May 29, 2018.

Mark this date on your calendar.  It is the day on which three totally unrelated events (there’s that synchronicity thing again) signaled the first major crack in the tribal totem pole which has characterized the Trump era.

Event #1

Someone much smarter than I am (my daughter) once said to me, stop telling me what you see or hear on MSNBC or CNN.  It’s not news.  Tell me when Fox starts to push back on Donald Trump.  Well, yesterday was the day.  Not once, but THREE times.

During Shepard Smith Reporting, the host debunked Trump’s latest conspiracy theories that Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is a politically motivated, illegitimate and unlawful witch hunt.

Fox News knows of no evidence to support the president’s claim that lawmakers from both parties say using an informant to investigate suspected ties to Russia is not spying.  It’s part of a normal investigative process.

Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), in an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum echoed Smith’s reporting.

It was President Trump himself who said… ‘I didn’t collude with Russia but if anyone connected with my campaign did, I want the FBI to find that out.’ It looks to me like the FBI was doing what President Trump said, ‘I want you to do, find it out.’…I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got.

And finally, Fox News judicial analyst and a strident Trump supporter Andrew Napolitano, also appearing with MacCallum, added:

The allegations from Mayor Giuliani over the weekend, which would lead us to believe that the Trump people think the FBI had an undercover agent who finagled his way into Trump’s campaign and was there as a spy on the campaign seem to be baseless — there is no evidence for that whatsoever.

Event #2

ABC cancels the #1 rated television show following Roseanne Barr’s blatant racist attack on Twitter referring to  President Barack Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett as an offspring of “the Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes.”  In ABC’s official announcement, Channing Dungey, president of ABC entertainment, stated:

Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show. There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.

Even though the current occupant of the oval office has consistently put politics and party before values, it was refreshing to see corporate America say values trump (pun intended) profits.  Ironically, ABC’s decision fell on the same day Starbucks shuttered its 8,000+ U.S. stores for half a day to conduct racial sensitivity training for all its employees.

FOOTNOTE:  Channing Dungey (ABC) and Rosalind Brewer, COO at Starbucks, are both African-American, suggesting the discussions in corporate boardrooms are less likely to be “business as usual” when some of the chairs are occupied by other than white males.

Event #3

Yesterday, French president Emmanuel Macron promised to bestow citizenship on Mali immigrant Mamoudou Gassama.  Gassama, now nicknamed “Spiderman,” became a social media sensation when he climbed the outside of an apartment building to save a four year-old child who was dangling from a fourth floor balcony.  Additionally, Gassama was offered a job with the Paris fire department.

In contrast, Trump geared up for the 2018 mid-term elections at a Nashville rally for Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn by focusing on immigrants he claims are not human beings, “but use glaring loopholes in our immigration laws to infiltrate our country to rape, murder and cut people into little pieces.”  He also blamed the administration’s policy that separates children from parents seeking asylum in the United States on congressional Democrats despite the “zero tolerance” approach announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”

So why should we view May 29 as a tipping point.  Because the choice we face is NOT whether we support Donald Trump or not.  It is whether we support values which no longer tolerate dishonesty and bigotry.  Yesterday, we witnessed three instances where Americans and one world leader made the right choice.  And I’m willing to bet these journalists, corporate leaders and political figures slept better last night for having made that decision.  From their respective positions of power and influence, each suggested a new rallying cry, “Mr. Trump, as they say south of the border, BASTA,  BASTA!”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP