Will this be Trump's "Lonesome" Rhodes moment?

Hi All,

Here's another image of a plant I'd love some help identifying. In the past week I've seen two such white puffy air balls pop up in my neighborhood, and my timing was fortunate in catching this one in early evening light. It was shot with my Panasonic Lumix GX7 with frame sides for phantogram processing. The corners of the image weren't interesting so I framed it a bit.

As to today's rant, ... have we finally arrived at Trump's "Lonesome" Rhodes moment?

For those of you not familiar with it, "A Face in the Crowd" is a very watchable 1957 film starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal, and rates a whopping 8.2 on IMDB. Andy Griffith plays Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a charming country drifter, guitar strummer. Given the chance at a radio show in rural Arkansas named "A Face in the Crowd," his heart-felt songs resonate with listeners and he catapults to become a wildly popular national radio and television star.

Spoiler alert: As his fame increases he becomes a demagogue, political adviser, master manipulator and kingmaker, gladly destroying anyone who stands in his way. His swift downfall comes when he's not aware that his microphone is live, as drunk with power he laughs about what a bunch of dumb suckers and rubes his supporters are.

Jeffrey Goldberg penned an article published on Thursday in The Atlantic titled "Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’". In it he describes Trump's disdain for military service, and his label as losers and suckers for those injured or killed from it. According to the article, "... Trump finds the notion of military service difficult to understand, and the idea of volunteering to serve especially incomprehensible." I won't try to fill in all the details of this article, I'd strongly recommend you read it and judge for yourself.

And so I repeat, will this be his "Lonesome" Rhodes moment, where his followers see him for who he is, and back away from him? I doubt it. There have been so many unforgivable such moments before and in his presidency, that this story just seems like a normal entry in the daily news cycle.

Trump is no longer just a businessman turned reality TV star turned POTUS, but in fact the leader of a cult. When a cult fails many of its members fall off, and those that remain dig in deeper. The clock is ticking. 59 days until November 3.

Barry Rothstein

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