Shortly before United States President Donald J. Trump was set to address a joint sessions of US Congress on Tuesday evening, it’s very likely that US Rep. Al Green (D-TX), a firebrand liberal, received the transcripts of Trump’s upcoming speech as his privilege.
Al Green is not known for his brilliance, nor common sense, but he’s a typical Democrat, who hates Trump and is reliable for criticizing Republicans and supporting Black Lives Matter (BLM) activism in his home district of Houston, Texas.
Yes, Texas is a Deep Red Republican state, but its major cities - Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio - remain Democrat strongholds. Nonetheless, US Rep. Al Green still understands the “golden rule” of politics that you never undermine your constituents, especially when they visit Capitol Hill.
One could conclude that he arrived to take his seat in the chamber of US Congress while waiting for President Trump to arrive and took careful note of the transcripts, particularly the part that mentions Deevarje “DJ” Daniel, a 13 year-old teen, who is a survivor of brain cancer and had endured 13 life-saving surgeries.
We might speculate that Al Green looked over at the gallery and saw DJ and his family sitting, while DJ was proudly wearing a police officer’s uniform with a Houston Police Department patch showing on his left shoulder. And we could surmise that Rep. Green had gotten suspicious that this this innocent kid might have come from his district.
Accordingly, this placed Rep. Green in a dilemma. As events unfolded, it was apparent the Democrat Party leadership of the US Senate and Congress had delivered demands to its Party members that they must refuse clap or stand up in all circumstances whenever Trump delivers his address.
Such instructions are absurd and demonstrate rudeness but Democrats only care about acting like the resistance, so that’s all that mattered to them.
Therefore, Rep. Green was left with few options and had to choose the lesser of two evils: Should he heckle Trump at beginning of speech, hoping to get expelled from the chambers unceremoniously or does he stay quiet and stay seated, while Trump talks about DJ and Republicans stand up to applaud the kid from his home district?
And Trump had indeed told an amazing story of heroism about DJ. President Trump spoke about how he had suffered from vicious bullying and the trauma of undergoing many brain surgeries.
DJ kept hope alive because he wanted to become a police officer. Additionally, there’s an unfortunate video posted last summer and had gone viral.
The footage showed him getting bullied by other kids in his hometown as they mocked him for wearing a police officer’s uniform. You could even see adults in the background staying silent and refusing to protect the kid’s dignity.
The video is heartbreaking, but DJ stood tall with a poker face, holding back tears of shame. President Trump was made aware of the video and invited him and his lovely family to Capitol Hill.
And in front of US Congress and a large international audience, he announced that DJ would be officially recognized as an “honorary” member of US Secret Service with a special responsibility to protect the US President.
President Trump had also shown his signature on a public declaration and DJ would realize his lifelong dream coming true. He’s a brain cancer survivor and he’s also a guardian for the US President. It doesn’t get any better than that for a young American boy.
And when his father raised him up in the gallery, while DJ showed off his new badge, all Republicans stood up and applauded. When hearing about his woes and how he stood up for his convictions, only a heartless jerk would not have tears of sympathy and respect for him and his family.
Nonetheless, Democrats in the chambers demonstrated their callousness by refusing to stand, clap, cheer or show the slightest hint of support for DJ at his grand moment of glory. They sat stone-faced looking bitter. But Rep. Green wasn’t around, he already humiliated himself by getting escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms earlier.
Rep. Green took the lesser of two evil option, but he still exposed deep flaws in Democrat Party. When heckling President Trump, he was shaking his cane and looked like the senile old man who lost his marbles and ranting like a lunatic speaking gibberish. And that’s the present-day face of the Democrat Party.
We see the Democrat Party leadership as a club of elderly people who stopped thinking in a rational manner. They spend their final days, among the living, by cursing Trump, their perceived rivals and even hating each other.
US Rep. Al Green has shown the shallowness of the Democrat Party as bitter clingers of spite against Trump, who belong in an elderly assistance living home and should not be walking around the halls of US Congress.
The elder generation of the Democrat Establishment refuse to relinquish the reigns of power and look like damn fools in doing so. President Trump in his address to a joint sessions of US Congress has exposed the absurdity of it all.
When Democrats refused to cheer for DJ, it served as a testament to the abject failures of their Party. Not even US Rep. Green wanted to take part in that. This moment will not be forgotten and the chances for Democrats to regain majority control of US Congress or Senate have gotten much slimmer.
The entire world had just seen the ugly face of the Democrat Party and it will be hard for American voters to forget that.
(Tom Pauken II., author of US vs. China: From Trade Wars to Reciprocal Deal, AFAI Senior Fellow, Geopolitical Consultant based in Beijing, China)
X: @tmcgregochina
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