Trumper editor

 What a nothingburger piece of cowardly and ill-informed clap-trap. Aside from the poor writing (“more harsh,” really? Not harsher?), this self-labeled fundamentalist must be blind, deaf and dumb — but not in the muted sense, but in the intelligence sense.

Of course, for him the debate outcomes are tougher to gauge. That’s because he admits they’re an enigma. Obviously a puzzle above his pay grade. Shawn Akers discounts expertise (“so-called” Really?) for picking the debate winner and wrote that there was no winner but the electorate was the loser. Maybe Mr. Akers can check out Karl Rove’s op-ed in the Sept. 11 Wall Street Journal (it’s behind a paywall, but The Independent covered it). Now, I am no fan of Rove. His work with the GOP in the 1990s hurt this country beyond words and Rove knows his stuff; he is an expert on politics. And he wrote, basically, that Vice President Kamala Harris beat him badly. Here is what The Independent wrote, reporting on the WSJ article:

“ ‘But there’s no putting lipstick on this pig,’ says Rove. ‘Mr Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock’. Which raises the question: What does that make him?’”

Akers goes on to blame the Biden-Harris administration by saying Harris dodged the issues around the military withdrawal from Afghanistan without mentioning that it was Trump’s deal with the Taliban that hamstrung the Biden administration. He also faulted Harris particularly about “the disastrous border situation.” Never mind that Trump sabotaged a bipartisan deal in Congress that would have helped the border problems — that is well spread out on the public record. And that was an example of compromise Akers called for.

Then Akers, deep thinker that he is, suggests the country wants unity, that both sides should compromise, and in doing so, will “make America great again.” Haven’t we seen that on a red baseball cap? Isn’t that Donald Trump’s motto? You know, the convicted felon who’s run many of his businesses into the ground, stiffed his contractors and cities where he has held rallies, declared bankruptcy six times, is a serial philanderer, an adjudicated rapist, an indictee for trying to falsify voting records in Georgia and who mounted the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Akers thinks the “Never Trumpers,” on one hand, and those who see him as a savior, on the other, represent extreme views.

If Akers has read “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award-winning Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, it’s not evident;

If Akers has read “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award-winning Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, it’s not evident;

If Akers has read “Dark Money” by Jane Mayer, it’s not evident;

If Akers has read Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right” by Anne Nelson; , it’s not evident;

If Akers has read “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” by Katherine Stewart, it’s not evident;

I readily acknowledge Akers’ column is an opinion piece and maybe I should have let it lie. But I’ve said it many times: I can’t. You know why.

“The madman shouted in the marketplace and no-one stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible,” Dag Hammarskjöld in 1957, “Markings” 1963.

But given Akers’ introductory column and seeing the sins of omission in this one, I’m going to have to watch the Advocate more closely.