When Big Sky Country Became Trump's Big Lie Country

Goodbye Big Sky Country, hello Big Lie Country. The president’s remarks in Montana Thursday night were so offensive, so bizarre, so detached from any known definition of coherent that to try to tease a smidgen of sense from the morass of incomprehensibility, venom, and hate babbled from the podium would be an impossibility. I could have written that it would have been a fool’s errand to try to find something positive in the rambling monologue, but the fools who attended the speech, who applauded, who licked up every smarmy syllable as if the words they formed were glistening beads of truth-infused honey, were on their own sad errand down a path of self-righteousness, self-laud, self-delusion, and, ultimately, self-destruction. At some point when their tent is torn down, I’m sure they will also be full of self-pity. .

I don’t have to defend Elizabeth Warren or Maxine Waters or the #MeToo movement; they know their purposes in life, and they are strong enough individually and collectively to stand against the bluff and bluster of a badgering bully. I will say I tire of the Pocahontas references, and the awkward skit about a DNA kit led me to think that Mr. Trump should be very careful about deriding someone else's DNA results unless he's sure of the wandering whereabouts of his own chromosomes.

Nor should I have to defend George H.W. Bush whose Thousand Points of Light took a cheap and ignorant shot from a man whose single-filament bulb shorted out decades ago. Nonetheless, I must stand up for Mr. Bush here. I worked in his administration as an appointee, and while I have since moved to the left of center in my political views, I did, and continue to, admire Bush 41 for his service to the country in uniform and for his understanding of, appreciation for, and commitment to, the oath he took as President. Mr. Bush, Donald Trump can’t hold a candle to the works of the thousands of men and women whose selfless points of light continue to make the world around them a brighter and better place.

To Mr. Trump’s supporters who inexplicably hooted and hollered and jeered at the mention of the Thousand Points of Light, my disgust at your behavior and your lack of humanity and decency knows no bounds. That you would bark wildly as your charlatan-in-chief throws shade at a 92-year-old man whose deep faith in family and love of country is rock solid tells me all I need to know about you.

On the subject of Mr. Trump’s Montana-repeated fealty to Vladimir Putin and Trump’s dismissive shrug about Putin’s KGB heritage: we are seeing a chum-draped U.S. president wade deeper and deeper into treacherous Russian waters in which swim the very worst of sharks. These are not man-eating sharks. These are nation-eating sharks, and Mr. Putin knows each one personally, and directs their every movement. Hundreds of millions of Americans are imperiled every time Trump dog-paddles a little more toward the East, and Putin is salivating at the thought of taking us in his jaws.

The president will not listen to our allies who know Putin far better than he; Trump will not listen to his military and intelligence experts who have read Putin’s playbook; and Trump certainly will not listen to the cries of history that daily warn him away from the wicked surf. To his slavering audience in Montana, Trump waved off the danger of a Russian riptide and told his followers, “Do you know what? Putin’s fine, he’s fine, we’re all fine, we’re people. Will I be prepared? Totally prepared – I have been preparing for this stuff my whole life, they don’t say that.” Yes, you’re prepared, Donald, like a salad is prepared with Russian dressing.

In the final analysis, the United States, since January 20, 2017, has not been guided by a caring, contemplative, cooperative, peace-seeking, humane adult. This is not news of course—it’s simply a truism borne on a sigh of frustration. This truth is apparent and appalling to most Americans, but it is ridiculed and rejected by too many other Americans. It is a shame that a nation as strong as ours has been, as vibrant as we’ve proven to be in the past, as promising, as open to the world and its citizens as we once were, as unwavering a friend to our allies as they have been for us, is not being directed or inspired by any adult whatsoever.

I would say America is being led by a child, but that would be an unforgivable disservice to the many young people I know who could do the job so much better (and I’m including kids under 12). A friend of mine improved on this last point when he said of the comparison between the president and a child: “The latter is innocent, the former culpable. The latter is loving, the former hateful. The latter is seeking attention for knowledge, the latter seeks it because of egoism. Though both may be unruly, their drives are a world apart.”

Trump's Montana speech reminds us in the bleakest terms and starkest light that we are in a desperate race now to retake the country from usurpers like Trump and his followers. Will our children even have an opportunity to exercise their maturity in the debris field left behind by this administration? 

If Montana is any indicator, we are in a marathon to win back our nation’s life for the generations to come. It may seem as if we are facing one heartbreak hill after another, pot-holed roads, cold and drenching storms of political uncertainty, the aching muscles of tested wills, the frustration of a demanding pace and changing leads…but we must prevail. We must prevail.