The Gomer Pyle Axiom of High and Low Expectations

Last updated on: March 1, 2017 at 1:17 pm by Mark Shea

The Gomer Pyle Axiom of High and Low Expectations 2017-03-01T13:17:27-07:00 Mark Shea

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Trump gave the best speech of his career last night, fulfilling the Gomer Pyle Axiom of High and Low Expectations. Gomer, for those of you born in the 80s and after, was a southern hick who joined the Marines and did not distinguish himself as an Einstein:

Nobody expected much from Gomer as he bumbled through life from week to week on his sitcom, so when he suddenly sings in an adequate baritone, it’s as though a new Caruso has been revealed:

Nobody was expecting anything, so mere competence sounds like greatness.

Last night, President Trump read a speech prepared for him from a teleprompter and did, for him, very well. His friends were thrilled. His enemies disappointed that he did not make a spectacle of himself as is his custom when he is not under the very tight leash of a script and a staff begging him not to make a spectacle of himself.

As to the substance of the speech, both what he said and did not say, I agree with out about 99% of the rebuttal here:

Of course, what my audience of Catholics concerned about abortion will hear are the words “Planned Parenthood” in the reply. That’s the 1% I disagree with him about. But the rest seems to me to be a very sound rebuttal.

And speaking of abortion, the other thing Sanders does not mention is abortion, for a very good reason: Trump did not mention it either. Not one word. Nor did he mention religious liberty. You remember those things? They were *the* reason all Good Catholics *had* to vote for Trump. Core. Non-negotiable. Super duper important.

Trump mentioned neither for the very good reason that a) he does not care about abortion and b) he is making open war on religious liberty, the press, and the first amendment.

The biggest moment of the evening was Trump’s use of a grieving widow whom he made a widow. All the pathos, nobility, love and empathy of the moment belonged entirely to her and for her sake I hope and pray that she found a measure of healing and hope. It was good of Trump to remind her that “greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” Her anguish broke our hearts and I still get teary thinking about it. God love and console her in her loss.

But I also recognize that it was, for the rest of us, a kind of emotional hostage situation by a master manipulator. The background of this orchestrated piece of showmanship and exploitation was a) the refusal of the father of this hero to meet with the President who ordered the raid that killed his son and b) Trump’s own attempts to shirk responsibility for the raid he ordered and blame his generals for the SEALs death. Rather similar to his months and months of cozying up to white supremacists and neo-Nazis (even inviting the head of neo-Nazi Austrian Freedom party to his inauguration) and then taking ten seconds to condemn the threats against Jews and racial hate crimes at the start of his speech.

That background cannot be forgotten because with Trump, it’s deeds, not words, that count. That is the lesson to remember with a serial liar. And the moment is, indeed, being used this morning as a cudgel to beat down all criticism of Trump. Indeed the Right Wing Panic Machine is already spreading the easily debunked lie that heartless critics of Trump refused to honor Ryan Owen’s widow. Because that’s what this was always really about: attacking Trump’s critics, not honoring a hero or his widow. If you criticize Trump, you hate suffering widows and war heroes. It’s how propaganda works. And it is not, by the way, anything Trump invented.

Was the speech a big improvement over his previous rhetoric? Sure. Did I agree with some of his policy proposals? But a great deal of what he said and did was sleight of hand and misdirection–and lies. And the most sinister of his misdirection was in targeting refugees and immigrants as scapegoats with his creepy VOICE program designed to inflame hatred of them.

So while I still hope that at least a couple of good things come out of his Administration, what I saw last night did not give me any assurance. Because what I saw last night was a man who used the weak and vulnerable as human shields for his plans to strip the weak of protection and embolden the powerful and predatory.

And as he does all this, he does it without a word about the unborn–yet with the now rock solid commitment of “prolife” Christians who have completely forgotten the “core, non-negotiable” and are now committed 100% to advancing his agenda and ignoring their own.

He is a master seducer. Nothing has really changed. Now watch what he does, not what he says. And compare it with the gospel, not with your hated culture war enemies.

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