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| EMANUEL: May get some backers |
Perhaps
it is because of Donald Trump.
NOT
TRUMP EXACTLY. But the fact that there are people out there who take the
pompous, wealthy nit-wit seriously whenever he opens his mouth – no matter how
blatantly ridiculous his pronouncements are.
Take
his latest rant – the claim that the United States ought to impose an outright
ban on entry to this country of anyone who is of a Muslim religious faith.
No
matter about context or degree or purpose or background. Just slam the door
shut on all of ‘em.
Then
perhaps the country could get back to focusing its attention on how to kick out
all the “Mexicans” who are now in the United States. Let’s not forget the Trump
presidential aspirations originally focused its ire on Mexico – at least until
Trump figured out he could gain more politically by getting the ideologues of
our society all worked up against the Middle East.
THERE
ARE PLENTY of political people, including many of the Republican persuasion,
who are embarrassed by Trump. Personally, I think he’s just too stupid to pay
much attention to.
But
there are those people who wish to live as though we’re still in 1953 – prior to
Brown v. Board of Ed, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., or any of that
allegedly rabble-rousing stuff that killed off the image they had of the United
States as a place for white people to prevail.
A
place where the police were upholding their sworn duty to protect the people
when they resorted to physical force in order to subdue certain “other”
elements of our society.
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| TRUMP: HIs 'people' may quietly back Rahm |
Which,
in a sense, is what I suspect Jason Van Dyke and other police officers thought
was happening when McDonald was shot 16 times because officers thought the
3-inch blade clutched in his hand made him a deadly threat.
THEY
LITERALLY DID take his weapon from his cold, dead hands (just like actor
Charlton Heston said when waving that musket around at a National Rifle
Association rally).
The
same kind of people who think Trump would make a credible presidential
candidate probably also think that too much is being made of police conduct in
Chicago. Whether they think the police deserve the benefit of the doubt or that
McDonald deserved it, they’ll back him to the end.
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| Is RIE destined to become LBJ? |
And
while there are those who are of the exact opposite stance, let’s not forget
the mass in the middle – the people who will have to be swayed and, by their
very nature, are apathetic. They’d prefer to sit back and do nothing.
Which
if they do so, winds up making the loudmouthed ideologue segment of our society
the majority – an outcome that takes place all too often.
OF
COURSE, THERE is the drawback – it puts Rahm Emamuel in the same class of
character as Donald Trump. They both become blowhards who do not deserve
credibility but our scorn.
And
although Emanuel was already scorned by some in Chicago, this could only spread
the amount of ridicule he receives because some people amongst us are
determined to make sure Rahm is never able to escape the taint of letting his
police run amok – even though the attitudes amongst our cops predate him by so
much.
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| BYRNE: Looking more rational every day |
It
could wind up being a long three years between now and the next municipal
elections in 2019 – and we may wind up getting an Emanuel who makes the mayoral
equivalent of Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 campaign statement that he, “shall not seek
and … will not accept the nomination of my (political) party as your president.”
And
we may have to stop thinking of the mayoral term of Jane Byrne as the screwy
time period in recent Chicago history.
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