The Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the Supreme Court was problematic, and left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. Christine Blasey Ford has been dragged through the mud in the name of pushing through a temperamental partisan Republican mouthpiece, who even if he was innocent, proved by his behavior and his blatant lies that he was unfit to sit on the bench of the highest court of the land. So of course, leave it to Donald Trump to continue to mean spiritedly rub salt in the wound. Because of course he couldn’t just let it happen. He had to make a big show of the swearing in, and then, on behalf of the country, apologize for the treatment of Kavanaugh. I’m sorry, but he certainly doesn’t speak for me in that apology. And I would argue that he doesn’t speak for most Americans. Indeed, I’m pretty sure most Americans who have been paying attention don’t think he was treated harshly enough for his infantile behavior. The softball investigation by the FBI, with it’s overly limited scope was an embarrassment and a total miscarriage of justice. So no, Don. You don’t speak on behalf of America. And seeing as you don’t apologize for anything in general, I don’t know that you were speaking on behalf of anyone.
On Saturday, Donald Trump brought back up that old gem, where Joe Biden basically said that back in his high school days, he’d have beaten Trump up. Of course, Trump mischaracterized the statement as an actual challenge, and since then has basically suggested that if they were to fight, he would wipe the floor with Biden…which is hilarious. I know Trump likes to tout himself as some kind of natural athlete, but the guy is physically a mess. We’ve all seen what his diet consists of. Also, Donald Trump is a pampered child who has never faced a day of actual adversity in his life. The idea of him, now, as an old man, is some kind of ass kicker is hilarious to me. I mean, both of them are old men, and I can’t imagine anyone would come out of that fight feeling great, but honestly, I think Trump would be worse off than Biden if they decided to resort to fisticuffs. Trump’s bravado and braggadocio is always funny, but hearing him talk about fighting makes him sound like one of those kids who after 1 karate class suggests he could handle black belts. So goofy.
The New York Times is really making it their life’s mission to dig up absolutely all of Donald Trump’s skeletons. Them and the Washington Post are dropping bombshell after bombshell, and this last week, it was attacking Trump where it might just hurt the most: his money. You see, the New York Times did a deep, deep dive into the origins of Donald Trump’s wealth. As it turns out, his story that he’s a self-made man minus a small loan from his father (that he paid back with interest), ISN’T actually accurate. At all apparently. Based on mountains of unearthed documents, both public record and not, Trump’s money is the result of creatively helping his dad defraud the government and the gifts he got as a result of that and his inheritance. As a result, adjusted for inflation, a great deal of his fortune, to the tune of half a billion smackeroos, was a result of Fred Trump looking out for him. Which makes a lot of sense. Despite what he wants his supporters to believe, Trump knows a thing or two about failing in business. His business history is one of failure, bailouts, and self aggrandizement. Learning that a good portion of his wealth was essentially a handout comes as no surprise, but at the same time, betrays the image he hopes to project. Because as it turns out, he’s not the shrewd business man, making money with his wits and cleverness. He’s a nitwit who fails upward.
You know, people, myself included, have been making jokes about Donald Trump’s weird admiration for Kim Jong Un since the summit in Singapore. It was easy to make jokes about the idea that they are buddies based entirely on his lack of criticism, his weird inability to call him Kim out on his atrocities, and his willingness to applaud his despotic tendencies. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was still an easy enough connection to make. Then, at a rally in West Virginia, Trump flatly says “We fell in love.” He went on to talk about the beautiful letters Kim wrote him, and reiterated, for anyone who wasn’t clear, that they “fell in love.” I mean…what? Kim Jong Un is a despot who subjugates his citizens, keeps them starving and impoverished, and propagandizes his divinity and superiority over the rest of the world. This is a man who Donald Trump openly says he fell in love with. Good to know where Trump’s sense of perspective is.
I want to take a second to talk about the new trade deal that is taking the place of NAFTA. USMCA, which is an infinitely less impressive abbreviation and all around title was unveiled on Monday and….no one talked about it. Now, listen, when it comes to economics and trade deals, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a whole heck of a lot, but based on the limited coverage it got, I guess it’s alright? I mean, I guess Canada is being less stingy about it’s milk which is…fine? I dunno. But it’s limited coverage, ESPECIALLY on Monday, the day this deal dropped, kind of blew my mind. I actively sought out information on the deal on Monday, and couldn’t find much more than descriptions of it, and all of that was buried under the Brett Kavanaugh situation. And that HAS to grind Trump’s gears. It HAS to. On the day that Trump presumably didn’t completely screw up a significant trade deal (I think he didn’t?), all anyone wants to talk about is Kavanaugh. And when Trump spoke up on Kavanaugh on Monday…I feel like the things he chose to speak on reflected that. I mean yeah, he did TECHNICALLY defend the man, but only after basically calling him an alcoholic and saying that he’s allowing the FBI to conduct a thorough investigation, where days ago, it seemed like it was going to be pretty limited. Maybe I’m reading a bit too much into it, but maybe, just maybe Trump doesn’t like people talking about another rich white guy on the day that he’s the rich white guy who should be getting the attention.
I feel like I need to start off by saying that not too long ago, the normal etiquette among opposing political factions, at least in the open, was respectful disagreement. At worst, you had some personal mudslinging while calling the opposing party misguided or stupid. But partisan opposition has taken a really terrible, really unfortunate left turn. Now you have the President of the United States calling his political opponents criminals. At a rally in West Virginia, he actually branded the Democrats “the Party of Crime.” It’s an alarming precedent. It’s an alarming precedent, and an ironic one. I mean, how can Trump, with a straight face, call the Democrats the “party of crime”, when all the arrests being made seem to be Republicans and their employees, including people who worked DIRECTLY under him. Let’s not forget that he himself is currently being investigated for obstructing justice and collusion with a hostile foreign power to undermine an election…I’m pretty sure those are all crimes. I suppose it could be argued that he’s trying to shift the conversation, but it’s a little too easy to make the point that calling Democrats the criminals doesn’t fit with the ACTUAL facts.
I feel like every week, I’m reading some new story about how the conditions are worsening for people who have to work for Donald Trump. For a while, it was just general discontent, lots of random media leaks and general distrust. Every time an expose or book would come out, Trump would call it fiction, and we’d hear that he was angry that staffers might be talking. Then Bob Woodward, the nation’s most well respected journalist and presidential biographer, released his book, and the hype surrounding that caused even more turmoil. Within DAYS of that, a Op-Ed written by an anonymous West Wing staffer was published in the New York Times, and things got so bad that rumors of polygraph tests were starting to circulate. Now a new Op-Ed from the Times suggest that staffers may have been plotting to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Now, in fairness to that story, the validity of that claim is in question. It’s been noted that the remarks in question may have been sarcastic or meant to be a joke, but none the less, apparently the atmosphere for employees in the White House has only gotten worse. Trump seems to have lost confidence that he can trust anyone in his employ, and rumor has it, prone to outbursts at anyone who seems traitor-y. But this can’t last forever. There has to be some kind of breaking point, right?
I have to wonder what morale in the White House looks like these days. I mean the past month has been a pretty big barrage of bad poll numbers and lots of looking over shoulders. We have open leaks in the White House that contributed to a biting, quite damaging book by arguably the most trusted journalist of the past 60 years, Bob Woodward, and an anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times from a West Wing Staffer. North Korea continues to do whatever the hell they want, China doesn’t seem to understand that they’re supposed to be losing this trade war, and are doing a pretty good job of attacking Trump where it counts: his base. And all Trump can seem to do is shout about how unfair it is. Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen are officially cooperating with the Feds, which I’m sure Trump can’t love, and he is doing random things like declassifying documents because Fox News Pundits are asking him to, without bothering to check if such an act might actually be more harmful than helpful. His Supreme Court nomination is probably the most contested in history, with it’s own FBI investigation to boot. I think this is what a downward spiral looks like.
Trump has had a bad week for speaking to the public. After Tuesday, when he became a literal laughingstock in front of world leaders, the very next day, he held the press conference that may define this era of his presidency. It was bizarre, y’all. Like, it had so many twists and turns that I honestly didn’t know what to focus in on when coming up with ideas. To call Donald Trump an embarrassment of riches in terms of trying to find a bit of absurdity in the world would be an understatement, but this press conference was something else entirely. He downplays his own sexual assault allegations (He seems to remember only 4 or 5 out of the 19 that are actually known), lies about recantations, calls women liars, and democrats con artists. And that’s covers like 2 minutes of the event. He talked about George Washington and how the Democrats wouldn’t confirm him, talked about an imaginary war with North Korea that definitely would have happened if wasn’t elected, and his “very, very large brain.” It was…an event. I don’t know how anyone could watch him speak at this point and think he’s operating at full capacity.
I think it’s fair to say that Donald Trump didn’t have a great reception at the United Nations on Tuesday. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that Donald Trump is a laughingstock, and have that be literal, but it was certainly true when he spoke to world leaders this week. And it came at the expense of one of the biggest lies that Trump has been trying to sell to Americans, but a lie that he could never reasonably expect to sell to people on the outside: that he’s making all the right decisions on the global stage, and that we’re respected as a result. He actually said “In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” It was a statement met with audible chuckles from the everyone in the room. When he tried to sell it by adding “So true,” those chuckles turned into outright laughter. By his own admission off the cuff, it wasn’t the response he was expecting. But why? I know he tries to tell everyone in the US that he’s just doing fantastic, but he can’t tell the people he’s actively antagonizing that he commands their respect. It’s like the opposite of gaslighting. It’s like anti-gaslighting. But if there is one thing I know, it’s that Trump does NOT tolerate embarrassment. He does not abide it, sees situations that cause it as signs of weakness, and frankly doesn’t know what to do when faced with it. So in the wake of the leaders of the world literally laughing in the face of his lies…well I don’t imagine we’ve heard the end of it.
Mind the Exit 