“I Just Heard…”

Whenever Trump wants to tell a big lie and lay the groundwork to later deny he lied, he does it by beginning his lie with the preface that “he heard it” or that “some very smart people are saying” or some other similar garbage. Now that we have heard him use this transparent gambit over and over for the last 5 years, we know that whatever follows “I just heard” or “people are saying” is a lie that he intends for his followers and Fox News to talk about and spread. The only questions remaining are why he bothers to try to distance himself even a small step from the lies and why his followers and Fox News continue to fall so hard for this silly, childish game. He’s lying, he knows he’s lying, he knows that we know he’s lying, he knows that there are those poor gullible souls in his base who will take his lie and make it their truth and, above all, he knows the media, particularly Fox News, will put the specious lie into the public discourse and divert attention from things that are actually important.

Doesn’t it remind you of that really bad kid in your school that would start some awful rumor to harm a classmate and then deny he did it when he is confronted? Can’t you just imagine a teenage Trump trying to beg off the physical beating he deserves for starting a vile rumor about someone by saying: “I didn’t say that was true, I just said I heard that people were saying.” What we are seeing and hearing is the 75 year old version of a really bad, incorrigible teenager who never got what he actually deserved, who was never taught a valuable lesson about lying, starting or spreading false rumors, and malicious gossip. He must have gotten away with it as a teenager and as a young man and he is sure he can get away with it now. Can he? Is it really possible that a President of the United States can get away with acting like a bad teenager?

For the record, Kamala Harris is a U.S. citizen beyond the shadow of a doubt and nobody, absolutely nobody with a lick of sense, thinks or believes otherwise. Nobody is saying, people aren’t saying, some very smart lawyers aren’t saying. Only Trump and a bunch of sycophantic fools are saying. Maybe Senator Harris will be that person who finally and once and for all puts Trump in his place. There would be a lot of justice in an educated, intelligent, competent, accomplished, articulate, feisty, Black/South Asian woman doing just that.