Red, White, and RUDE!

Did you hear the one about the American President who got invited to royal tea, with accompanying pomp and protocol, only to keep the Queen of England waiting for him to show up?

Trumpandia, it seems, is truly a moveable fiasco.

Good luck, though, on trying to uncover the truth behind The Donald’s latest blunders. The truth just isn’t out there anymore. Now “what really happened” has gotten carefully homogenized and reframed by Trump and his GOPropaganda machine so Americans won’t learn what actually took place on Friday The Thirteenth during Trump’s “working visit” to the U.K.

Yeah, he was late. Yeah, he was rude. Yeah, he completely ignored royal decorum he was supposed to have followed.

In other words, Trump was “being Trump” in bizarre ways no one possibly wanted to imagine. But just how late was he for royal tea? How tardy was he for the inspection of The Royal Guardsmen as the red carpet was rolled out especially for him? And why was he breaching royal protocol by walking in front of Queen Elizabeth II as he surveyed the castle grounds with her?

More importantly, WHY would he keep a 92 year-old monarch waiting for him to show up in 80+ degree heat?

Ah, gentle readers, there are things we gullible Americans were not meant to understand because they’re all FAKE NEWS. Never mind that these things actually happened during Trump’s “working visit” to Great Britain. Never mind the truth. Any reporting of his activities falls under the category of FAKE NEWS. Why? Because The Great Leader said so, that’s why.

Remember, in that fascist yet surreal state called Trumplandia, FAKE NEWS is whatever Trump doesn’t like…or doesn’t want anyone to read or hear or talk about.

Although Trump continuously denounces the media for propagating FAKE NEWS, he fails to mention how media owners and their loyal staffers continuously ameliorate his buffoonery. Oh, the irony! The same media he claims to hate also downplays — often rationalizes — his various gaffes on a daily basis. How so? Through selective usage of emotionally loaded/evocative words. Pay attention. It’s taking place right before our eyes and ears.

Start reading between the lines. You’ll soon begin to understand how the connotation of words — their various shades of meaning — has become more important than the actual definition of the words themselves. Listen closer to what the talking heads on FOX NOOZ are saying about Trump. You’ll hear how they use the language to downplay the etiquette of royal decorum. You’ll hear how they rationalize his inappropriate behavior with remarks like, “Hey, we’re Americans. We don’t kowtow and bow down to royalty.”

Notice the absence of expressions like “respect and honor cultural traditions” and the inclusion of reactionary words like “kowtow” and “bow down.” That’s how the GOP wordsmiths operate. They use the connotation of words to create imagery that, in turn, creates a new reality that’s devoid of truth.

Print media does a similar thing with this connotation of words. But they also use headlines and placement to distort the news so it favors Trump. So even if you did come across some actual information about Trump’s faux pas in print, you’d also encounter the bias that protects and supports him.

That’s why no matter what he says or does, he always comes across as “Presidential.”

One of the more striking examples of this amelioration at work is found in The Minneapolis Star Tribune (from Saturday, July 14, 2018, page A4). A news story from Jennifer Hassan of The Washington Post was published. But her substantive reporting of Trump’s rudeness was considerably diluted, thanks to sneaky yet blatant positioning and slanted headlines.

Instead of placing her story on the front page, it was tucked inside the newspaper on the bottom of page 4.

What was on the front page? Classic Trump p.r., what else?

Saturday’s front page featured a colored photo of Trump standing by the Queen’s side and appearing respectfully Presidential and mindful of protocol. No signs of tardiness or snarkiness in his body language at all. Underneath the photo was the caption “British protocol and protest.”

But the photo of “protest” was considerably smaller in size. To the right of the caption and underneath the large photo of President Trump was a tiny photo of a big inflatable balloon of Trump caricatured as a big angry baby.

But the little photo was so tiny you’d never know the real dimensions of this larger-than-life balloon. You’d never know that it was big enough to be in Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. And that was the whole point of that juxtaposition: downplay, underplay, undercut the protest.

You’d also never know from that first page photo-op that the anti-Trump demonstrations were so widespread and so huge. These protests were national, involving 50 cities and “tens of thousands” of protesters. British disdain for Trump was a lot more virulent than the first page feature suggested.

Furthermore, Trump’s unprecedented breach of protocol, as detailed in Hassan’s report, was diminished by this headline:
“Some Brits thought Trump failed royal decorum.”

Some? No, not everyone in the U.K. was anti-Trump, but the Brits who were sure amounted to a lot more than just some. Even in an interview with The Sun, Trump himself admitted he was not feeling the love on this island, this sceptre, this England.

Then, as if to add insult to injury with Hassan’s report, this subheading appeared:
“He seemed to walk ahead of the 92 year old queen.”

“Seemed to walk ahead?” Oh, right. Those 92 year-old queens are soooooo slow, Come on guys. Stop with the excuses.

Get real. Trump WAS WALKING AHEAD of Queen Elizabeth II, no doubt about it.

I’ve checked out footage from TV reports and videos online, and there was no “seemed to walk ahead” about it. That guy was on the move. Sometimes he even looked as though he was trying to hail a cab. Most of the time, though, he looked like he was in a race with a 92 year-old woman and was determined to win, no matter what. (Mature, real mature.)

Several British commentators and journalists saw the same thing I did: rudeness personified by a clueless world leader. Not surprisingly, though, American newspapers went along with GOPropaganda’s “glad game” of accentuating the positive when the positive was nonexistent.

Here’s another example of Republican bias perpetrated by The Minneapolis Star Tribune in Saturday’s edition. Atop page 4, just under the newspaper’s NATION & WORLD heading, is this headline:
“Trump softens up after protocol breach.”
The sub-headline reads:
“He left a trail of double-talk and chaos that has become a pattern in his overseas travels.”

Overseas? Make that sentence “Anywhere and everywhere he goes, he lies and disrupts whatever he can.” Trump’s trail of double-talk and chaos is his daily M.O., and it will continue to be his daily M.O. until the day he dies. Wake up and smell the coffee, buttercups! He’s not “softening up.” He’s just changing his mind after he puts his foot in his big mouth…and that happens at least 3 times every hour, everyday — in fact, ALL. THE. TIME.

How sad.

How sad that the United States of America now has a president who embodies every cliche and caricature and stereotype about what’s wrong with being an American. I’m not a big pro-monarchy activist myself, but being rude to a ceremonial head of state for no apparent reason is taking civility and diplomacy down the rabbit hole. It’s almost as if the Mad Hatter himself came alive just to ruin a nice tea party…

Wait. I take that back. At least the Mad Hatter knew he was mad — and he didn’t keep telling Alice how great he was, either.