by Hal Brown
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I don't know how much of this insane intransigence from Trump I can stand.
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I got up this morning and turned on the TV hoping Trump would have given up. I had a sinking feeling when the news was he had actually increased his attempt to overturn the election. 😱 Then I began to check out the news online and looked at HuffPost to see what their top story was.
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At first I didn’t get why Huffpost had the above photo illustrating their lead story, Judge Brutally Dismisses Rudy Giuliani’s Suit To ‘Disenfranchise’ Pa. Voters. Then I did a quick web search to find out where the Wells Fargo stadium was and it made perfect sense. It is in Philadelphia where along with its suburbs it assured Biden’s victory in the state. Then a commenter (scroll down ⬇️) explained the significance of the mascot in the photo who is an anit-Trump meme.
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The photo shown above is of the mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team Gritty (here’s his website).
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Gritty is described this way:
His father was a "bully," so naturally he has some of those tendencies - talented but feisty, a fierce competitor, known for his agility given his size. He's loyal but mischievous; the ultimate Flyers fan who loves the orange and black, but is unwelcoming to anyone who opposes his team. Legend has it he earned the name "Gritty" for possessing an attitude so similar to the team he follows.
He claims that he's been around for a lot longer than we know it, and recent construction at the Wells Fargo Center disturbed his secret hideout forcing him to show his face publicly for the first time. He has some oddities that are both humorous and strange. A number of times he's been caught eating snow straight from the Zamboni machine, and unbeknown to most, his love of hot dogs has been inflating the Flyers Dollar Dog Night consumption totals for years.
That being said, there's no denying that he's one of our own.
He is physically agile Gritty which Trump decidedly is not. However he has a few similarities with Trump. Among them are that his father was a bully, he is unwelcoming to anyone who opposes his team, he’s a liar, has strange habits, and eats unhealthy food. He is meant to be lovable despite his flaws, which are really benign, and he is really the antithesis of Trump. Surely the voters of Philly demonstrated what they thought about Trump.
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Gritty looks a lot like Animal from the Muppets.
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Trump is really much more like Animal.
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Wiki describes Animal as the wild and frenzied monster who is the drummer in the Muppet band Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem.
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There’s more from Wikipedia:
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Muppet creator Frank Oz “has stated that Animal's character can be summed up in five words: sex, sleep, food, drums, and pain. However, Animal has retorted: "Drums are food!" Animal's vocabulary is generally limited to guttural shouts and monosyllabic grunts, often repeating a few simple phrases, as well as his trademark gravelly laugh. During performances, Animal is usually chained to the drum set by a collar around his neck, as his musical outbursts are extremely violent. In some episodes, he has been summoned to chase off performers who are 'being annoying'.”
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Animal and Trump have a lot of other characteristics in common. For example:
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Aggression: When the great drummer Buddy Rich learned Animal's gonzo style, and performed it with twice the speed and proficiency, Animal threw a drum onto his head.
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Disrespecting women: (From Wiki) In the movie Muppets from Space, Animal meets his match in the form of a security guard played by Kathy Griffin—after chasing her down a hallway with his "Woo-man" call, he later comes running back around the corner, yelling "HELP HELP!" with Griffin calling after him about how they'll settle down, buy a house, and have children.
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By sheer coincidence Kathy Griffen got into fake trouble when in 2018 Trump ordered the Secret Service to investigate her for posting a picture holding up a fake Trump severed head. Despite this she retweeted it on Nov. 3rd:
Short attention span: Ty Pennington commented about the possibility of Animal suffering from ADHD..
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I hate making light of this. The late night comics mockery of Trump may get under his skin if he sees it. After all there’s nothing worse fo a narcissistic personality to discover people aren't laughing with him, rather they are laughing at him. Still, it bothers me when I wrote something like this because of the gravity of what Trump is trying to do to our democracy.
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Trump has been compared with all seriousness to Hitler. Historically, there is a major difference until the end Hitler maintained his sanity. His decision to end his and Eva Braun’s life rather than be executed by the allies was rational.
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Trump may or may not have admired Hitler and had a copy of Mien Kampf but there’s little doubt among scholars that he has put the United States on the road to being a brutal autocratic dictatorship.
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Comparing him to Animal is jokey but to the extent that the Muppet monster is manic and Trump now is showing signs of hypomania this is an apt comparison. He also wants to wreak vengeance against Biden so much that he is willing to sentence more Americans to die of Covid by not allowing a smooth pandemic transition between administrations.
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It’s as if when Hitler realized the war was lost he ordered his Air Force to bomb what was left Germany into rubble killing innocent citizens and destroying more buildings, and then fled to Argentina with a billion Reichsmarks worth of diamonds.