Uncorked: both Rep. Wilson and Sen. Corker have triggered Trump and his minions
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), who was the first to call out real estate grifter Donald J. Trump’s insensitive treatment of a war widow on the telephone, continues to give the White House fits — and keep them on the defensive:
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Tuesday dismissed Democrats’ attempts to compare the 2012 Benghazi attack to the Niger attack on U.S. troops this month.
“These are not comparable events. I know that the Democrats want to make this a big, negative attack piece against this president. Look, this is still an active investigation. We’re still in review. I think Gen. Dunford did an incredible job yesterday kinda laying out the facts of what we know at this point, but to try to compare the two is simply just a cheap attempt by the Democrats to taint this president,” Sanders told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” Tuesday morning.
Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., is a personal friend to one of the four men who were killed in the Niger attack, Army Sgt. La David Johnson. Last week, Wilson proposed Niger could be Trump’s Benghazi.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s angry rant directed at Wilson continues to be a topic of criticism. Several people have been focusing on the “empty barrel makes the most noise” metaphor, which was explained to yours truly by Mark Nash, a college friend who survived four years of ROTC training and served as an officer for four years in the Marines:
I remember hearing that “empty barrel” putdown for the first time just weeks into my service. It was a favorite of know-it-all senior officers who just plain knew they were smarter and more well-informed than their subordinates. You guessed it — the opposite proved true more of then than not. It was always the loudest officers who cited the “empty barrel”. Ironic, huh!
Salon‘s Chauncey deVega made this important racist-culture connection in an outstanding essay you should read in its entirety:
For centuries, black women and girls in America have been stereotyped as being loud, aggressive, hypersexual, lazy and violent. Simultaneously, black women and girls have also been viewed by the white gaze as being natural caregivers, unselfish and possessed of unique emotional and physical strength which makes them immune (unlike white women) to pain and suffering. In total, these stereotypes transform the complex and diverse life experiences and humanity of black women and girls into caricatures such as “the mammy”, the “black harpy” or the “Sapphire.” [Note from The Doc: for those of you not quite old enough to know, Sapphire was the tart-tongued wife of Kingfish on the radio and TV series Amos ‘n’ Andy.]
At the website for the Jim Crow Museum, sociologist David Pilgrim explains the “Sapphire” stereotype in the following way: “The Sapphire Caricature portrays black women as rude, loud, malicious, stubborn, and overbearing. The Sapphire Caricature is a harsh portrayal of African American women, but it is more than that; it is a social control mechanism that is employed to punish black women who violate the societal norms that encourage them to be passive, servile, non-threatening, and unseen.”
Wilson immediately decoded the racist and sexist invective in Trump’s and Kelly’s attacks on her character.
This morning, the Chicago Tribune reported that Wilson has also been the target eliminationist threat:
Police are investigating allegations that a Des Plaines man threatened to lynch U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson in a racist Facebook post.
But Tom Keevers, 54, says an anonymous “meme-maker” put words in his mouth and that he and his family are now getting death threats.
Screen grabs of a post purportedly made on Keevers’ Facebook page went viral over the weekend after they were shared nearly 4,000 times on Twitter. The alleged post is the subject of a Des Plaines police investigation, Cmdr. Chris Mierzwa said.
That story would have gotten more play were it not for the flare-up in the feud between Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and The Donald. It started yesterday with a juicy put-down Corker told NBC News’ Leigh Ann Caldwell:
.@SenBobCorker told me Trump’s visit to Senate Republicans tomorrow on tax reform is nothing more than a “photo opp.”
— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) October 23, 2017
The Hill and several other web outlets picked up the story.
That was just the warm-up. This morning, Corker unloaded on Trump’s so-called foreign policy:
“The president undermines our Secretary of State, raises tensions in the area by virtue of the tweets that he sends out, and I would just like for him to just leave it to the professionals for a while.”
Corker knew that line would leave a mark!
Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017
…Corker dropped out of the race in Tennesse when I refused to endorse him, and now is only negative on anything Trump. Look at his record!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2017
There is a real-life consequence to Mr. Trump’s childishness, though. The Dotard-in-Chief may have just scuttled any hope of a grand bargain for his much-wanted tax giveback for the wealthy. It’s not exactly a secret that Sen. John McCain is ready to throw a monkeywrench into the legislative works, and while their fellow GOP senators are remaining for the most part mum, it’s also common knowledge that Corker is a popular figure in his caucus.
Heckuva job, Donald!
The minute Trump blames the Senate and/or Congress for his failure to shepherd through anything resembling even a minor legislative victory, look for Republicans on the Hill to turn on him.
