If we’ve learned anything from the government shutdown, it’s that Donald Trump is not in fact the legendary “dealmaker” he boasted about on the campaign trail. In fact, the last 12 months have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Donald Trump couldn’t “negotiate” his way out of a wet paper bag. Everyone who knows the history of Trump the businessman could have told you that going in. His business “career” is a standing joke. 98% myth, 1% exaggeration, and (maybe) 1% reality. Almost nothing he did in business worked out. Just look it up. He’s been sued innumerable times, he’s driven multiple ventures straight off a cliff into bankruptcy and according to some folks, he would actually be worth more today had he simply put his inheritance in a balanced index fund and never touched it.
So it comes as no surprise that he’s been an abject failure when it comes to negotiating anything and the fact that he’s a political neophyte only makes the situation that much worse. But the real problem here is probably this: he’s not very smart. The people around him (like say, Stephen Miller) know that, so they manipulate him. Steve Bannon did it until circumstances (read: Charlottesville) conspired to make his presence at 1600 Penn. untenable and his generals have done it to from time to time when they thought it was necessary.
Because Trump has no actual principles and because he’s generally ignorant, his views are malleable – and not in a good way. Instead of allowing his stance on issues to evolve according to what sane people tell him, he listens to the people within the administration who effectively use his own campaign rhetoric against him by making him believe that if he deviates from bombastic jingoism, he’ll be seen as weak by his base.
Trump the ignorant narcissist, left to his own devices, can actually be reasoned with simply because he doesn’t care enough about anyone other than himself to think too hard about anything. But once people like Stephen Miller (and the good folks at Fox) get in his ear, the whole thing falls apart. If you’re on the outside looking in (like say, if you’re a Chuck Schumer or, on the GOP side, a Lindsey Graham) you’re left wondering what the fuck happened between the last time you talked to him and what he subsequently says and tweets.
So that brings us to the following video which finds Chuck Schumer trying his best to tell America what’s actually going on here. Ultimately, he calls Trump a piece of Jell-O.
And before you roll your eyes at that, do note that what Schumer is saying is completely consistent with what Lindsey Graham said this week and what multiple other GOP lawmakers have said over the past year. Namely this: it is impossible to negotiate with Trump because he is a simpleton who is being manipulated by people who are fucking crazy.
Again, that is an undeniably accurate assessment. It fits precisely with what virtually everyone has said about the Trump White House since he was inaugurated.
Meanwhile, just to give you an idea of how far Fox and the White House are willing to go in terms of distorting reality, listen to Hogan Gidley literally describe Donald Trump as “a real-life Superman”:
Nothing further.
“Believe me, trust me, and take it from me,” a guy who knows negotiations.
Donald Trump doesn’t know the art of negotiations or how to conduct negotiations. What he may know to do is dictate terms to a weak adverse party, or to cheat and lie to an adverse party that he dupes, or perhaps Donald may tell Barron he did really really well by duping, cheating and or lying but in fact the adverse party got the better of Donald.
Failing to pay someone that Donald had a contract with and then forcing them to sue Donald to recover and then settling for 40% on the dollar is not negotiating. It’s a bullying tactic, which doesn’t render Donald a good negotiator. It renders him what we all know him to be:
A scumbag. A thug. A guy who I bet 100 to 1, studied the montreal assessment test* for days or weeks, before he suggested to Dr. Ronny, (you know? the one he had seen every day of the year up to that point) that he give the Prez that test so he would pass it with flying colors. Yeah, the Honorable Donald! But, Ronny, an ER doc and Internist, and not a psychiatrist, should listen to people who know, like Drs. Bandy X. Lee and Norman Eisen, a forensic psychiatrist and a government ethicist, who state that Ronny gave his patient only a brief screen,
“used to determine whether additional testing is needed for cognitive or Alzheimer’s issues. Here, there are already ample indicators that additional testing is indicated, and the results prove little more than the limitations of a single simple screen. Better tests for intricate frontal lobe function include the California Verbal Learning Test, the Stroop Test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and others. An MRI or PET scan would also have been helpful. And this is just on the neurological side. It does not even touch the psychological side, where urgent concerns also lie and an assessment should have been done starting with a full history and standardized battery of testing. Experts have, furthermore, been calling for a capacity evaluation to determine Trump’s ability to function in his position, regardless of diagnosis.”**
Well, now, like I’ve been saying: Donald is as crazy as a cockroach and the idea that he can negotiate the term of a deal that’s under consideration is as hilarious as it is tragic. It is why he always, always, always, tells congress to do the work and bring it to him for him to sign. He doesn’t want to talk about details because he cannot talk about them even if he tried his very very best.
Senator Schumer, Donald’s brain is Jell-O, that’s why it’s like talking to Jello-O.
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*http://dementia.ie/images/uploads/site-images/MoCA-Test-English_7_1.pdf
** https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/trumps-mental-fitness-experts-silenced-public-dark-bandy-lee-norman-eisen-column/1043765001/