Kanye West singing the praises of Adolf Hitler could have showed himself like the Democratic party showed itself on Tuesday night during Trump’s de facto State of the Union address.
The opposition party disagreeing with at least some of the president’s policies is to be expected. Not applauding everything the president says during a Congressional appearance is to be expected, too.
But…
Whatever decorum the Democrats had disintegrated Tuesday night in an evening of petulant, childish behavior that made my daughters’ arguments over who took whose hoodie look like deciding whether to buy a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints or Trefoils. It’s one thing to not applaud a president’s economic plans because you disagree with them. But, to sit on your hands instead of paying respects to 13 American servicemen who died in Afghanistan just because you don’t like the man who acknowledged those servicemens’ sacrifice?
We all saw that. We also saw the Democrats not stand to support the family of Laken Riley, a University of Georgia student murdered by an illegal immigrant last year. They didn’t stand for Jason Hartley, who lost his father, a California sheriff deputy, and who had just recieved admission to the United States Military Academy. They didn’t stand for the family of a 12-year-old Texas girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered last June. They didn’t stand for the family of Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania last year.
And, probably worst of all…The Democrats refused to stand and applaud for D.J. Daniel, a 13-year-old boy who survived brain cancer, dreams of being a police officer, and whom Trump made an honorary Secret Service officer, complete with a badge delivered to him in the House gallery by Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
You can be jaded and say all those acknowledgements Trump made were done for the TV cameras. But, every president, Republican or Democrat, has done something similar in his SOTU. And, regardless of who has given the speech, the other side has always had the courtesy to stand for, and applaud their fellow citizens in “the people’s chamber”.
Well, not this time. And it was all because the Democrats couldn’t put aside their blind hatred of Trump for even a few minutes and show a bit of warmth toward a handful of average Americans who had been acknowledged by the man they hate so much.
Trump knew where he stood with his opponents. He said he there was nothing he could do to make them happy, and he went out and proved it. The American people saw the Democrats for who they really are: Sad, heartless brats that offer nothing for their countrymen but sour faces, tired complaints and a complete lack of common humanity and common sense.
On Tuesday, the Democrats showed themselves. And no one can unsee what they saw.