by Joseph DeMaio, ©2021
(Dec. 26, 2021) — “Non compos mentis” is Latin for “not of sound mind.”
By now, virtually everyone not living under a rock is aware of the trolling prank that occurred at the end of a phone call live-streamed between the Goofball at 1600 and someone now identified as Jared Schmeck from Central Point, Oregon.
At the end of a Christmas Eve phone call when parents and kids can call in to the White House – the video was taken in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Building, not the White House – while monitoring the progress of Santa’s sleigh ride from the North Pole to worldwide destinations for deliveries of Christmas presents, Schmeck ended his part of the call by telling the Goof: “I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well, this Christmas… and let’s go Brandon.”
The Goof immediately replied: “Let’s go Brandon. I agree.”
The verbal meme, of course, first arose last October when NBC sports reporter Kelli Stavast “misinterpreted” what a NASCAR crowd was loudly chanting – F#%* Joe Biden – as she was interviewing Brandon Brown, a driver who had just won his first NASCAR race. Stavast claimed in her interview of Brown that the crowd was cheering for him by saying “let’s go Brandon!” when, in reality, they were yelling something quite different.
That being the case, any claim that the chant could have been “misinterpreted” by Stavast (or any other English-speaking, audibly-enabled person) is patently absurd. Thus, the only rational conclusion is that Stavast was attempting either to (a) sanitize and “re-imagine” the chant for purposes of live television coverage, or (b) gaslight and mislead the viewers as to what the crowd was actually saying to cover for the Goof. The smart money favors the latter conclusion.
Yes, the chant is seen by many as being vulgar. But is the Goof vulgar? Go ask Tara Reade.
The faux outrage from the left and from mainstream media outlets like ABC and NBC – the employer of Kelli Stavast, the originator of the phrase – over Schmeck’s pranking merely underscores the refined hypocrisy of those outlets. Recall that during President Trump’s term in office, these “news” organizations never encountered a slur, vulgar epithet or video they did not relish repeating if it was directed at Trump, his supporters or other conservative politicians.
Oh, yeah, and thanks to the propagation of the story by the media, Schmeck is now receiving threats from Goofball sycophants and apparatchiks.
Apart from the Fourth Estate’s hypocrisy, and completely lost in the current discussion, however, is the fact that instead of ignoring Schmeck’s repetition of the phrase on the phone call or reacting with disdain or controlled indignation as would a normal person…, the Goof immediately repeated the phrase and then added – astonishingly –: “I agree.” Even “Doctor” Jill Biden winced at the phrase and chortled nervously as her husband repeated and ratified it.
It is the immediate repeating – and ratification – of the phrase that is the problem here. Given the fact that the chant has now entered the mainstream of American political discourse – rightly or not – it is beyond rational belief that even the Goof has been so insulated from the real world by his handlers and marionette-masters that he could be blissfully (or blindingly) unaware of the blunt directive. And if, in fact, he has been so shielded from the realities of life in the Republic he seems intent upon dismantling that he fails to understand the import of the statement, then we are in far deeper peril than heretofore imagined.
Whether one deems it a profane vulgarism or a justified First Amendment expression of certain individuals’ disdain for the current occupant of the Oval Office, the fact remains that his repetition of the words – followed immediately by his ratification of them – speaks volumes about whether he is “of sound mind.” If the phrase had been altered and composed for direction at President Trump, rest assured, he would not have repeated and ratified it. Take that fact to the bank.
The difference, of course, is that Trump, unlike the Goof at 1600, still possesses all of his marbles and is playing with a full deck atop his neck. And do not forget: the Goof has access to the nuclear missile launch codes, not a good combination if one is non compos mentis. Not a good combination at all, particularly because, from day to day and hour to hour, there is no way of predicting what inane or befuddled remark he may next produce, as hypothesized here.
Matthew 5:39.