Friday, December 09, 2016

Donald Trump and the Madman of the Year



It's Time Magazine's ugliest Person of the Year cover since it awarded Adolf Hitler that dubious honour.

And Donald Trump is reported to be conflicted. On the one hand his massive all consuming ego is flattered, or inflated further. 

On the other hand he's furious that anybody should call him a "divider."

And I mean furious.



Even though he's on a Victory Thank You Tour of the states he won, but not the ones he lost. So he can brag about how great he is, and smirk as the adoring mobs chant "lock her up, lock her up."

Even though he has been appointing the most reactionary right-wing cabinet the U.S. has ever seen. 

And even though he has been going after his critics on Twitter like a man possessed, including this humble union leader at the Carrier factory in Indianapolis...





Who was attacked after he exposed Trump as a Con artist who was inflating the number of jobs he had saved. 

And is now being threatened by Trump's ugly supporters.

A half-hour after Trump tweeted about Jones on Wednesday, the union leader’s phone began to ring and kept ringing, he said. One voice asked: What kind of car do you drive? Another said: We’re coming for you.

And when you think of that, and of all the other people Trump has attacked. And how he still doesn't see himself as a Great Divider, and is outraged that anyone could think he was, I think I have to agree with Charles Blow again.

Trump isn't The Person of the Year, he's The Madman of the Year. 



Donald, thy name is division. You and your campaign of toxicity and intolerance have not only divided this country but also ripped it to tatters.

As my mother used to say: Don’t try to throw a rock and hide your hand. Own your odiousness.


He's trying to fool Americans by running two very different campaigns.

Trump is running two post-campaign campaigns: one high and one low, one of frivolity and one of enormous consequence. One is a campaign of bread and circuses — tweets, rallies, bombast about random issues of the moment, all meant to distract and excite — and the other is the constant assemblage of a cabinet full of fat cats and “mad dog” generals, a virtual aviary of vultures and hawks.

Trying to distract them from the ultra-right wing government he is putting together, one packed with generals, billionaires, right-wing crazies, religious fanatics, misogynists and bigots.

Which as Charles Blow says, would be a fatal mistake...



I feel like America is being flashed by a giant neuralyzer, à la “Men In Black.” We are in danger of forgetting what has happened and losing sight, in the fog of confusion and concealment, of the profundity of the menace taking shape right before us.

For Trump is both crazy and dangerous. And who knows to what dark place he might take his country and the world?

And the good news? Trump is already overplaying his hand. He just can't help himself.

Going after a humble union leader like Chuck Jones can only make some of his working class supporters wonder whether he really is their champion.

And when disappointment sets in, as it inevitably will, Trump's personality and all his scandals are going to make him an easy president to take down.

The Democrats are reported to be preparing to attack him, and disrupt his government like the Republicans did to Obama as soon as he was inaugurated. No holds barred.

And when The Resistance kicks into full gear and starts attacking and mocking such an easy target, by whatever high or low means necessary...




Alison Jackson

I wouldn't be surprised if next years's Time Magazine cover looks like the one they should have run this year...



Behold the Emperor with no clothes, in the full flush of his bestiality.

The Groper in Chief. His own worst enemy.

And the harbinger of his own destruction...

12 comments:

A Political Junkie said...

Here is an article that compares freedom of the press in the United States to that of other nations around the world:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2016/12/how-much-of-freedom-of-press-is-illusion.html

According to this analysis, press freedom in America is largely an illusion.

Nicolas said...

I agree, Donald Trump is a mad man. He has a lot of temper and has a hard time to control it. Let's hope that he will at least learn how to control his anger. The challenge is that to improve a behavior, a person needs to be conscious about the problem. Donald Trump should read Dale Carnegie's book: How to win friends and influence people. He's supposed to be a kind of role model and it's scary to see how he reacts to adversity.

bcwaterboy said...

Like the late Rob Ford, Trump too will unravel before our eyes, too self-absorbed, too stupid and grossly incompetent to ever really lead, all he knows is being a conman. Unfortunately the divided states will be stuck with the far more dangerous Mike Pence as their president and the merry band of ideologues "he" appointed to support Trump. That I believe is the real story behind all of this sorry mess.

John B. said...

He wants to revel in as much of it as he can for as long as he can. That's why he's started his "Triumph of the Will" tour before he's even been inaugurated.

And I concur with waterboy on the Pence factor.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see someone like Charles Blow telling it like it is. Not like some who are trying to normalize this lunatic. Nothing normal about the Donald. He's still spewing his blatant lies and lashing out on Twitter at anyone who irritates him,(though I love how Alec Baldwin's portrayal of him on SNL sends him into spasms).
If we can survive until he's either impeached or voted out in 4 years, and without him starting a war with China, then we will be okay. Until then, sit back and try to laugh, not cry, at the biggest shit show on Earth.
JD

Anonymous said...

Mike Pence is great, what's wrong with you people? The guy actually has values and morals, unlike the regressive left which praises degeneracy and is ruining western civilization.

Anonymous said...

I just wonder, waterboy... is there any number of con men that the pig-ignorant Republican base won't fall for? After all, Bush the Dumber was a scant 16 years back; he's already been tossed in the black hole of memory. Now they voted for an even stupider man, and a boorish reality TV star no less! These people really can't be trusted with a ballot, can they?

The irony is that I actually made the same mistake a lot of American liberals did in 2010 when I voted for Joe Pantalone because I found Smitherman such a detestable weasel in 2010 that I aided a Ford victory. I've regretted it ever since and took that lesson to heart, ultimately holding my nose and voting Tory in 2014 to deny Doug Ford the Mayor's office, as much as I would have preferred Olivia Chow.

Anonymous said...

anon 1:32, you could go far writing for theOnion.

bcwaterboy said...

Values and morals that belong in the distant past.

John B. said...

We ruined western civilization ages ago. It's beyond fixing. maybe Pence will settle for reforming the regressive guy whose ass he's kissing.

jrkrideau said...

Regan
Bush (the Shrub)
Trump

Stupidity may be a requirement for the Republican nomination, not an impediment.

Anonymous said...

This is the part where I'd say "Can't tell if serious..." but I've seen this exact opinion bandied about too often to consider it just another troll.

Heaping irony upon irony is that for as much as he is a religious fundamentalist, he is just a boilerplate central-casting haircut Republican, interested in tax cuts and deregulation first, then with fighting culture war issues. I have no illusions that Pence isn't a true believer when it comes to regulating women's bodies (he most certainly is), but make no mistake, they'll be dismantling regulatory policy long before they're out to save "Western civilization", whatever that means.