There is no need for me or anyone else to tell you what’s in the revelatory “Trump Tapes’ that exploded in the national news of yesterday.
You can hear it all yourself. Please do. I listened to the entire thing on Sunday afternoon, and I was repulsed by it.
You can listen in to our President’s shameful low-brow bullying behavior, frantically berating the Georgia secretary of state, beseeching him to re-tabulate the votes.
No room here for Trump’s common blaming of “fake news” this time. It’s his own words, capturing his own voice.
Every American should listen in.
The recording also puts into the best relief of all what Trump’s cronies in Congress are doing - slavishly helping him corrupt our democracy. And, for us closer to home, why it’s so deeply embarrassing this morning to realize that Tennessee’s senators are empowering this crude behavior.
Just reflect with me how Tennessee is the only state in the nation with two senators - Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty - who have made themselves a part of Trump’s shameful, selfish scramble. They have joined in this behavior that’s so on the wrong side of history, propping up Trump’s final gambit to cling to power even as it properly vanishes.
How far have we come in Tennessee. How far we have strayed from the days, the years, the decades we were represented in Washington by the likes of Estes Kefauver, Albert Gore, Bill Brock, Howard Baker, Jim Sasser, Al Gore, Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander.
I grieve for my country this morning.
There will be any number of apologists for Trump who, as before, will try to explain even this away. Trust your own ears. Go listen to the recording, and hear for yourself how Trump rolls.
Then explain to yourself where you stand on all this.
© Keel Hunt, 2021
