Trump. Who else? A terrible president and even a worse person, he has no equal in ineptitude. I have never met Trump and would not answer the front door if he stood there knocking, but how can one avoid knowing his loathsome flaws that are broadcast daily by the fourth estate. So much has been reported about him that some days it seems impossible to find a story that is not Trump-centric. It follows that most people cannot stop gawking at a train wreck. And, of course, it is impossible to ignore a pile of poo on top of the kitchen table. Only natural to focus on such things before being overcome by a strong urge to scurry to the toilet and throw up. Or laugh. Or cry. One would need to sidestep all news outlets in order to avoid seeing, hearing, or reading about Trump. Ugh. He is a toothache that won’t go away, an all-consuming throbbing that, for the moment, guarantees nothing but pain for the whole world. And to think—he enjoys being reviled. As long as everyone looks at him, listens to him, focuses on him, his masochistic need, an insatiable capacity to be the center of attention, is fulfilled. He is a modern-day Richard III with a measure of Falstaff and a touch of Iago, not to mention a skoosh of Lucio the fop. In other words, he is power-hungry, comical, evil, and driven by lies and foolishness.
Is he really the worst ever? Yup, well, probably not, but perhaps so. I have met tens of thousands of folks over my lifetime. But only two people I judge to be less worthy to serve as leader of the free world, I mean less worthy than Donald Trump. One was a mouth-breather, a middle-aged, uneducable man whose I.Q. could not have been much higher than a portabella mushroom. The other was a prisoner at McNeil Island penitentiary, a chronic criminal who had more tattoos than words in his vocabulary. Come to think, either of those two may well surpass Trump in the role as president if given a keen support staff, something Trump lacks. Perhaps Trump has a few intellectual advantages over subject #1 and a wider vocabulary over subject #2, but there are other important attributes when considering the make-up of a leader.
Shall we consider the salient features of Trump’s character?
He is an angry man as well as a racist (well documented). He is arrogant (one needs no documentation to observe his Mussolini-esque pomposity and condescending smirk). He is a misogynist, a braggart, and a liar (he prefers to grab women by their private parts and then brag about it before denying any such thing). He is vengeful and avaricious (ask anyone at all). He is emotionally unstable (he said of himself, “I think [I] qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!”). He is immoral (think of the seven deadly sins). He is not a reader; in fact, he is semi-literate (he claims to be a TV guy). His writing is burdened with spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors (check his daily tweets). He is a narcissist (boy, is he ever). He loves grandiosity (observe his bad taste in most of his over-the-top properties). He has no ethical balance (no ethics at all, in fact). He is unkind (witness how he treats people). He is impulsive (one never knows what he will do next). He is cruel (separating parents from their children probably qualifies as cruelty). He is undiplomatic (“He’s a nutcase….”). He is dishonest (even the most honest sources he deems to be ‘fake’). He stiffs people who do jobs for him (long history on this account).
On the other side of the ledger (might be seen as positive), we find the following.
He knows how to use wealth and influence to persuade people and generate a subservient following. He does what all good tub-thumpers do: rile up hoi polloi. This dubious skill has worked brilliantly and continues to hold promise. Also, his bloated ego affords him a shameless following among those who have little or no self-regard, those who will gladly follow the piper down the center of main street as they all march toward the swamp. Ironically, his larger-than-life dreadfulness attracts people in the same way that public executions used to summon forth all the townspeople.
It still puzzles me how we got to this moment in American history. But here we are devolving, most of us slightly sick as we breathe the air downwind of the dump. I mean Trump.