#188) An Inverse Relationship

Senator Mitch McConnell

317 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC   20510

October 4, 2018

Dear Senator McConnell,

Because I've written so many letters to our lunatic in chief – Donald J. Trump – I am on several of his mailing lists and I get email alerts and short videos about his doings and lately I've noticed a trend:  his base is smaller and perhaps even shrinking.  His rallies are being held in smaller halls to make the crowds look a little bigger.  There's more orchestration of who stands where, which placards are held up to the camera, and what supporters get close ups.  I've noticed something else too:  as the crowds get smaller, Trump's rhetoric gets crazier.  It's like he's got to work a little harder for that adoration that he so craves.  A mathematician would call this an inverse relationship and can be expressed thusly:

x*y=k where k is some constant

Let's say x is the crowd size and y is Trump's speech.  That makes k, the constant, the positive reinforcement Trump needs from his attention seeking behavior.  To get enough feedback from a small crowd he's got to go big (and crazy), to really whip them up.  It's not enough anymore to just walk out onto the stage and pump his fists.  In the good old days of the campaign he only had to say the name "Hilary Clinton" and the crowd would begin chanting "Lock her up".   It was a slam-dunk for him.  He didn't even need to speak in complete sentences because a big x (crowd size) only needs a small y (rhetoric).

But now things seem just a little harder for Mr. Trump. He and his team have to work to create situations of positive attention where he can be praised, thanked and admired.  And he's got to do things like mock Christine Blasey Ford (increase the y) to maintain the rewarding stimuli of that k (positive feedback).

So where does this all stop?  Do we just allow this maniac to spout false, obnoxious and hurtful things in his pathetic effort to buoy up his own self-esteem?  When is enough enough?  When he's yelling at the walls?  Or when his rants are limited to just Twitter? 

Stopping this madness is your responsibility and if you can't or won't assume that responsibility then get out of the way and let someone else in who WILL.

Sincerely,

Amy Beaton

P.S.  If you can read and understand that equation, thank a teacher (or maybe you were just lucky enough to attend a well funded public school like I was).

#187) Defending the Indefensible (...again)

Senator Mitch McConnell

317 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC  20510

October 3, 2018

Dear Senator McConnell,

At Donald Trump's Tuesday night rally in Mississippi he mocked Dr. Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  It was inappropriate, demeaning, and disgraceful.

I'd also like to say it was indefensible, except that there is a Republican strategist – John Brabender - who does defend it.  Happily.  He is proud of the fact that Donald Trump acts like a horse's ass.  When asked to comment on the incident he actually said, "Is he going to start talking like the expectation we have for a president?  Go back and watch the campaign. He never talked like a president on the campaign or in his two years as president so let's take that expectation [that he can act and speak presidential] right off the table and all of us agree that Donald Trump is never going to act like a traditional president."

But here's the thing; most Americans have given up the hope that Trump can speak and act presidential.  No, we're just looking for him to speak and act like a decent human being.  Yup, that's how low we're aiming now...simple, basic human decency. 

Unfortunately it seems like the Republican Party can't even stand up for that any more. 

Sincerely Disgusted in Vermont,

Amy Beaton

P.S.  Have you noticed that Mr. Trump's bombast and rhetoric is inversely proportional to the size of his base?  Like as the crowd gets smaller his noise gets bigger (by noise I mean hate speech and by bigger I mean more outrageous).  It's like an impossible see saw.