The ‘Everybody everywhere is under arrest’ syndrome
This has to be one of the biggest coincidences in the history of American politics.
I may contact a mathematician who can figure out the odds that both of Donald Trump’s Democratic opponents have been “criminals.”
You simply can’t make this stuff up, unless you’re Trump in need of a handy, predictable, scapegoat.
To be honest, he might’ve declared Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a criminal, if he hadn’t edged him out for the 2016 Republican nomination. As it was, he branded him “Lyin’ Ted.”
I don’t know if Cruz is a liar. But I’ve always thought of him being a self-important motormouth.
After Trump sent Cruz packing, he faced-off against Hillary Clinton. She immediately became “Crooked Hillary,” whom, according to Trump, needed to be “locked up.” In fact, he’s still calling for her to be sent to prison for something or other. And he still ignites his adoring, maskless, crowds into fits of “Lock her up,” every time he mentions her name.
She, too, (according to him) is a “criminal.”
It’s now Joe Biden’s turn.
There are some vague indiscretions Mr. Biden has supposedly engaged in, that propel Trump-Nation into similar chants of “Lock him up,” whenever Trump says his name at his rallies.
When one reporter asked Trump why he keeps referring to Biden as a “criminal,” he shot back, “He is a criminal. He got caught. Read his laptop, and you know who’s a criminal? You’re a criminal for not reporting it.”
I’m starting to live in fear of being called a criminal, myself, for not reporting on the thin, Rudy Giuliani-initiated “scoop” that even Fox News refused to run.
Not-so-curiously, Giuliani was one of the folks throwing around the information that was supposed to have sent Hillary Clinton to jail four years ago.
This time, people are giving him a wide berth – lest the stench could rub off on them.
Presidents and politicos have always had unkind things to say about people who share their profession.
Teddy Roosevelt once said of President William McKinley that he has “no more backbone than a chocolate 茅clair.”
And Adlai Stevenson humorously said Richard Nixon was “the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation.”
It was an artful way of saying Tricky Dick, was, in fact, Tricky Dick.
But Trump just goes right for the jugular.
“He’s been a corrupt politician for a long time,” he says about that future inmate Biden.
Trump knows that no matter what he says, it will generate rounds of exuberant applause on the stump.
He doesn’t have the courage to do what Sen. John McCain did twice within minutes at a campaign stop in October 2008.
One man stood up at a town hall meeting and told McCain he was scared of an Obama presidency.
“First of all, I want to be president of the United States. And obviously, I do not want Senator Obama to be pesident of the United States. But I have to tell you, he is a decent person. And a person you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,” McCain told the man.
That was followed by an elderly lady who claimed Obama is an Arab.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just have disagreements with on fundamental issues,” he added. “That’s what this campaign is all about.”
McCain could have easily called for Obama to be fitted with leg irons and hauled off to prison.
He didn’t. That showed character.
Trump, though, wants us to think of his opponents – or anybody who challenges him in any way – as “criminals.”
To him, that’s part of his appeal.
He’s like that motorcycle cop played by Larry Storch in the 1964 madcap comedy, “Sex and the Single Girl.”
He feels he’s getting no respect from the people he’s trying to issue tickets, so he yells out, “Everybody everywhere is under arrest.”
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.