We went through the Elon Musk chainsaw phase. Now it’s Donald Trump with a flamethrower, setting fire to America’s cities one by one so he can militarize the streets. Have you heard that Portland is burning to the ground?
Maybe Trump’s mind is clouded by images like this from the Oregon GOP:
A fake image that is actually a composite of two photos from South America. When confronted with this fact, the Oregon Republican Party responded, “We’re not reporters, just bad memers.”
The reality? Protestors in front of a single ICE facility exercising their first amendment rights, as you are likely to find at any ICE facility in the country these days. This was the scene at the South Portland facility on Sunday morning:
About two dozen people in pajamas gathered with coffee and pastries outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in South Portland on Sunday morning for the Portland Pastry and Pajamas Protest. Mark Graves/The Oregonian
The police guidebook for these protests is well worn:
Individuals have a right to peaceably protest, and departments and officers should start with the understanding that their principal role is to facilitate individuals’ First Amendment right to express themselves while protecting protesters and public safety….It is important that any law enforcement response to a mass gathering is measured and proportionate, and takes steps to avoid—even inadvertently—heightening tensions and making the situation worse. – Protests and Public Safety (Georgetown Law)
Trump’s masked agents prefer disproportion, to amp things up by shooting pepper spray into frog suits.
What has Mike Lawler been saying about all of this? Nothing constructive. Gone is the post-Charlie Kirk plea to lower the temperature, to stop the name calling. Like the Oregon GOP, Mike is just a bad memer.
Yesterday’s example. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, sent out a meme depicting NY Governor Kathy Hochul (along with Gavin Newsome and JD Pritzker) saying “Leave our crime alone” to Trump. Hochul responded by pointing out that the crime rate is higher in Texas than in NY. Lawler couldn’t resist jumping in:
Pretty obvious that Hochul was commenting on Abbott’s hypocrisy. But Lawler chose to twist it into Hochul boasting about NY’s crime rate, and to berate her “dumb brains” with a silly Judge Judy GIF. Our adult representative in Congress.
Meanwhile, Lawler’s beloved flamethrower in chief delights in displaying the Trump 2028 hat on the Resolute Desk, distracting from Epstein and the Republican shutdown by fanning the flames across America and deploying the troops.
It’s all just a bad meme.
Rule of Lawler 