Contrary to the way the words stupid and ignorant are used, they are not synonymous. Stupid means one is incapable of learning. Ignorant means one doesn’t know something but has the ability to learn.
Donald J. Trump is stupid. Combine that with narcissism, misogynism, paranoia, lying and infantilism and you have a dangerous psychotic person.
Trump knows nothing about governing or being president and shows that every day. He doesn’t know what is in the US Constitution and hasn’t the foggiest notion of what the rule of law is (as much as that has been abused and chipped away) and is incapable of learning.
Was it his narcissism that possessed him to run for president? One thing for sure is he is a con man extraordinaire. He conned people rightfully fed up with the status quo into believing he was a successful businessman—a billionaire who was “going to drain the swamp” and make things right for the people—and voting for him.
He drained the swamp all right—of the people who know the rule of law, the Constitution and how to govern and more keep fleeing his administration every day. Then he refilled the swamp with billionaires, millionaires—especially right-wing ideologues—and generals who know nothing about governing.
Despite the corporate media constantly referring to him as a real estate mogul, such a successful businessman he is not. He didn’t tell or remind the people of his failures and bankruptcies—other than bragging about how smart he was about the bankruptcies. (See chart below.) Nor did he tell them about failing to pay contractors who did work for him. He refuses to release his tax returns, so we don’t know if he’s a millionaire much less a billionaire. We do know he has borrowed millions of dollars.
He doesn’t just lie, he tells whoppers. And when he’s caught out on them, he doubles and triples down—e.g., the size of his inaugural crowd and three million illegal votes that deprived him of winning the popular vote. In June, The New York Times ran a full page of Trump’s lies.
Kellyanne Conway, the current counselor to the president, called the lies “alternative facts.” Alternative facts for Trump and Co. who live in an alternative reality.
Trump calls every major news outlet, with the exception of Fox News, “fake news.” He hammers away on Twitter and every public appearance about “fake news” when he doesn’t like what has been reported. He reportedly even suggested the First Amendment’s freedom of the press provision should be amended so he can sue for libel.
Not knowing how to make policy or deal with Congress, Trump spends his time watching Fox News, tweeting away contradicting his spokespeople, dropping a bombshell on the Pentagon about transgenders in the military (with a 9-minute delay between his first partial tweet and the second, he had the Joint Chiefs jittery that he was going to call for war), ranting about some slight, whining no one loves him, cajoling, threatening, insulting, blocking people who disagree with him or mock his petulant behavior. He spends taxpayer money running around the country on feel-good trips to feed his base more lies about jobs, etc., going to campaign rallies for what he thinks will be his 2020 re-election, and playing golf.
Then there is the matter of violence. Trump called for violence against Hillary Clinton and Trump protesters during the campaign, even offering to pay legal costs of anyone arrested for assaulting protesters. Of course, he denies he did that but the video doesn’t lie.
To hear him tell it, the streets of America are running red with blood, thanks to murderous undocumented immigrants and radical extremist Islamists. In a speech Friday in Brentwood, Long Island, about MS-13 gang violence, he disgracefully called for police to act more brutally, “When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don’t be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over. Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody. Don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?” So if you’re arrested, there is no presumption of innocence in Trump’s “alternative reality.” Just toss and bash you for the ride to jail—or maybe even shoot you if you verbally protest such treatment.
But that wasn’t enough for Trump. He had another go at the laws and judges: “The laws are so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years, they’ve been made to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal. Not the officers. You do something wrong, you’re in more jeopardy than they are. These laws are stacked against you. We’re changing those laws. But in the meantime, we need judges for the simplest thing, things that you should be able to do without a judge, but we have to have those judges quickly.”
Perhaps he can be forgiven, since he’s stupid, for not realizing the ramifications of the things he says or does, such as signing executive orders that he hasn’t read, but the cabal, a.k.a. cabinet, he has surrounded himself with can’t. They are just greedy, ideological mercenaries out to destroy anything beneficial to the people or the planet for their own and their friends’ profit.
The question is how much more of these antics can we and the world take?
Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report. Email her at editor@intrepidreport.com.
I sincerely believe that more than being governed by a psychotic man who lives in the world of “alternative facts,” we are being ruled by a man with a psychopathic personality… and so, I point you to this copy of the handout on the psychopathic personality dated May 21, 2014 published by the Oregon Counseling.Org:
http://www.oregoncounseling.org/Handouts/PsychopathicPersonality.htm
In my mind and observation, Donald Trump hits most, if not all, of the markers which point to a psychopathic personality.
Donald Trump is a clear and present danger not just to this country but to the world as well …
While I might feel sorry for him, I don’t think I can forgive him for the damage he is doing to this country … and I still don’t know how to put my feelings in words for all of those like this General Kelly and others who just simply out of ignorance, malice, greed for power, claims to higher intelligence, answers to a call to serve, or whatever their reasons for aiding and abetting Donald J. Trump’s presidency.
(I’d heard over the media glowing good reports about this General Kelly[just like the media hype just like the hype the media has put out for all the other Generals in the Trump administration, and I wondered, "well, maybe," to the point that I almost got duped ...], but then yesterday during the AM Joy program I saw clips of the General previously sticking up for some of Trump’s surreal ideas and/or of the General offering up inane ideas of his own .. and I thought … ” hmm .. not all that glitters is gold, nor is this the kind of person I could trust to steer anything free from the trump insanity we are being governed by.”
Maybe I can forgive the voters, like my son, who were duped into voting for Trump (but who is now seeing the error of his way.) Maybe I could forgive my two cousins who also voted for him — but I cannot forgive them right now, not right now: they are still stuck inside a hardened shell which seems to have no penetration to the error of their ways. Just as I cannot forgive the media for hyping the virtues of a man who has none because he really is a shallow, promiscuous, impulsive man who has absolute no self control, who fails to take responsibility for his own actions, who blames others and who, has a criminal history all his own.
Gaslighter Trump is aided and abetted by the media that repeats every gaslighting tweet that he writes. The media are responsible for this gaslighter we have sitting in the White House.
Gaslighter Trump is up to full speed. Trump continues to gaslight (lying to manipulate perception of his actions). Gaslighting is a psychological tool aimed to make people doubt reality. One of his methods is to label any negative reporting as “fake news”. His lying is not mere BS; it is designed to make too many people doubt what they know. If he can arouse uncertainty, then he has succeeded.
I have been reading your columns daily for several years with much appreciation, especially as they give a balance to those news agencies favoring Donald Trump. Having lived in America for forty years in five different states and outside its borders for twenty five years in seven countries my perspective may offer insight.
First, it is impossible to be stupid to become POTUS. Retards need not apply. It is very possible to be purchased, out maneuvered, and manipulated. Trump is subject to the American plutocratic tradition of the so-called deep state. Our elections are jubilees not opportunities for serious power sharing. Sinc President Kennedy´s assassination all presidents have been subject to the whims of their benefactors. All are subject to non-transparent power players.
For this reason I don’t vote. Living outside the USA and somewhat free of the mass media frenzy characteristic of American society has afforded me the above-mentioned perspective.
In El Salvador where I have lived for many years, the homicide rate is among the world´s highest. The MS-13 has its origins in this land and their presence is everywhere. Four murders out of a population of 300,000 occur here every day in the city where I reside of and life goes on. On the other had in 2013 four people died as a result of bombings in Boston during a marathon in a city of almost 3,000,000. The media hysteria was incredible.
This comparison illustrates how indicative it is to put things in perspective. What hidden agendy required such media frenzy other than an excuse to increase police budgets, test security infrastructure and observe reactive public opinion. Terrorism and crime are poorly defined and understood. Let´s look at a serious societal menace that has equally been obscured regarding the MS-13 Latin American gang.
Had the United States provided adequate refugee visas for fleeing refugees from a war it sponsored in the 1980s, the Salvador gangs would not have formed in Los Angeles. In 1989 hundreds of thousands fled the final offensive on the capital city of San Salvador and descended onto the overly crowded Mexican barrios who fought back the refugee intruders with the 18th Street gang, forcing Salvadoran kids to band into the Mara Salvatrucha (MS).
Equally foolish was the policy to categorically deport them (my nephew included) back to a land ripe for further street warfare development. Here they learned how to organize internationally by running human and other contraband back north. They have expanded to Europe and Australia. Short sighted foreign policy decisions combined with band aid solutions to the migration issues have only confuse most Americans because their government has withheld the complete scorecard.
Showing Trumps scores without showing Hilary´s offers little perspective because her husband was involved in much consequential policy making. You can prove anything by telling only one side of the story. I would rather that your opinions reflect the commercial interests that supported both Hillary and Trump´s campaigns. For example China, Russia, and Iran are joining up to open transcontinental initiative called the New Silk Road (BRI) with openings for Western capital, yet this may conflict with American trade with its maritime base. The military industrial complex provides another area of rivalry, which requires having bad guys in order to get billions of dollars appropriated. These concerns and others have been pulling the political strings for the past year. The propaganda, on the other hand, has been releasing distracters such as Russia Hacking and the Clinton Foundation. Throw in a little misogyny and misandry for more diversion so Americans could feed on the games rather participate in the show, and the whole season sold a lot of adverting while covering up serious concerns such as nuclear holocaust. Last year’s election was a classic example of American banality and vulgarity and shed s insight into how we continue to be patronized by identity politics.
Regarding health care here which costs about one tenth of stateside prices. One solution is to radically increase the number of medical schools in the United States and have the government subsidize them. The city where I live has 3 eight year long medical schools. El Salvador has 7 total for a population of 6,000,000. Compare ratios with the US population of 300,000,000 supported by 171 medical schools; or a rogue state such as Cuba which has 14 medical schools for 11,000,000 people. The American ratio is half of these small countries. Graduating more doctors would force competition and reduce clinical prices. Savvy Americans are overcoming the myth of inferior Latin American health care. Medical tourism is on the rise as many have stepped into the light that the AMA does not have a monopoly on quality control. Politicians continue to spin this and that about health care reform two steps instead of providing universal health care which would restore some national dignity.
Talk about totalitarian government, our scores on incarceration show first place for freedom deprivation. Is it possible that in the land of the free that more people per population are behind bars per population than the dark and dreary DPRK. My two year stint with the Florida Department of Corrections showed the hypocrisy behind due process. Being pulled over in the States is increasingly becoming lethal as our country´s internal security agencies become militarized and trigger happy. The federal laws governing searches in State of Maine where I am from, allow for extensive invocation of search policies in the name of immigration control and national security due to its ample international borders and Atlantic coast. The adage that one should not fear car searches if one has done nothing wrong borders on abysmal naivety. Police will plant contraband in your car whenever needed. Period.
In order for sunshine to reach over to the dark side where today´s Americans find themselves, they must reprioritize values in general such as the right not to be shot on sight or become hostage to a pernicious third party pay health care system while remembering that the greatest threat to human rights are the brinkmanship actors in the nuclear proliferation game. If three hundred 10 megaton warheads find strategic targets the next world war will be fought with sticks and stones as Albert Einstein once commented.
I will continue to peruse your website as I have learned a lot. I do encourage use to modify your coverage of partisan politics regarding Trump. Consider if Pence came on board would that seriously provide relief from those who really call the shots
There are two good aspects of Trump’s presidency: He is not Hillary Clinton and he has thrown his party of social parasites and know-nothings into complete chaos (which might cause it to lose its congressional majorities in the mid-term elections). It might be better to suffer the national shame of his “leadership” for a while than to replace him with Pence who perhaps might unify and give direction to the far-right that dominates the congress and the judiciary, not to mention most state governments. Additionally, I wonder to what degree Trump is able to independently decide anything. The number of about-faces he has made suggests that he might be quite helpless.
The BBC has just reported that Trump’s Chief of Staff Kelly (appointed a week ago) has just fired Communications Director Scaramucci (appointed ten days ago). We might wonder who is running this Punch and Judy show.