Base in his motives and cruel in his targets
Richard Cohen at the Post explains Trump.
Trump does not possess an ounce of compassion. He is reptilian, knowing only to show his fangs, hiss and attack. This is why he mocked a physically disabled reporter for the New York Times, why he derided the heroism of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and why he dismissed the authenticity of the Khans, who had lost their son in Iraq.
This inability to feel the pain of others — even to acknowledge it — is not a minor tick in an otherwise good man. It is the salient characteristic of a sadist, of someone so wrapped up in himself that he has contempt for victims. Trump’s name for them is “losers.” They are the poor and the unlucky. They deserve what they get.
This is the heart of it. If it weren’t for this, the rest of it – the incompetence and stupidity and ignorance, the corruption and greed, the vulgar trashy crassitude – would still be horrendous, but not agonizing in the same way. It’s his hideous brutal meanness and cruelty and contempt for all other human beings that make us feel so degraded.
Trump is not a conservative nor a nationalist nor some reality show creation. He is a mean S.O.B., base in his motives and cruel in his targets and, until he won in November, unthinkable in American history — a brat in the Oval Office. He’s not man enough to throw an arm around a grieving widow. He disgraces his office and will be remembered by history as a lout. It is now a fate he cannot escape. Sorry, but he knew what he was signing up for.
But so did we. So did we.
And his followers voted for him because of all that, not in spite of it. They wanted the mean, cruel bully. That’s their vision of America being great – a vision the rest of us find deplorable. But when we point that out, we are the bad people.
Exactly right. Now what does that say about 63 million Americans?
Terrible things, hence the agony.
Actually, I think he had absolutely no idea what he was signing up for. At all.
I think his idea of being president included bossing absolutely anyone in the country around, whenever he wanted to, and having them actually do whatever his whim dictated with no backtalk or resistance. And
gurninggrinning and waving at the cameras so that everyone would see him, and love him. And that was it.I think he had no idea that there would be advisers who everyone seemed to expect him to listen to because they all thought those people knew more than he did. Or that he’d need to really, you know, work. Or that his whims could be nay-sayed. I don’t think he has the foresight to think about how history might interpret his presidency, except maybe beyond just assuming that everyone will think he was the best ever, because that’s what he thinks.
If he wasn’t as incompetent, stupid and ignorant as he is, he probably would have been smart enough not to run.
“If he wasn’t as incompetent, stupid and ignorant as he is, he probably would have been smart enough not to run.”
Millions upon millions of people are more qualified to be President than Trump simply because they actually know they are not qualified.
Including pretty nearly everyone on this site (I say pretty nearly, because I suspect there are some, including Ophelia, who would make damn good presidents, though some of them are disqualified by their total lack of planning that meant they were born somewhere else ;-)
Is Cohen having a sly dig at Trump’s ‘condolence’ call to the soldier’s widow?
Well I wouldn’t call it sly. He is of course throwing that back at Trump.
iknklast @ 6 – ME???? Oh god no.
It takes a huge long laundry list of qualities to do it well, really, and I totally lack far too many of them.
I appreciate the compliment though!
Certainly not me. I’d be a tyrant. A benevolent tyrant, but still a tyrant. I’m far to grouchy to even pretend patient with the part of the country that thinks Trump is/was the answer to anything other than “Who should be cast into a cess pit?”
Plus I planned to be born in a different country.
As a general rule of thumb, people who actively seek power are the very last people who should possess it, so Ophelia’s protestations in comment #9 above make her the ideal candidate for president.
Sorry, Ophelia, but look on the bright side; it can’t be that difficult; even Dubya managed it for eight years, albeit badly. The hardest part has to be in finding the people with the right qualifications and qualities to manage and staff the various agencies*; get them in place and you can’t fail.
*Because your nomination came from iknklast, may I suggest she gets the EPA job? I was going to nominate Rob for Culture, but he’s from New Zealand. That’s not to suggest that Antipodeans have a lack of culture, of course, I’m just not sure whether foreign nationals qualify for Secretarial positions.
A0S, this is possibly the first time NZ has been considered to have culture, beyond that found in dairy products. Of course we do, it’s just an acquired taste (also like some dairy products).
From Wikipedia…
Which I’m guessing would rule me out of: Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.
Still, I can be a faceless advisor to Ophelia – our new overlord.
Aha, so is Rob in the patch or in the cellar?
As long as he’s not under the damp patch in the cellar…
Rob,
You’re in luck. You don’t have to be eligible for the presidency to serve in Cabinet; the line of succession simply skips over you. For example, Henry Kissinger served as Secretary of State despite not being a natural born citizen; ditto for the present Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao.
I’m assuming you’d have to be a citizen, though, as a matter of getting confirmed. But perhaps President Benson can bestow that upon you.