Let’s not overthink this, okay. There is far too much evidence and innuendo, and well, pretty obvious suggestions that Donald Trump could never have been elected president without help from the Russians. Come on, he has not been very good at hiding his “issues.” And there are more of us than not who react with a “Eew” when we think of what he finds acceptable with regard to most human issues. Grabbing women by their crotches (even if you are only bragging or using locker room talk) deserves an “eew!” Walking in on young contestants in a beauty contest dressing room in order to see them in various stages of undress? Eew! Defending nazis? Praising Klan members? Demeaning war heroes and their families? Eew, eew, and eew!!!
Donald Trump is bat scum and we are somehow putting up with his mental meanderings, his hate filled speech, and policy nonsense as if they had value or worth. As if they somehow deserve analysis, If you haven’t already, you watch the 1979 Peter Sellers movie Being There. Sellers played the unwitting idiot, Chauncey Gardiner, who is mistaken for political genius. While Chauncey was a humble gardener and used observations about his garden to mystify the politicos of his day, Trump is not so agile. While Chauncey, fools the world, Trump fools no one. He is a witless fool. But that is the point. This piece is not about how dumb, salacious, self absorbed, and narcissistic Trump is. That meme has been explored. I am as guilty as any. It is about us.
The normalization of Trump’s aberration behavior and the attempts by pundits, politicos, and ordinary citizens like us to make sense of it is disturbing. It is as if we are waiting for Bob Mueller or some modern version of Woodward and Bernstein to open our eyes. Chauncey Gardiner famously stated that “I like to watch.” The confusion those around the television addicted gardener suffer all flow from this distilled genius. They think he speaks in metaphors—that he speaks in simple terms, using simple examples to explain deep and complex ideas. The film, in fact ends with Chauncey walking on water.
No such chance with Trump, He also “likes to watch.” Yet despite the rather obvious incompetence and lack of mental curiosity, folks analyze his every word and parse his tweets as if they contain hidden wisdom. It is time the pundits and politicians and commentators report honestly that this emperor has no clothes. Just yesterday, he lied about his tax plan, a plan he never read or contributed to. He lied about a “senator in the hospital” as an explanation for his losing the health care vote last week. He never read that piece of legislation, either. Imagine if Barack Obama had done this? Or Hillary Clinton. Imagine if any Republican candidate had been as purposely deceitful. We had better look to ourselves and our acceptance of utter bullshit before we write another word about Donald Trump’s problems.
Lindsey Graham during the presidential primary famously labeled his party “batshit crazy” because of its support of Donald Trump. He referred to Trump on that day (February 26, 2016) as a “nut job.” In his remarks he noted:
“I don’t know how I can best describe Donald Trump, but I can say this, that I don’t think he understands what makes America great.”
And,
“He’s just generally a loser as a person and a candidate. You can’t nominate a nut job and lose, and expect it doesn’t have consequences, I’ve got a ticket on the Titanic. So I am like on the team that bought a ticket on the Titanic after we saw the movie. This is what happens if you nominate Trump.”
Last week the same Lindsey Graham was promoting a terrible health care bill, in part carrying the “nut job’s” water, and has spent time castigating Democrats for their hesitance in joining his piece of legislation. Meanwhile, the “nut job” demeaned his friend John McCain in a scurrilous physical mocking of the former POW. Last week, the same Graham was begging Trump to come down on white supremacists “like a hammer.” In what world does a president have to be begged to denounce hatemongers? In what world do we accept this and report it as news? In which era of American history would this describe the temperament of a president of the United States? The answer is in the batshit crazy world we are currently living. Blame his base. Blame the Russians. Blame Democrats. But the truth is that the aberration of electing his ass is now being exacerbated by our lack of true outrage, as he turns each of us against the other. Today, he said for the second time that the crisis in Puerto Rico is so unique because...
“...this is an island, surrounded by water—big water, ocean water...”
No shit, Captain Obvious! Unlike Chauncey, our in-house village idiot savant clearly avoids walking on the “big water” as he schools us on the location of Puerto Rico and all other islands. Eew! Sounds and smells like pure guano...except he means what he says and wears his ignorance like a hood.