Yeah - Melania is a joke, but there's something more sinister afoot here....

So….yes, this whole Melania-stole-from-Michelle’s-DNC-speech thing has been wildly entertaining because the memes that have resulted are side-splittingly comedic. There’s no denying that. But in all seriousness – I don’t think the infraction is quite as insulting as Trump’s detractors have made it out to be. To be clear – Trump and anyone willingly in a relationship with him (romantic or professional) is a mouth-breathing, sycophantic gold digger; deserving no respect. But let’s face facts: 99% of politicians and key note speakers at giant public events like conventions are guilty of plagiarism at some point. There’s only so many ways you can rearrange the order of words for a common idea that is often being conveyed at these things. The big reveal here isn’t that Melania Trump is an unoriginal speech thief. Anyone who has seen Melania Trump and heard her speak in everyday life will realize that she is a vapid, opportunistic Barbie doll who married Trump for his money and cashed in big time on her physical appeal. She’s a blank slate, (an ambitious one, sure) but there’s nothing much going on up stairs.

The true reveal of this debacle is that Trump can’t even hire speech writers competent enough to know that 22 out of 26 words in a part of that speech are IDENTICAL to the Michelle Obama speech. I don’t believe for a second that Melania had any credible role in writing the speech she gave – she likely met with the team, who impressed upon her ideas that would be helpful in humanizing her orange demon of a spouse, and then she memorized and parroted them during her part of the show. I don’t know who ghost wrote the speech but – really guys? Really? Let’s be SUUUUUPER generous and hypothesize that they didn’t intentionally lift that part of the speech from Mrs. Obama. There is technology that is used by any credible speech writer which compares what they have written to blocks of words widely available on the internet. It is also used by educators – regular public school English teachers up to Princeton tenured professors. This technology exists because in the internet age – you honestly have to be concerned that someone will steal your shit, or call you out on your shit when you plagiarize. So clearly, they failed at their job – which was to write a speech for Trump Wife #3 that was original enough to pass internet muster while simultaneously humanizing her husband.

So, if they wanted to successfully save face, the Trump camp should have thrown these idiots under the bus. “The speech writing staff was to blame, because we hate Obama and we’ve never seen Michelle Obama speak before so there’s no way we could have known!” should have been their (stupidass) response. But what was their response? Everything ranging from “this was entirely original; it was an expression of alike ideas” to “IT’S ALL THAT BITCH HILLARY’S FAULT!!!” Keeping things 100: you all know I don’t have any love for Hillary, but trying to blame her for the laser like focus the media gave to this gaffe is like blaming Vladimir Putin for the backlash: they’re both completely, undeniably uninvolved and not responsible for the way this story took off, despite both being evil geniuses.

The entire RNC has been nothing but a bash-Clinton party so far– which ultimately shows us that yet again, the Republican Party has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO OFFER IN TERMS OF IDEAS AND SOLUTIONS to the problems that plague our nation. It’s all smoke and mirrors! Who opened up Monday night? John McCain? Nope. George Bush (either of them)? No. Karl Rove? Nay. Dick Cheney? Afraid not. SARAH PALIN? Noooooo. Well, who then? THREE TELEVISION ACTORS AND RICK PERRY. That’s who spoke (aside from Melania) opening night. Scott “Chachi” Baio, Antonio Sabato Jr (I CANT EVEN NAME A SINGLE FUCKING THING HE HAS ACTED IN), that guy from Duck Dynasty (the main one, not his deplorable father), and Rick “if you can’t beat em, join em” Perry – former Governor of Texas, a state never once known for the sanity or level headedness of its citizenry. Let that sink in. Reality television stars are the key note speakers of the Republican convention. The strategy is terrifyingly simple, then, albeit dastardly brilliant: the sheeple of America worship “unscripted” television featuring falsely wholesome protagonists: they don’t know and they don’t care to know how anything actually works in their country, they just know that their lives suck and that there are more brown and black and gay people than ever in America, so they must be at least partially to blame for destroying the American dream, right??? Who better than to drive that racist bigoted garbage home than the stars of TLC and VH1 Reality shows? Fly over America feels like they know Chachi – even though Happy Days aired like 40 years ago – so he must know their plight!

Trump’s campaign is a modified Southern strategy, but instead of playing just on racial resentment among Southern voters (he’s definitely got that angle covered on a national scale), he’s also capturing the non-critical thinking couch potato demographic by parading a cavalcade of D-list celebrities to propagate his campaign to the masses.

To be fair, the Democratic Party definitely benefits from the endorsements of many Hollywood actors and media personalities. How much did George Clooney spend on the Clinton fundraiser this year!? We all remember back in 2005 when Kanye said that George Bush doesn’t care about black people at that Hurricane Katrina relief event. And anything and everything Seth MacFarlane does is blatantly anti-conservative. The bottom line being – the Republicans have finally caught on and are using the morally bankrupt nature of fame whores to their advantage, to great effect. Not to be discounted, however, is the fact that traditional Republican heavyweights want nothing to do with Trump – so even if it weren’t to their advantage to use reality television personalities in their campaign, they don’t have Karl Rove or John McCain or George W. to fall back on – so they’d have to use alternatives anyway.

Ultimately, the facts are: Trump is a buffoon; a charlatan born with a silver spoon in his mouth who realized that one’s brand is fiscally worth more than having substance or integrity, and took that idea to the bank (and then filed for bankruptcy 4 times when his bluster and legal team budgets weren’t enough to keep his businesses afloat). He doesn’t give a crap about everyday Americans – this is all a wild ego trip for him. This speech gaffe – among countless other red flags – is just further proof that he has ZERO crises management skills, ZERO experience governing a body of heterogeneous people, and ZERO believability as a competent leader.  

I’ll continue to giggle at clever internet memes berating the RNC and it’s pathetic pandering to small minded people, but behind every laugh I will cringe in fear because the sheer amount of sheeple in this country is enough where we do need to worry about the possibility of a President Trump – because lies and douchebaggery no longer disqualify you from public office.

Stop shaking your head and DO SOMETHING!

Facts: two black men who didn’t deserve to die for their perceived crimes were killed by police this week, and these murders incited a deranged asshole with a sniper rifle to act out in vengeance for these crimes by targeting white police officers at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas – resulting in the murders of 5 police and at least 7 other injured people.

I was disturbed by the videos of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile – I cried after 3 seconds worth of footage of Castile and had to avoid the internet for hours. I woke up this morning and heard news of violence against police in Texas and my heart broke even worse. I’m livid and despondent because EVERYDAY now people are being gunned down senselessly in America because as a society we refuse to address pernicious behaviors and injustices; instead we stand on soap boxes and write bitter social media posts and share half-baked memes that only perpetuate hatred and bigotry.

We need to accept the fact that there are law enforcement officers that are not fit to wear the badge, because they are exceedingly aggressive/racist/bigots/are corrupt – whatever the case may be. There are poisoned apples in EVERY profession that serves the public; law enforcement is NO exception. I will quickly assert that the majority of police are upstanding men and women who got into police work for the right reasons and act according to the law, but they need to be the ones who call these bad apples out on their shit. The Black Lives Matter movement and public statements from government officials and general outrage from social media count for shit; the truth is good cops allow the fragile trust that the public has for law enforcement to degrade and civil rights to be trampled every time they hide behind the “brotherhood of blue” and blindly defend a bad cop who needlessly gunned down a citizen whose crime did not merit violent retaliation from police. This is a societal cancer; an institutionalized way of thinking that pervades across the nation – that an officer’s life is inherently at risk whenever they approach or stop a civilian of color, regardless of what the person is being questioned about. It’s also a given that the life of the civilian is automatically worth less than the life of the law enforcement official, so when a completely innocent man such as Philando Castile is gunned down in his car having violated NO LAWS, with legal gun permits and calm disclosure of his concealed carry weapon, no one from the NRA or from the upper echelons of law enforcement rose up and decried the murdering officer – they looked for ways to drag the victim’s name in the dirt, and when no dirt could be found, his death was labeled “a senseless tragedy.”

This happened to Alton Sterling, a small time criminal who was gunned down the day prior to Castile in Louisiana, who was killed by two officers who have a history of being investigated for police brutality. Did the man have a criminal record? Sure. Does the fact that he had a criminal record/the fact that he was breaking a minor law when he was initially approached by police justify the fact that he was murdered for struggling during his apprehension? NO. He should have spent the night in the slammer with some bruises and a fat lip and endured the punishment of his crime – but because he was a black man in a racist backwater at the mercy of brutal police officers, his murder is seen by most as an acceptable result of his life choices. It’s the same disgusting mentality people use against rape victims: what did you expect; flirting/wearing those close/being in a bar? Silly black man: what did you expect selling bootleg CDs in a parking lot? I’m not suggesting Sterling was an angel – it’s the same bullshit that happened when Michael Brown was murdered. These men were entitled to a fair trial for their crimes – but they received bullets instead. The job of a police officer is a difficult one, and I agree they are over worked, under staffed, stressed, and often in danger and do not receive thanks often enough for all they do. But none of those reasons should entitle a police officer to shoot first and ask questions later during a simple stop or arrest. I fully understand that law enforcement officers want to be able to go home and kiss their spouse and children at night, and in theory any person on the street could strip them of this ability – but when police place no value on the lives of the people they are charged with protecting, even if these people have committed a crime and deserve to be apprehended – we don’t have order, we have totalitarianism. WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO GRANT AUTHORITY FIGURES CARTE BLANCHE TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WEAR A BADGE, OR A PRIEST COLLAR, OR HAVE A HIGH SECURITY CLEARANCE! If those who enforce our laws are exempt from laws – we don’t have order. We have what we currently have: anarchy, in which anyone with a grudge against any category of people (minorities, law enforcement, Muslims, LGBT, etc) can legally buy a gun, and carry out a killing spree.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY CENTRAL POINT: we live in a society that encourages violence by continuing to allow the Second Amendment to go largely unchecked; where the law unequally applies to people of color with respect to the right to bear arms. Think about the string of murders this week: two black men who were armed but not acting violently prior to their encounters with police (ONE OF WHOM LEGALLY HAD HIS WEAPON ON HIS PERSON AND DECLARED AS MUCH), and innocent officers performing their duty at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas – states away from where those two murders took place. The common denominator here appears to be police interaction with the public, but that happens every day in every town in America. The common denominator here is the presence of firearms. When a state allows people to legally carry guns on their person; it is IMPOSSIBLE for law enforcement to tell immediately if that weapon is lawful or not on a citizen. EVEN IF IT IS LAWFULLY OWNED, WHO IS TO SAY THE OWNER WILL NOT COMMIT HOMICIDE WITH IT?! Naturally, the police proceed aggressively – because in a world where any citizen may be packing, a police officer may be the victim of gun violence. So it is on the one hand understandable why police overreact and use unnecessary violence against citizens who they perceive to be suspicious (disproportionally men of color). But it is also unacceptable for the police to just decide that because a person seems threatening they automatically lose their right to LIVE without even a hint at due process. WE CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS – either we constrict access to guns to the point where the police don’t have to panic every time someone reaches into their pocket or glove compartment for their ID, or we continue to let every Joe Schmo have a gun and the police DO need to fear for their lives because of the prevalence of guns and we wind up with the sort of escalating retaliatory murders we saw this week.

Secondly: if we could set aside our murder weapons for even an hour; if we could just sit and talk human to human, we would see that all of this blind, viral, infectious hatred that we have against sub-sets of other people based on stupid shit like their race/ethnicity/religion/sexuality is entirely based on fear and devoid of any kind of logic. We need to recognize that the world is very rarely as simple as black and white – you cannot relegate people into “Good” or “Bad” simply because they are black, or lesbian, or worship a different invisible man in the sky than you, or they committed a crime once and served a prison sentence. Not everyone who wears a badge is a corrupt monster, and not everyone who has committed a crime is an evil deviant. The fuckers that compose ISIS kill as many Muslims as they do Christians or other religious minorities – not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all white people are racist bigots, and not all Christians are homophobes. We need to stop following leaders that point their hypocritical lying fingers at groups of people as being the culprits for all of our social and economic woes (THAT IS A BLATANT REFERENCE TO TRUMP AND MOST OF CONGRESS) and we need to start assessing facts and thinking critically whenever we hear some statistic rattled off on the news or on Facebook. My immediate enemy is not a sociopathic police officer, or a black man with a criminal record, or a white supremacist asshole: my immediate enemies are sheeple that form opinions about a category of people based on cultural and social stereotypes who then proceed to support violence and civil rights violations against these people through apathy, because if you refuse to stand up for EQUAL RIGHTS UNDER THE LAW FOR ALL CITIZENS, if you refuse to call a spade a spade no matter how high ranking or seemingly respectable this person is, if you refuse to recognize injustice and just sit idly by while people you don’t know are victimized by biased and violent social institutions, you are a pathetic waste of human consciousness and a disgrace to the values that this country was founded on.

Societal problems are not easily solved, nor quickly solved, but through dialogue and peaceful protests we can achieve something closer to equal rights and equal protection under the law. We cannot protest in peace when guns are as prevalent as cars. We must vote for representatives who recognize the difficulties faced by their constituents; we need an electorate that will legislate in ways that foster non-violence and conflict resolution at the community level. What we have is a nation divided by irrational hatreds rooted in religious and socioeconomic misinformation, and an electorate that is so corrupted by money and influence from wealthy interest groups that nothing is ever accomplished in the interest of the common American. Social mobility is dead, along with the American dream because of student loan and healthcare debts, and still we cling to our precious guns and blame undocumented Hispanics or war refugees from Syria for everything that afflicts us. WAKE. THE FUCK. UP. If we spent as much effort uniting to fight against the institutions that actually oppress us – no matter race or class or religion – as we do scapegoating and infighting – we would actually have a nation worth waking up in everyday. A nation where your positive choices and merits allow you to succeed, where you can go to the movie or to a social gathering without the fear of being gunned down by a homicidal gun-owner with a grudge, a nation where the pigment in your skin doesn’t increase the likelihood of you being arrested or killed by police, a nation where you can walk down the street wearing conservative dress or a hijab and not have to wonder if this will incite violence from a person of a different religion, or wear a very tight dress and not have to live in fear of being raped on your way home from a party. Stop shaking your head and DO SOMETHING. Stand up to injustice, please, or everything the Founding Fathers sought to do 240 years ago was for nothing. Just a belatedly failed revolution for the history books.