At casual glance, this blog may appear to be a political blog—and a Democratic blog at that. It's not.
This blog is about bizarre human behavior. It just turns out the name Donald J. Trump comes up a lot.
Like right now.
After he met with the President of Mexico (and while he was still in country), Donald Trump spoke softly and respectfully about our neighbor to the south. When asked, he said they had discussed the Wall, but the question of who pays for it would be left to another day. For his part, the President of Mexico said he told Trump in no uncertain terms Mexico would not be paying for that Wall.
Agree to disagree, okay?
An hour or sos later Trump was back in America—and back in scream-mode—describing how he's going to kick every last illegal Mexican out of this country, starting with those who take the name "illegal immigrant" to heart and start committing crimes beyond that of simply crossing the border without permission.
Eventually, all illegals will have to go, although Trump hints that a level of "softening" might be possible. It's not clear what that might be. Perhaps illegals could go to a Mexican consulate and apply for a legal visa. In time, those vetted ("extreme vetting!") might return to their homes in America and find themselves on a path to citizenship. But those who remain here illegally cannot, under any circumstances, become citizens.
Maybe something like that, who knows. Trump is moving the pieces around in his head, messing with the language. What he knows for sure, it will get done and it will be great.
A lot of his plans are like that: Vague references to "action" followed by success like you're never going to believe. But believe, okay? It's going to happen!
Trump has lately been making appeals to black Americans, where his support hovers around one percent. He says their lives are crap, they have no homes or jobs, their schools are a joke.
"What the hell have you got to lose?" says Trump.
Because he's going to fix all that, starting on Day One when he takes the oath of office.
It's going to be a very busy day!
According to Trump, starting on Day One all lawlessness in this country will cease. By decree, I would imagine.
(One way you could do that would be to abolish all laws. I think they made a movie about that.)
Trump reminds black Americans they're getting shot at in the streets of their cities—especially Chicago.
Trump's going to fix that, too. Somehow.
The other day he was talking to Bill O'Reilly, saying he'd met a powerful police leader in Chicago, the fellow saying he could fix all that shooting in the streets in one week. O'Reilly asked, How? We didn't get into that, Trump said. Oh, really?
Trump did apparently get in touch with the mayor's office and recommend they hire this go-getter police commander. The city later said Trump had never met with any of their police leaders.
(Maybe Trump was actually on the set of Chicago PD, talking to the hard-driving—and corrupt—leader of the Intelligence Squad. Fixing the gun problem in one week sounds like something that guy might say.)
It's not really that odd he failed to get the details of that cop's plan to fix the problem of street shooting. Trump, after all, has his own plans.
Which brings us back to the Day One business.
Maybe Trump will unhorse his legendary leadership ability to solve the myriad of problems facing his (theoretical) new presidency.
His leadership style is apparently to point at various people in his employ and say: "Get on it!"
For Trump, it's enough to be aware of a problem. He then nods at somebody and the problem vanishes.
This technique eliminates the bugaboo of providing detailed plans for the solution of problems.
When Mitt Romney was running for president, he said his keenly-honed business sense would be sufficient to set the country's economy right again. I imagined it would be like extending his "business" hand and grasping America in that special (and secret) grip, maybe tickle the nation's pudendum with a spare finger, and all would fall into place.
That's confidence, baby!
Aspirants to the office of president often have secret plans to fix the nation's woes, plans that can only see the light of day after the candidate is voted into power.
After all, why marry the cow if you can get the milk for free. Presidential hopefuls have little faith in the gratefulness of American voters.
Trump says he's going to make life for black Americans so good that by the end of his first term he'd have 95% of them voting for another term.
But isn't that a bit risky? Can Trump get elected in the first place with only one percent of blacks?
Maybe he should get that Chicago cop's one-week plan to end gun violence and apply it right now. Even if it took a whole month to work, Trump could surely count on better than one percent of blacks to vote for him in November. It'd be the least they could do, right?
C'mon, Trump, what the hell have you got to lose?
The candidate implies that if Barack Obama, a black president, didn't fix all the problems black Americans have, it can only be because he was unaware of the problems (ignorant)—or he was incompetent.
(Or maybe Obama was too busy inventing ISIS.)
Trump only has to be aware of a problem to fix it, and he has demonstrated his awareness of a number of problems besetting this country.
Consider them fixed, people.
Trump has unending confidence in his ability to get stuff done. Point at him, and he'll point at his people, tell 'em to get to work.
In his acceptance speech, Trump said he's the only one who can fix this country. If his method works (point at his guys and say "go"), then he may be right.
Point and shoot with his magic finger.
(They may be stubby, but they're powerful!)
But if that finger holds no magic, all Trump's pointing will come to naught. Then he'd have to scramble to come up with real plans to fix things.
Where's the fun in that?
The thing is, Trump is so supremely confident he will only find out he's powerless after he takes office and actually tries to get things done.
That's a crisis of confidence we'd all have to suffer.
No comments:
Post a Comment