Lost in Thursday’s “shithole” shitstorm was a Wall Street Journal interview with Donald Trump that happened to hit around the same time as the Washington Post article detailing the President’s “tough” language on Latin and African immigrants.
As you’re probably aware, the Journal (and more specifically, Gerard Baker) has been variously criticized for adopting an absurdly biased editorial line when it comes to Trump. According to multiple reports, that’s sparked a veritable “civil war” at the paper.
One particularly egregious episode involved Baker actually taking the byline on a Trump interview, a decision that was variously lampooned by other media outlets. You can read the full story on that here.
The issue for Baker when it comes to Trump interviews is that there’s no disguising the crazy, no matter how bad you want to and Thursday’s interview was no exception.
There was this on Kim Jong-Un (with whom Trump is engaged in an ongoing war of words that threatens to escalate into a literal nuclear at the drop of a tweet):
I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un. I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised.
There was this on whether he still thinks Mexico is going to pay for the border wall:
They can pay for it indirectly through Nafta.
Asked if he could definitively say that he would never patch things up with Steve Bannon, Trump said he doesn’t know what words are:
I don’t know what the word permanent means.
And then there was Trump explaining how his combative tweets are actually the way he makes friends. He claimed that while he could only cite 20 examples of this strategy working, “you” could cite 30:
You’ll see that a lot with men. And then all of the sudden somebody’s my best friend. I could give you 20 examples. You could give me 30. I’m a very flexible person.
Yes, Trump is “a very flexible person.” A “flexible,” “stable”, “genius.”
But as batshit as all of those quotes (which appear in the edited version of the interview) are, the full transcript is straight up, padded cell nuts.
Asked by the Journal if he believes Kim is “trying to drive a wedge between America and South Korea,” Trump initially said he’d have to “let [the Journal] know within the next 12 months” (as if that answer makes any kind of sense in the context of the question), but unable to help himself, he elaborated as follows:
The difference is I’m president; other people aren’t. And I know more about wedges than any human being that’s ever lived, but I’ll let you know.
Pressed for more color on how Mexico is definitely not going to pay for the wall, Trump had this to say:
Let me, let me tell you something about the wall. So I’ve always said we have to have a wall. I’ve also said Mexico’s got to pay for it–sometimes you know on occasion, I’d add who’s going to pay for it? Mexico. Well they will pay for it, OK? There are many forms of payment. I could name 10 right now. There are many forms of payment.
The other thing…so the wall. The wall’s never meant to be 2,100 miles long. We have mountains that are far better than a wall, we have violent rivers that nobody goes near.
If you have a wall this thick and it’s solid concrete from ground to 32 feet high which is a high wall, much higher than people planned. You go 32 feet up and you don’t know who’s over here. You’re here, you’ve got the wall and there’s some other people here.
I don’t have to because the wall is the same wall I’ve always talked about. I can understand why I have to have see-through.
If I’m standing here, I want to be able to see 200 yards out. I want to be able to see, I don’t want to have a piece of concrete that I can’t see.
This is going to be state of the art wall; this will be state of the art. But, I can fully understand why you’d have to have vision. I’d like to be able to see three or four hundred yards instead of we’re at a wall we have no idea who’s on the other side. Does this make sense or am I just wasting my time.
Here is the Journal’s one-word response to that: “Yes.”
The highlight of the whole thing comes when the Journal asks Trump “why he thinks it is” that he gets such bad press. Here is Trump’s answer, verbatim:
They dislike me, the liberal media dislikes me. I mean I watch people–I was always the best at what I did, I was the–I was, you know, I went to the–I went to the Wharton School of Finance, did well. I went out, I–I started in Brooklyn, in a Brooklyn office with my father, I became one of the most successful real-estate developers, one of the most successful business people. I created maybe the greatest brand.
I then go into, in addition to that, part-time, like five percent a week, I open up a television show. As you know, the Apprentice on many evenings was the number one show on all of television, a tremendous success. It went on for 12 years, a tremendous success. They wanted to sign me for another three years and I said, no, I can’t do that.
That’s one of the reasons NBC hates me so much. NBC hates me so much they wanted–they were desperate to sign me for–for three more years.
Just–and so–so I was successful, successful, successful. I was always the best athlete, people don’t know that. But I was successful at everything I ever did and then I run for president, first time–first time, not three times, not six times. I ran for president first time and lo and behold, I win. And then people say oh, is he a smart person? I’m smarter than all of them put together, but they can’t admit it. They had a bad year.
So you know, when you read all of that, you might be inclined to think that this is a person who should be institutionalized. But before you jump to any conclusions, just remember that Trump is “smarter than all of [you] put together, but [you] can’t admit it.”
“we have violent rivers that nobody goes near”
The Rio Grande makes for some fine white watering.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Rio_Grande_in_Big_Bend_NP.jpg/1280px-Rio_Grande_in_Big_Bend_NP.jpg
Don’t forget the Colorado River, which did have water in it for a few days in 2014.
It’s wonderful that we have a president with knowledge of surface water resources as Zinke seeks to “streamline” DOI.
“I’ms the best athlete, the smartest person, always successful”—Donald Gump
Even calm water can be violent. Swim the Rio Grande and swallow a few mouthfuls and you’ll learn the meaning of “violent” – violent intestinal cramps. It gets worse in the fall when rains wash high concentrations of coli-forms in runoff into the Rio Grande, its tributaries – arroyos, and the storm sewers of the proximate towns. Yet the Rio Grande hasn’t limited border crossings and neither will a “32 foot high” fence – that desperate people will go under, over and or through. Trump’s limited imagination, limited knowledge of border breaching and coupled with his inability to accept his mistaken perceptions, and or reassess and change them – isn’t going to change. He will persist with his “fools wall.”
Trump isn’t a genius, he isn’t smart, not even close – because his range of learning and knowledge is far too limited as he self-demonstrates publicly and daily. Trump is obviously shrewd within the very limited environments he controls with his leveraged wealth and power. Even then he isn’t even a savant – unless you consider his world class ability to straight face lie repeatedly – then lie in denying it.
It is hard to decide whether Trump is just and only clinically insane – because it’s hard to tell where his paranoia, Self-Injury Disorder, and delusions of grandeur stop (his diagnosis of schizophrenia is questionable because it turns out the voices he was hearing – were mostly just Steve Bannon) and where his basic illiteracy and learning orders begin. Further mental pathology diagnosis is largely confused by some other obvious mental structural problems. For example – the “wiring” problems between his speech center (inability to form intelligible and grammatical/logical sentences), and his mouth – and especially his brain’s decision making inability to decide when it’s in his own best interest to keep his mouth shut.
His Self-Injury Disorder pathologies extend to his inability to recognize and learn how his sociopathic statements (“shit hole countries” for example) harm his own agendas and further reduce any chance of his being accursed of being “sane” or “smart.” However, his Self-Injury Disorder is blurred with life long, controlled and pampered existence – where his inheritance based wealth allowed him to dictate what “true” was – as opposed to be forced into cognizant analysis on his part. This limited him from having any practiced and or reinforced critical thinking skills. The process of “decreeing the truth,” also supports his massive denial problems. So, when he makes mistakes – he simply denies them and lies that they don’t exist. This is a major problem for Trump because it doesn’t allow him to recognize his mistakes and learn from them – and grow intellectually. Trump is certainly the greatest living example of someone being “a legend in his own mind.”
It’s even hard to judge Trump’s real “success” in that he constantly demonstrates (by lying and or taking credit for things for which he made no contributions) and that he is so extremely insecure about. Most believe that this is because of the inherited – wealth boosted leg-up given to him by his father. He was “smart” enough to hire at least some of the necessary business expertise (still didn’t prevent six bankruptcies credited to his lack of management) – people at least smart enough to generally continue to build on his inherited wealth – and arguably build the “Trump brand.” This being especially true among people that wanted to use him/his wealth and influence, and or had the same limited critical thinking skills as Trump.
Perhaps the best and most accurate assessment of Trump and his mental abilities lie somewhere between archaic terms of “buffoon” and “fool.” Insane, incompetent, or not – Trump unfortunately and historically has become the US’s most embarrassing “elected” President to ever step on the world leadership stage. The extent of that embarrassment and danger is just beginning.
More importantly Trump is an obvious demonstration of the abject failure of the US political party system and its for-profit campaign election industry. The 24/7 campaign cycle industry that Republicans and Democrats created, nourished, and whose members benefit from individually and collectively. The for-profit multi-billion dollar (7+ billion in 2016) campaign, election and parasitic political media industry – all of which that fail to provide the US voters with truthfully verified, qualified, competent and effective political candidates and or to insure they meet the Constitutional requirements of their elected offices – and the general expectations of US voters while they remain in office. It isn’t Trump that will destroy the US, he is only the messenger. The US’s inability to correct and adapt its political campaign and election system to a performance based and accountable system – is destroying the US from within – a task that it’s foreign enemies could never achieve.
Batsh*t,sh*thole, fu*king craaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.