Friday, October 12, 2018

Another Inconvenient Truth


         I recently saw a response in a Facebook thread in which someone opined that all presidents are narcissists, but they just hid it better that Trump. This is an incredibly lame, but typical, defense of the utterly indefensible. I was no fan of "W" 's political agenda (or the one he was led into by his neocon staffers) but "narcissist?" Hardly. In fact, I'm fairly sure spelling that word was beyond his reach. This sort of "but what about (insert Progressive target here)” is the infantile equivalent of, "But, Timmy did it, why can't I?"  One more concrete example of the illogic represented here: A narcissist insists on attacking their attackers, asserting their own superiority and craving adulation from the masses and, especially, their own family. Think about that for a moment.  None of the Presidents all the way back to Truman has ever done that, yet Trump does it daily.

        It is one of the wonders of the modern world, at least to me, that Trump's defenders will rarely defend his actions, choosing instead to condemn the actions and ideals of others.  How lame is it to support a man about whom there is nothing good to say? I have asked numerous times in public forums that those who revere Donald Trump take a moment and sit down and make a list of the policies he has pursued and why you like/support them. Not one person has ever offered more than a generality in response, but many choose instead to flail away at persons who have been out of politics for years.

          I believe the reason for the above is the ugly and generally unstated approval of the worst of Trump.  Begin with his racism - you know the thing you labelled Barack Obama with although he never showed a hint of it? Of course, to bigots, urging true racial equality and equal treatment before the law IS racist. This pathetic truth should shame us as a nation.  Continue with the Evangelicals considering Trump a righteous, even “God chosen” man, even though he hasn't seen the inside of a church other than for his serial trophy wife weddings. These are the same folks who slandered Barack Obama, who actually was a church going believer and raised his children that way. Segue into the subject of immigration, ignoring the fact that the Obama administration returned more undocumenteds every year of his second term than Trump has. That last, irrespective of the blatant differences between their attitudes and approaches to the issue.

         Add to that his appeal to those men who compensate for their tiny apparatus by “slut shaming”  the women they assault for sex or to exorcise their anger issues. Even more pitiful, add those women who for some indeterminable reason, fawn over Trump, apparently believing that whatever happens to them does so because they deserve it and weren’t “submissive” enough. Add in a large measure of disdain for the natural environment, choosing instead to encourage the continued mining and burning of “Clean, beautiful (and demonstrably carcinogenic) coal” as a fuel because it might get votes in Kentucky.

          Then reflect on the damage done to our relations with the rest of the world by a foreign policy so poorly though out that the Secretary of State after calling the President “a moron” resigned in disgust. Add a heaping helping of blatant ignorance in the field of economics which has led to trade wars, the result of which have yet to really hit home.
Almost done:  Wake the hell up and look at the real numbers which show that what Trump has claimed as his economic “miracle” was already well underway when he took office.

        And last but by no means least, if you are a Trump supporter, have the honesty and self-awareness to consider what your response would have been if Barack Obama had invited Kanye West to the White House. You would have exploded with insults and outrage. Trump does so, convening a meeting of the delusional and malignant narcissist club, and while we all know your racism makes you hate West for his color, vice his simply being an arrogant asshole (like you know who), you remain strangely silent. This failure to be able to deal with reality verges on mental illness.  

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