So a fun political buzzword we keep hearing lately is “Nothing Burger.” I mean, It’s a term that’s been around for like 70 years, but in the age of “fake news” and non-stop information flooding every aspect of our existence, parsing the things that have real significance from the things that don’t is tangible problem. Take the infamous memo released this weekend. While Trump claims it completely vindicates him, eagle eyed viewers would recognize that it’s mostly just an accusatory document attacking the quality of evidence used to secure a surveillance warrant. In political terms, it can, and probably should be argued that it is the dictionary definition of a Nothing Burger. While I don’t think the Republicans are the only people in government utilizing the concept, they are certainly turning it into an art.
So much like his inauguration numbers, Trump’s first State of the Union numbers couldn’t match his predecessor’s. More than that, people’s general reaction to Trump’s State of the Union fell very flat compared to Obama. I think we’re all just waiting for Trump and his people to brag about how successful his SOTU was, how well watched and received it was. I wonder if we’ll even see the revival of “Alternative Facts”? One can only hope.
Update: I came up with the idea of this panel before Trump actually came out and said his ratings were the highest recorded for the State of the Union. I would take credit as some kind of prophet, but let’s face it, anyone could have made that prediction if they were following Trump’s behavior even sort of.
So the State of the Union was a dark time for people paying any kind of attention to the rhetoric. I’ve been combing over transcripts and word choices, because it seems to me that people tend to pay more attention to how things are said, and how the person looked while saying them, then the words actually spoken. For example, we have this little gem:
“Tonight I call on the congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers—and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”
In other words, he wants Congress to empower his people to fire whoever they want for whatever reasons they can claim are “unAmerican”. For instance, investigators running witch hunts?
Trump has successfully bullied another person out their position. Andrew McCabe can’t handle the craziness anymore, and I don’t know that anyone can blame him. But it’s really becoming scarier to realize that people who are brave enough to not have any honest allegiances to Trump are becoming de-legitimized, disenfranchised or forced out. Trump supporters keep saying how over the top liberals concerned with Trump’s draconian dictatorial methods are being, but is it only going to be ok to say I told you so when he’s finally named himself emperor of the US? Will it be ok even then?
So, the more I parse through his interview with man/gerbil hybrid Piers Morgan, the funnier things get. Amongst many things, he claims to be very popular in the UK. He says he just gets so much fan mail from the UK! He doesn’t seem to remember that politicians have officially tried to ban his entry from London and England in general, and that the protests that have been threatened have made some of our look quaint by comparison. Not to mention that as someone who personally enjoys a fair amount of British media, I don’t think I’ve ever read or seen anyone from that side of the pond make a positive case for Donald Trump, which is me being kind. But, maybe Trump knows something I don’t.
Trump has allocated $24 million to Boeing to upgrade the refrigerators on Air Force One. Yes. $24 million to update refrigerators. Because when it comes to Air Force One, an upgrade like that can’t be standard. It’s ridiculous, and flies in the face of all the complaining Trump liked to do when he would slam Obama for wasteful spending. Trump claimed back on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t even use Air Force One if elected because of the out of control spending that thing takes up. I guess one changes their mind when the shoe is on the other foot.
So Trump casually walked into an interview John Kelly was having with some reporters and decided to have an impromptu press conference, which is just a delight for everyone, I’m sure. You know that Trump just loves thinking that he is a conversational wizard, and can get the best out of any tete-a-tete with any reporters, even though he comes off sounding like a lunatic, and just makes more cleanup work for those around him. Welcome to the new normal.
Multiple outlets are reporting that Tourism is hitting a slump in the wake of Trump and his rhetoric. In the last year, we’ve lost about $4.6 billion in tourism revenue and lost about 40,000 jobs in that sector as a result of the slump, and experts aren’t calling it a coincidence. Trump’s erratic and destructive behavior is turning a lot of people off. He spent the last 2 years talking about making America great again, and now after a year in office, he doesn’t understand why people from Norway aren’t rushing here in droves.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders claims that if the Senators don’t know what the President wants in terms of a deal, then it’s on them for not paying close enough attention. By all indications, the President of the United States has the temperament of a two year old, but with less ability to reason. We know that Schumer offered Trump basically everything he could have hoped for in a deal, and it still wasn’t enough, so honestly, the idea that people just couldn’t pick up what Trump was putting down seems at least a little far fetched.
Schumer offered him the wall. The President offered a number. Schumer agreed. And Trump walked away from the table. He walked away from two bipartisan deals, one which included EVERYTHING THAT TRUMP WANTED, and he still goes on to call the shutdown the Democrats fault, blaming Chuck Schumer specifically, a guy who was willing to compromise to an outrageous degree to get a deal made, and the President, master deal maker, can’t take a deal where he gets what he wants. Of sound mind and body, that’s what we were told mere days ago, right?
Mind the Exit 