Saturday, January 06, 2018

Donald Trump and the Measure of His Madness



Donald Trump is said to be in a desperate state. A man raging at the world.

Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, and Steve Bannon's betrayal, have apparently driven him to the verge of a nervous breakdown.

This tweet sent out late last night is a measure of his madness.



And what he tweeted this morning is even more alarming




And to make matters worse he doesn't look or sound too good either.

Not with those bags under his eyes, and the way he sits there at one point with his mouth wide open.

But then of course it's not easy to call Sloppy Steve a dog, when Trump once appointed him to the National Security Council.

And sadly for him, the Orange Oaf's crude attempt to ban the Wolff book is only making it more popular.


Except of course for those Republicans in Congress who are still supporting Trump, and as Paul Krugman writes, made a cynical Faustian bargain.

The cynical bargain I’m talking about, of course, was the decision to exploit racism to advance a right-wing economic agenda. Talk about welfare queens driving Cadillacs, then slash income taxes. Do Willie Horton, then undermine antitrust. Tout your law and order credentials, then block health care. 

For more than a generation, the Republican establishment was able to keep this bait-and-switch under control: racism was deployed to win elections, then was muted afterwards, partly to preserve plausible deniability, partly to focus on the real priority of enriching the one percent. But with Trump they lost control: the base wanted someone who was blatantly racist and wouldn’t pretend to be anything else. And that’s what they got, with corruption, incompetence, and treason on the side.

One they can't now get out of now, and will with a bit of luck result in the total destruction of the Republican party.

Now rotting like a fish from the head down...



Trump’s very awfulness means that if he falls, the whole party will fall with him. Republicans could conceivably distance themselves from a president who turned out to be a bad manager, or even one who turned out to have engaged in small-time corruption. 

But when the corruption is big time, and it’s combined with obstruction of justice and collaboration with Putin, nobody will notice which Republicans were a bit less involved, a bit less obsequious, than others. If Trump sinks, he’ll create a vortex that sucks down everyone involved.

But of course, we can't celebrate yet, because Trump's desperation makes him only more dangerous.

And the only thing worse than Trump as Faust, is Trump as the mad Emperor Nero.



Chaotic, corrupt, incurious, infantile, grandiose, and obsessed with gaudy real estate, Donald Trump is of a Neronic temperament. He has always craved attention. Now the whole world is his audience.

There is no loyalty or deliberation in the White House, only a savage “Lord of the Flies” sort of chaos. Each day is at once preposterous, poisonous, and dangerous.


A deranged dotard obsessed with his little red button...



 Now conclusively exposed as a threat to the whole world.

There is little doubt about who Donald Trump is, the harm he has done already, and the greater harm he threatens. He is unfit to hold any public office, much less the highest in the land. This is not merely an orthodoxy of the opposition; his panicked courtiers have been leaking word of it from his first weeks in office. The President of the United States has become a leading security threat to the United States.

You know, when I heard that the fireworks at Trump's Mar-A-Lagos New Year's Eve party were supplied by the Koch brothers, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor suckers who believed Trump had come to save them...



But only for about 30 seconds eh?

After all, they brought down a nightmare upon us, now it's their turn to watch hope turn to despair.

Or just scream.

And we've got other things to worry about.  

Like how can this depraved maniac be removed be removed from office?

By whatever means necessary.

Before he kills us all...



14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the line in that New Yorker article where the author describes how Romans were driven so crazy by Nero's antics they would feign death to get away from him. I sometimes feel the same way about Trump. If somebody doesn't carry him off in a straitjacket soon they are going to have to take me away in one. :)

Anonymous said...

The three tweets from Trump should be enough to scare anyone. What will it take before people realize that Trump isn't playing with a full deck? Will a million people have to die before some excuse is found to remove him from office?

Anonymous said...

The fake photo of Melania holding then reading the book to the kids is priceless Simon. Trump is so lost in his fake news universe that he'll probably think it's real.
JD

Jackie Blue said...

"Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart." ...says the idiot who, among numerous other things, made fun of a man in a wheelchair at one of his Nazi rallies; referred to his own daughter in the most vulgar of terms on Howard Stern's radio program; mistook the prime minister of New Zealand for Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau at a U.N. conference; demanded his own golden chariot to go meet the queen in London; stalked Princess Diana because he's obsessed with royalty and probably thought he could become the king of England himself by courting her; infamously said that he "never hires anyone smarter" than he is, which is how we ended up with such intellectual luminaries as Da Mooch and Oops Perry; and invented out of whole cloth the African country of "Nambia" and coined the word covfefe. Yup, a real genius is this guy, a stoic and logical Vulcan, an emotional rock of a philosopher-king. Trust me, Donnie, we're all tired of winning. Many, many people are bigly aware of this. He makes Shrub seem articulate and Nixon seem sane.

Anonymous said...

Trump's "genius" reminds me of another self proclaimed genius, Jethro Bodine.
JD

David said...

Night of Camp David (1980)
by Fletcher Knebel

https://www.amazon.ca/Night-Camp-David-Fletcher-Knebel/dp/0060124202

Roger J. Buffington

4.0 out of 5 starsStill relevant today; an excellent novel

August 6, 2016
Format: Hardcover|
This one is an old classic, and no reader who enjoys political thrillers should miss it. The premise is simple enough -- what to do if a President of the United States is seriously unbalanced. I first read this one in the early 1970s and re-read it today (2016) and it is as relevant now as it was then. Knebel's writing is very good, the plot moves along smartly to a satisfying conclusion (no spoilers here.)

One of the things that comes through reading this book is how much less corrupt and vicious politics was in the 1960s-1970s as opposed to now. In my opinion this book indirectly corroborates my own belief that Vietnam and Watergate polarized American politics to an extent that did not previously exist. All of the politicians portrayed in this novel appear to be reasonably honest, if flawed. I doubt anyone thinks that this is true in 21st Century American politics. (Partisan comments omitted here.)

Please forgive the tangent, but the above is one of the unintended benefits of reading, in 2016, a political thriller written many decades ago. In any event, this one has aged well and most readers will find it to be an enjoyable and worthwhile read. RJB.

David said...

The Simpson’s: Mueller meets Trump
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_YCGFLhrMkk

David said...

Audio extracts from "Fire and Fury”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeRWyRCxeY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GpXRMLFsSY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWz3SWX8s1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDoxU32u-A

Simon said...

hi anon...yes, wasn't that great start to the piece. And I too would definitely feel that way if I ever got trapped in an elevator with Trump or Andrew Scheer. But hang in there, the last year of Trump was an exhausting ordeal, but I have a feeling that unless he blows us all up, this year is going to be a lot more entertaining...

Simon said...

hi anon 3:25...I understand how you feel, and we're certainly not alone. I only there was a big red button we could press and make Trump disappear. But be patient, all these new revelations have damaged the Orange Oaf, and I'm sure have made even more Americans question his sanity. So when Mueller strikes, or Trump embarrasses himself again, he will make it easier for those who want to remove him from office. But what we must also remember is that the best way to get rid of Trump is to destroy him in the next election...

Simon said...

hi JD...yes, I'm starting to feel sorry for Melania and Barron, they both look very unhappy, and I'm sure they'll both be very relieved when there White House nightmare is over. And since I found out that Melania has her own bedroom I feel even better about her... ;)

Simon said...

hi Jackie...I know, if somebody had written the Trump story as fiction the critics would have dismissed it as too far fetched. Just reading your comment makes me shake my head, and wonder how could this ever happen? And when will I wake up? But that's OK, because let's not forget that who laughs last laughs best. And I'm going to laugh until I'm blue in the face when that orange monster finally bites the dust...

e.a.f. said...

Unfortunately a great many more than a million will die if Trump continues down this road. Fortunately the Pres. of S. Korea has made overtures to Kim 3 and there will be talks. We now know who the adults are in the room.

If Trump launches a nuclear strike on N. Korea they will in turn fire their weapons at S. Korea and that means approx. 20 M. will die in and around Seoul. A bomb into Japan approx. the same, then those in Guam and Hawaii. First launch by Trump would result in those in N. Korea being killed and people in china dying from the after effects. my estimate would put it at around 75 M. dying at first strike. Then the slow dying from disease starts. Would the Republicans remove Trump from office at that point. of course not. they got their seat in the bunker, and they're not giving that up.

there is nothing that Trump can do which will cause the republicans in Congress to remove Trump and the same goes for Pence and the Cabinet.

e.a.f. said...

like they say, you can't make this stuff up.

People who work around Trump might want to pay attention to these Tweets. If he threw Bannon under the bus, he will do it to anyone else who he deems an enemy. It doesn't take much to become Trump's enemy. In the end, I expect Bannon to still be standing.

Trump's comments of referring to Bannon as Sloppy Steve, does have some very nasty sexual over tones. My question is: who did Bannon have sex with that Trump had sex with first.

In my opinion, Trump does realize how dangerous Bannon is for him. The book is full of comments by others, but Trump has reserved his real fire for Bannon. Perhaps Trump thinks, if Bannon helped put him in the oval office, Bannon can take him out of it/

Bannon is different from Trump in their view regarding the country. Bannon, is all about the middle/working class. He sees the swamp. For him Trump was simply a vehicle to "drain the swamp". Trump hasn't done it and made it much more difficult for working/middle class people to keep their heads afloat. He gave the tax cuts to the 1%ers. Bannon may go out and find another "horse" to ride and if Bannon fires up the base and clearly demonstrates it is Trump who is the traitor to the cause, many Republicans won't get nominated, if they're mainstream. Many believe Bannon has lost it because Moore failed to be elected. Part of that was, African American women came out and voted against Moore and for Jones. In ridings where there is not a large African American base, main stream Republicans will not succeed.

Trump has made a big deal of Mercer no longer supporting Bannon, but then she isn't about the working class. She is a financial elite and as such saw Bannon and his paper simply as a vehicle to achieve a Republican majority and president so she and hers could achieve a great big tax cut. Now she is all about Trump, he gave her what she wanted, Bannon has served his purpose, so he can be dumped.