I think it’s important that, as we all attempt to maintain our sanity in the face of what has become a hopelessly schizophrenic news cycle, we don’t lose track of how truly cartoonish this Presidency has become.
I mean look, everyone knows that both Trump and his online surrogates are a standing joke. But as painful as it may be for those of us who know absurdity when we see it, it’s critical that we keep a running tally of how over-the-top ridiculous this circus is.
It’s tempting to just kind of throw up one’s hands and tune it out, but remember, there are still a whole lot of people out there who need to be continually reminded about how fucking crazy this has gotten.
To be sure, Trump’s support is dwindling – and even the laughable Rasmussen polls can’t hide it (a recent iteration carries the headline “Most Voters Say Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy”).
But again, there are people who wake up every, single day and embark on a mission to find web content the sole purpose of which is to deflect, distract, and/or otherwise sow doubt about whether this presidency is actually as crazy as it seems.
Incidentally, some of these sites are now beginning to buckle under the pressure of defending the indefensible, so they’re reverting to the old, stand-by: Russophilia, which, in its latest incarnation, includes the contention that Trump is being held hostage by a cabal of evil neocons hell-bent on keeping Moscow from taking things that “rightfully” belong to Russia – you know, “things” like Ukraine. You don’t have to look far to see this dynamic in action.
Well speaking of “web content the sole purpose of which is to deflect, distract, and/or otherwise sow doubt about whether this presidency is actually as crazy as it seems,” let’s take a quick tour of what’s appeared on Trump’s Twitter feed over the past 36 hours.
Again, do me a favor and just try to appreciate how unbelievably ridiculous this is.
So let’s start with Trump retweeting a picture of his Electoral College map – a map which was originally posted by this “man”:
That’s “Trumpism 3.0â„¢”
Just in case you were thinking about using that handle for your own social media activities, do note the “trademark” there.
Here’s the retweet:
Now for one thing, there’s something exceptionally ironic about retweeting a map of something that happened 10 months ago and telling other people to “move on.” That is, who is it really that hasn’t “moved on” in this equation? Is it Democrats, or the guy tweeting the election map 10 months after the election and the President who retweets him?
But beyond that, let’s take a look at the other tweets that appear in the very same thread as the map Trump retweeted.
First there’s a picture of “Trumpism 3.0â„¢”‘s iPhone wallpaper which features Trump’s Twitter avatar. What the image below appears to suggest is that when Thursday turned to Friday on inauguration day, Trump’s eyes began to glow yellow:
Then there’s this picture, which imagines Trump as a kind of aesthetically pleasing Rambo figure:
And then there’s a meme that suggests being a Democrat is a mental illness, and the funny thing about this one is that “Trumpism 3.0â„¢” seems to think it’s pretty clever. Apparently, he’s oblivious to the fact that this is a meme that’s been around since the dawn of internet memes, and has been variously applied to everything from Democrats, to Republicans, to pretty much anything else you can possibly imagine that some netizen ever thought was bad:
Again, it’s important to remember that those were all in the very same thread as what Trump retweeted.
Next up (and these are in sequential order) is Trump describing his crowd in West Virginia.
The crowd size and enthusiasm were, and I quote, “beyond, GDP at 3%, wow!”
Exactly 2 hours and 2 minutes later we get Trump retweeting James Woods, which of course speaks for itself, but just in case it doesn’t, note that there’s something ironic about James Woods calling other people pathological:
21 minutes after that finds Trump retweeting the incomparable Judge Jeanine, who said this:
A couple of things there: by retweeting that, Trump is basically admitting that he thinks one of his family members might eventually be indicted. So what he’s doing is effectively reminding everyone that there will mayhem in America if one of his kids goes to jail. And he’s doing it via Twitter, in a retweet of someone (Judge Jeanine) who is even more of a joke than he is (assuming that’s possible).
Five minutes after that we get Trump retweeting this guy:
Who is John Stephenson, you ask?
Well, we don’t know. All we can surmise (based on his Twitter profile) is that he is “a grandfather,” “a professional,” and also a “pet nutrition expert.”
Next is this retweet:
Who is Paul? Who knows. All we know about “Paul” is that he uses Twitter and he is “a private citizen.”
“A private citizen” who has incredibly managed to rack up 508 followers as an anonymous Twitter egg in the short space of a month:
Finally, Trump changed his banner picture to what I guess in his mind is a Presidential meeting panorama, but what to any outside observer looks like a picture of Pence staring blankly at a wall, Rick Perry picking his nose, Ben Carson trying to pretend like he understands what the speaker is saying, and Trump putting on his best orange Mussolini face:
Keep in mind: this is just the “passive” activity on Trump’s Twitter account over the past 36 hours.
That is, none of that includes any actual tweets from Trump.
Again, don’t get so exasperated with this unfolding train wreck that you tune out the day-to-day lunacy.
If you do, you’re implicitly giving it a free pass but more importantly, you’re missing out on some of the best political comedy this country has ever seen.
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Seems to me that General John F. Kelly, the first ever Chief of Commander-in-Chief, has already lost control of Destructo. The retweets reek of a delinquent child’s attempt to circumvent his father’s directions on what he can tweet.
Trump and his failure as an effective President, has taught me a lot of things about the people of the US, our current government, and from where the real power of the Presidency comes – as apparently Trump is just now learning as well:
1. That despite our Founding Fathers’ best efforts to create governance as public service in a elected democracy – rather than a sound bite popularity contest, our current lackadaisical form of easily manipulated and unqualified participant democracy (voter and candidates) is a genuine threat to the countries continued existence. Proof comes in the repeated offering of corrupt and or incompetent candidates by both R&D Party’s – and the subsequent lack of choice election of the apparent “lesser of evils.”
2. That the Presidency has become an optional and vestigial figure head position and in that the country daily proves that it can run itself with or without a functional President (or Congress) and or (quite obviously) with or without experience, competency, intellectual resources and or effective leadership proficiency.
3. Consequently, Trump’s concept of a “deep state” has been made credible (self-demonstrated by Trump himself) – because from a professional management and governance standpoint – it has to be the “deep state” that is running our government on a day to day basis currently. Clearly Trump and his WH incompetents selected from the fringes of the right wing clearly are neither capable or focused enough on governance to accomplish voters expectations, or their Constitutionally intended governance.
4. That the Presidency and Executive Branch, and the Legislative Branch (most especially Congress) has become primarily a circus – an entertainment industry ($7B+ for the 2016 election) for profit creation. The overall media industry is today is nearly completely at “tabloid” level, click bait/advertiser dominated industry – with little vestiges of any unbiased professional journalism. All consumed by an intellectually lazy public addicted to sensationalism over fact – and or incapable of sorting critical “fact” from BS hyperbole – especially Trump BS hyperbole.
Candidate Trump clearly had a list of the major problems concerning the middle class and wealth – no argument there. The failure in his election was that the voters were not capable of determining that Trump’s proposed shallow “sound bite” solutions – were neither well thought, economically practical, legal, or functional in either their implementation or actually solving the list of problems the middle class faced.
Essentially, Trump voters proved themselves to be politically naive, poor critical thinkers, and or just blindly hopeful simpletons – by assessing Trump as capable leader (“Hey, he’s made a bundle of money.” Failing to determine Trump’s wealth came by a silver spoon inserted at birth – it was first by inheritance, then on the backs of others, far from failure free, and all in a tyrannical style – of a “business owner” – leading by decree, rather than performance based leadership advancement.
Additionally, and perhaps most important, that his lack of political governing experience – while perhaps refreshing to many – would be extremely limiting in his ability to accomplish anything within a political (favor based) system of government. Basically, they underestimated the authority and the power that occupying the Presidency alone gives. Without prior political service and the relationships that it brings – the US Presidency is near non-existent for an unprepared and unqualified occupant of the Presidency – like Trump – used to governing his empire by decree and certainly, not leading from the front or by example.
Your observations are well taken, Dugger.
America has been treated to a lesson on the constitution and government, as partially reflected in your paragraph 2. Have we not witnessed the perfect application of “checks and balances?” As a result of the President acting ineffectively and weak in foreign affairs towards Russia – the imbalance – Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass legislation to deal with Russia effectively and with strength – the check to the counterbalance. At least that’s some semblance of order.
So, too, although one wishes that Mueller was a magician and could act quicker, the fact that there is a Mueller – a life long long Republican – with 16 of the some of the best lawyers and investigators in the country doing the work that’s necessary in a most complex matter, gives much credit to our system.
Although Republicans have been like paralyzed snails in their reaction to Trump, there has been movement and I would not be surprised to see many of them do the right thing when and if push comes to shove on various fronts.
These may be famous last words, but as it stands now, Trump has never been weaker and Muller has never been in a stronger position, which means that witnesses will be less timid about cooperating with Mueller’s team which is a critical part of an investigation at this time.
I always thought that James Woods was a reasonably bright, person from his acting portrayals, but like Trump – on screen prompter presence is no guarantee of what’s going on in their heads – if anything.
Anyone that believes Trump is a patriot (beyond any Trump only defined way), or really serving his country for free – or intellectually capable of serving – is completely unfamiliar with Fred Trump and his off spring’s – Donald’s history and their common backgrounds. Or, Donald and his family present record of profiting at every turn from the Office of President’s connections and perks.
The good news is that Hollywood’s historic stereotyping as a bunch of left wing flakes – now has some serious competition from serious right wing flakes. Thank you Mr. Woods for helping correct the impression of this flaky partisan imbalance.
Good stuff guys, the real test for elected republicans is coming, many influential republicans have already either left the party or walked on trump months ago. Almost all politicians D/R/I will NOT do anything until they have to or forced to. Soon those elected Republicans will be in a position to choose between country or $$$$ and it freaks them out. They don’t want to lose their far right/crazy voters and they probably will because you KNOW trump/bannon/jones/levin/many more will NOT go quietly into “this good night”. Trump is holding the republican party hostage in a very bad nightmare possibly for years to come and they only have themselves to blame.
They have to know by now the longer this goes the worse it is going to get. If they think “Mein Fuhrer” is going to weather this they will go down with him. Mueller is “bigly big time” and trump’s a “two bit crook” full of himself, who would you bet on if you were the republicans???? I would impeach him right now and get it over with, but they won’t not until they have to.