#98 - Yogi Berra in Trump World

Former New York Yankee great, Yogi Berra, was famous for his memorable expressions and phrases. They all contained a degree of truth, even though they really didn't make the least bit of sense, such as this familiar one:

“You can observe a lot by just watching."

I think Yogi actually might have been on to something here, for those of us who were watching over the past Memorial Day week, the observations were there for all to see.

1) ABC shut down their number one rated television show and fired Roseanne Barr for her sick and racist tweet about former Obama Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett and for proving once and for all that ‘hilariously funny’ and ‘profoundly stupid’ are not mutually exclusive terms.  ABC’s actions were notable because of their swift and decisive nature (they are even pulling the re-runs), but more importantly because of the large economic hit they were willing to accept by taking a stand.

2) Republican Representative Trey Gowdy (S.C.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, whose name is synonymous with Hilary Clinton and Benghazi, forcefully rebuked Trump’s baseless claim that the Obama administration improperly implanted a “spy” into his Presidential campaign.  Gowdy received a classified Justice Department briefing on the matter last week, so he was one of a few people in the know on this and concluded that “I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got”, and he did so…on Fox News no less.  

3) Lifelong New York Yankee fan and the Mayor of America, who desperately sought to be relevant again by supporting Donald Trump in his campaign and was now defending him against Robert Mueller and against a little thing called the truth, was back in the Bronx celebrating his 74^th birthday, but instead of birthday wishes from Yankee Stadium fans, he was greeted by loud and sustained boos throughout the crowd,  As a Red Sox fan, I must confess I have new found respect for the fans of the Evil Empire,

4) The New York Times reported that despite pressure from President Trump to "un-recuse" himself from Mueller's Russian investigation, Attorney General Jeff Sessions held firm and refuse to fold, simply because…it was the right thing to do. 

5) That same article reported that several Senate Republicans told the President not to fire Sessions, for if he did, they would not support his next nomination, drawing yet another line in the sand against our President. 

Each one of these events taken by themselves might just look like another day in the Presidency of Donald J Trump, where outrageous wrongs occur routinely and the Teflon Don just keeps chugging along with no apparent personal consequence, or as Yogi would have said… “It’s deja vu, all over again”.

But taken together, the observation was that some people with some moral and ethical values were finding their voice despite the personal, political, economic and social risks they were taking, providing a little bit of hope that the Bizarro world of Donald Trump, which has sucked our country into a sink hole of lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations, was beginning to fray at the edges. 

We still have a long way to go until we rid ourselves of Donald J. Trump, perhaps through impeachment for collusion, obstruction of justice, hateful and vile rhetoric or gross incompetence (take your pick) or perhaps through our constitutional right to vote.  In the meantime, I will keep pushing forward with this very goal in sight and I hope you will too.  For we should all remember the wisdom and guidance offered by that beloved Yankee great: 

“It ain’t over till it’s over”