Phoenix Speech Assumes America No Longer Has A Memory

President Donald Trump (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President Donald J. Trump apparently mistook the bully pulpit for a psychiatrist’s couch in his speech in Phoenix on Tuesday night, and therefore engaged in 77 minutes of pure primal therapy.

America grapples with its endless overseas wars, so Trump follows Monday night’s speech about Afghanistan by talking about himself – and himself, and himself – and treating the endless 16-year war over there as yesterday’s news.

America grapples with the recent loss of 10 sailors from the USS John S. McCain, named respectively for the father and grandfather of Sen. John S. McCain III (R-Ariz.), who is now battling brain cancer, and this president only wants to taunt McCain over his health care vote.

America grapples with Trump’s repugnant response to the racism and anti-Semitism unleashed in Charlottesville, Va., on the weekend of Aug. 13th, and he wants to talk – and talk, and talk – about how he’s been misquoted by the “fake news” media.

And fails, once again, to tell the truth about it.

The president’s not very good at telling the truth, as we’ve learned long before Tuesday night in Phoenix. The Washington Post has now documented more than 1,000 “misstatements” he’s made since his Jan. 20th inauguration.

After Phoenix, we’re keeping a running score.

This president looked into the TV cameras, and America heard him say he’d condemned “in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. That’s me speaking on Saturday.”

But that’s not all he said, and he knows it, and so does everyone else who’s been paying even the slightest amount of attention.

The complete quotation, in the aftermath of Charlottesville, with its chants of “Jews will not replace us,” and its images of swastikas and white sheets and torches, was “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.”

Which Donald Trump, in his transparent lie by omission on Tuesday night, hopes no one remembers.

Along with the other line he said after Charlottesville, which gave moral equivalence to the racists and those protesting them: “Very fine people, on both sides.”

Which, in this second transparent lie by omission Tuesday night, Trump also hopes no one remembers.

Brushing past those phrases which have infuriated millions, Trump instead pretended he’d said nothing wrong, that he’d defended American ideals of brotherhood, that he’d stood up unequivocally against bigotry. “The words were perfect,” Trump said.

Well, if that’s so …

Why have members of his own party expressed their revulsion over his words? Why did the KKK leader David Duke, and the neo-Nazi site The Stormer, publicly praise his words? Why did the nation’s leading CEOs bail out from his advisory boards, and at least 15 different organizations cancel plans for gatherings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, and honorees at the Kennedy Center Honors announce they wouldn’t show up if Trump appeared?

Why? Because they all heard the words Trump said, which he tried to hide Tuesday night.

He treated America as if we’re a nation with no memory.

Instead, at a time when the nation grapples with so many problems, this president addressed us with words, and more words, about himself.

“But, you know, they all said, ‘Mr. President, your speech was so good last night …”

And there were more words, endless words, about how he’s been mistreated by the media,  how he signed autographs in the Arizona heat, how large his crowds continue to be, how well he did in the campaign debates and, of course, about his personal greatness.

“Now, you know,” he declared, “I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite. They’re elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment, and I live in the White House, too, which is really great.”

Did you hear that, Dr. Shrink? I live in the White House. And that’s the message I really wanted America to hear, because it’s one thing everyone knows is no lie.

Michael OleskerA former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, most recently “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age” (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Also see: Trump at Phoenix rally insists he blasted racists, leaves out ‘many sides’ controversy

Top photo: President Donald Trump looks on as he hands out diplomas to Coast Guard cadets at the commencement ceremony at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, May 17, 2017 in New London, Connecticut.  (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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