The malicious atmosphere surrounding President Trump, the United States and in part, the world, is becoming almost unbelievable. Every day I wake up, read the basic news, and wonder if I’m reading a novel by an author who has Baldacci, Clancy, Grisham and any other political drama guys all wrapped up inside William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.”
Every president is going to have people who hate him. The only president who was universally beloved was George Washington.* So the fact that there is anti-Trump is no surprise. There was an anti-Obama faction, an anti-Clinton faction, two different anti-Bush factions; being against the president is nothing new. There are going to be policy disagreements and flat out fights possibly.
What is new is the pinnacles the hatred for the current president has reached. The radical left wants Trump out by any means necessary. First, it was via impeachment and subsequent removal with California representative Maxine Waters leading the charge for charges even though there was no cause or legally-grounded reason to remove him. Don’t say, “What about Russia?” That’s not been proven no matter what Keith Olbermann says. Until the Russia conspiracy is actually proven, all it is speculation, so it’s actually unprofessional for Waters to even suggest such a thing.
If this hatred stopped there, it’d be more humorous than frightening, but the climb isn’t stopping, it’s becoming terrifying and the hypocrisy is growing to no end. Recently, self proclaimed “D-List” celebrity Kathy Griffin took it to the next level when she did a photo-op of her holding a look-alike dummy head of the president that was giving the appearance that it had been bludgeoned, beatened, and decapitated in a way that paralleled actions done by ISIS, the Islamic terror group.
Griffin received tremendous backlash from the incident from all over. The White House reported that the president’s 11-year-old son, Barron, saw the photo and was emotionally and psychologically traumatized by the realistic portrayal.
Squatty-Potty immediately cut Kathy Griffin as their spokesperson and while it took CNN nearly a day; they did fire her and ousted her from her annual guest spot on New Years Eve with Anderson Cooper. In response, Griffin gave a tearful apology on social media. Some believed it was heartfelt and genuine. I and others did not. The two sides weren’t given much time to argue because less than 36 hours later, Kathy Griffin was being quoted, saying:
“‘A sitting president of the United States and his grown children and the first lady are personally trying to ruin my life forever,” she said. “You guys know him, he’s not going to stop.'”
This is in response to the fact that in addition to Squatty Potty and CNN, Griffin has had no less than five of her comedy bookings cancel her. Tearfully, she mentioned that she’s been hounded by people and received numerous death threats. The post mentioned that:
“Although she reiterated her apology, she told reporters a person shouldn’t have to die for a joke in the United States. ‘The threats that I am getting are … detailed and they are specific. And today it’s me, but tomorrow it might be you.'”
She added that:
“‘I’m not good at being appropriate,’ she said. ‘I’m only good at doing comedy one way. It’s in your face. I’m going to make fun of the president. And I’m going to do it more now.'”
I don’t know whether to believe this woman or not. It is plausible that she really is that vacant between the ears or that she’s trying to pull a fast one and get the public to 180 their hatred off her onto the president, which is plausible considering those who hate the president, hate him deeply.
Is it possible Griffin was completely oblivious? Yes, but here’s why I think she’s lying and in turn, is mocking what real bullying victims have gone through like myself. Because I don’t think this was ever a joke.
My reasoning is because Kathy Griffin is not a political cartoonist, she’s a standup comic. Her reality show about being a D-list celebrity was a favorite of my sister’s during one of her teen phases. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was funny in it’s own way. Griffin is primarily known to me for two guest spots on Seinfeld. In the second one, she stole the show by relentlessly torching Jerry Seinfeld’s character in her standup routine.
Her comedic source comes, like most standups, from her style of delivery. For example, Seinfeld had the perfect sarcastic deadpan. Bill Cosby told fantastic stories about family with fantastic facial expressions. Robin Williams used his voices.
Where Griffin’s delivery is funny is she’s this short, giddy, excited woman with a high voice that sounds funny when she becomes giddy and excited. She tells inappropriate jokes and stories and because she’s playing the jabbermouth, it’s funny. Without her voice, she’s not funny. No standup is because standups are not mimes.
So, for Griffin to pose in a photo with Trump’s supposed decaptitated head without a dialogue explaining why in God’s name she’s doing this, has no base in logic. No other way to put it. It’s just not funny. It can’t be funny and I can’t think she is that stupid. She’s stupid enought to not care that a large portion of America would hate this, but she’s not stupid enough to think this could actually be funny, could she?
Or do I have her pegged wrong? Because where is the joke? What is the joke? Can somebody, anybody, tell me where the joke is? Because the joke’s on me if I missed it because I don’t find the gruesome death of the president, who is also a father, to be humorous.
My hypothesis is that this woman wanted to display that head to become popular in the Hollywood crowd and appeal to those who actually hate the president enough to want to see him dead. She failed miserably; worse than trying to start a car on an empty tank of gas. She just failed.
Now, she’s trying to hide behind this idea that she’s the victim. That she’s being dogged over being “inappropriate,” and being attacked by older white men like she has been her entire career.
Give me a break. This YOUNG white male was pretty outraged because the truth is making a crack about a married woman’s body in front of her husband; that’s inappropriate. Chewing with your mouth open is inappropriate. Blowing your nose into a cloth napkin is inappropriate.
Holding a mock severed head of the president is a felony. Griffin won’t be arrested because the president isn’t going to attack free speech, but don’t kid yourself. If the Secret Service thought Griffin was a legitimate threat, she’d be in a cell right now.
She’s getting off easy right now. Let’s be frank, If this was say Mel Gibson, a celebrity conservative, holding the bloody massacred head of former president Obama, there is no attempt to justify this except by the small pack of right-wing radicals who are virtually ignored by modern conservatives as religious illiterate nutjobs. That is the end of it and if, in this hypothetical, Gibson tried to do what Griffin is doing, he’d be glued back together momentarily just to be blown back to smithereens. He’d be ostracized like a leper only without a colony and there’d be zero, zilch, zippo sympathy for him. The anti-Trump malice is what’s saving this woman from being destroyed.
Take this into account. CNN took the whole day to fire her. They only did so after they realized that this wouldn’t blow over. Why? Why would they hesitate? She’s not Cooper, a key figure, she’s his once-a-year guest host, so why wait? The fact there was even the slightest hesitation is enough to tell the American public that CNN could be alright with having a guest anchor who publicly wishes the president was brutally murdered. Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?
Now she’s trying to use that hate to make Trump the bully and herself the victim. ‘Oh Trump is destroying my career when all I did was hold up a model of his decapitated head. Come on man it’s just a joke.’ Are you kidding me? Why isn’t the entire mainstream media hanging this woman out to dry? She’s the one who traumatized a child and somehow she’s the victim.
Disgusting. Revolting. Churns the stomach.
Kathy Griffin isn’t the victim here. Neither is Donald Trump even. The real victim here is an 11-year-old boy who Kathy Griffin has made it clear to that she wants to chop off his father’s head. There is no way to justify this. Those who even try to do so need to look in the mirror. Kathy Griffin needs to be reminded what bullying is, shown a real victim of bully.
Like the young girl who now has body dismorphia because she had muscular legs or a curvy body and her fellow classmates made sure to remind her that she was “ugly.”
Or the young boy who came home from school in tears, looked up at his parents, and asked: “Why am I freak? Why is it no one likes me?”
Or the girls who have had nude photos taken of them in the locker room and posted on the Internet for all around the school to see.
Or the boys who have their backpacks taken from them, their homework and notebooks urinated on, and when they fight back, their eyes blackened, nose broken, and thrown into the wall.
Or go to the graves of the teens who felt the only way to escape it was to end their life by taking a knife and cutting the veins in their wrist open. Or tied a noose in a rope, stood on a stool and hung it from the ceiling, wrapped it around their neck and then kicked over the stool and dangled until their parents found them.
Unlike Kathy Griffin, those people didn’t “joke” about murdering the president. Unlike Kathy Griffin, an adult who is subject to criticism if her craft, routine or art, offends people. Unlike Kathy Griffin, they didn’t pre-plan to make millions of people, who like the president, angry.
Kathy Griffin doesn’t deserve the death threats, no, but it is difficult to say that she didn’t bring this level of ire on herself. That’s not bullying, that’s backlash and she needs to be reminded across the media of that.
The only reason she hasn’t been is because her target is more despised than she is. How screwed up is that?
Quotes courtesy of the Post here.
*That might be a lie right there; I just have never heard of any early Americans publicly or privately citing a distaste for the man.