Other than that it went well
Like Basil Fawlty, Trump just can’t get anything right, can he.
President Trump has an uncanny knack for making a mess of simple, traditional functions every other president has managed to carry out with ease. Talk to a child about Christmas? Yikes — a “marginal” disaster. Go to Europe to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I? He skips one event rather than wilt in the rain and sulks through another. The worst anti-Semitic massacre in U.S. history? He whines about getting his hair wet and keeps campaigning. Visit the troops (finally) in Iraq? Oh boy.
What, just because he compromised their security? Picky picky.
So on his belated, first visit to a war zone, Trump once more flubbed a routine presidential task, politicizing his speech(complete with partisan attacks on Democrats on his favorite topic, the border) and even signing “Make America Great Again” hats for the troops, despite regulations prohibiting military personnel from engaging in political events.
There was also that awkward thing where he talked to some soldiers on Christmas day but instead of really talking to them he ranted about…Comey and the “witch hunt” – in other words himself. “Hi thanksforyourservice now let’s talk about me.”
To make matters worse, he lied to the military men and women in attendance about the raise they received. ABC News reports:
“Is anybody here willing to give up the big pay raise you just got?” he surveyed the crowd. “Raise your hand please. Oh, I don’t see too many hands.”
He continued, citing numbers that have since been debunked and declared untrue.
“You haven’t gotten [a raise] in more than ten years,” he said. “And we got you a big one. I got you a big one.”
As the independent fact-checking site PolitiFact noted, the military has received a routine pay raise every year since at least 1961. The 2.4 percent increase that went into effect in 2018 was the largest since 2010, but they have continued apace every year.
Trump then falsely asserted that the pay increase was actually 10 percent, recounting phony conversations in which “plenty of people” tried to impose a smaller raise.
Hey, it’s called morale-boosting.
Granted, much of this posturing, preening and lying are for the consumption of his base, but does he really think that the troops are as shitty at math as he is?
WC Fields said “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” He might have added from beyond the grave to bring himself up to date “nor of Trump.”
@Omar,
Um, no.
In other words, Trump has lost the plot. I seriously think he may be on the autism spectrum. He should get himself checked out before he does some real damage.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/27/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trump-in-2019-the-year-of-reckoning
WC Fields said “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
H.L. Mencken
Why is it that we automatically assume people who have little knowledge or interest are on the autism spectrum? For many, this is not a disorder but simply the nature of their being. Nasty, brutish people who live totally by their own id are not necessarily autistic, though narcissism is a strong possibility.
So he claims it’s a 10% raise, the first in 10 years.
I suspect he was told it was the highest raise since 2010, and then as he was trying to repeat this he could only remember a “10” was involved but not exactly how, so he started making stuff up…
And it was a raise of ten dollars every ten hours or ten days or ten weeks or one of those…
Iknklast @#5:
I stress: a possibility (only).
Trump is such a narcissist that he is unlikely to take himself out and as many others as possible while in a fit of depression. But I think it worthy of consideration.
The man is an aberration in so many ways.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3676-einstein-and-newton-showed-signs-of-autism/
http://www.autism-help.org/points-%20aspergers-einstein-newton.htm
Omar – you do know the difference between W. C, Fields and H. L. Mencken don’t you?
@#5,#10:
If WC Fields did not say that, then he should have.
;-)
That’s kind of like attributing Bob Woodward’s reporting to Robert Redford, and Dalton Trumbo’s screenplays to Bryan Cranston.
Omar, have you gone mad? You’re posting links to articles about quiet geniuses and saying this sounds like Trump to you? Yeah, Einstein, Newton, and Trump — three peas in a pod.
I wish Trump had Asperger‘s. It would be a lot better than whatever he does have.
Skeletor, Trump would be more like Tourette’s.
Trump may or may not be on the autism spectrum. If the condition only affected geniuses, Trump would obviously be an outside long-shot. But apart from that obvious difference, Trump reportedly ticks a few of the boxes. He has a certain disconnect with the reality going on around him. In Einstein’s case, it enabled him to inhabit a different Universe, and therein achieve remarkable things, including derivation of what became the Bomb Equation.
In Trump’s (ignoramus) case, he is in a situation where he can apply that equation; big time. The next time Trump throws a tantrum, he could really seriously chuck his toys out of his cot. Not at Putin. More likely on the face of things, at the Chinese.
Who knows? Certainly not the Mr and Mrs Homer B Simpsons who voted him into the White House.
And I am not the first person to question the President’s fitness for office on the grounds of mental health.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42580762
I also question his fitness for office based on mental health. But I don’t see Asperger’s or autism here. I know a lot of people with Asperger’s. They can be quirky and often socially awkward but they don’t act anything like Trump.
The BBC article you link suggests narcissistic personality disorder and dementia. Those fit (the former, always, and the latter, in recent years). Autism doesn’t.
Needless to add: Trump appears to be steadily, relentlessly,and irreversibly on his way down the plughole of history.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/under-pressure-trump-more-vulnerable-than-ever-20181227-p50oge.html
It’s sooo wonderful of Normies to keep trying to dump ignorant, narcissistic assholes on us! So helpful!
It’s not like we already have massive problems with entitled, selfish males thinking they can do no wrong because they’re “special”, and not like we face massive cruelty because “those people don’t have any empathy, so that means they can’t feel anything when we dump all our shit on them! Hooray! It’s not like they matter!”…
Oh, wait…
The lacking empathy and/or Theory of Mind thing is a misconception based upon 99% of Autism research being done on males. It’s *males* that generally lack empathy. There’s also the issue that Normies aren’t actually great at empathising with anyone who isn’t exactly like them. They’re not good at understanding that other people may think differently from them. They cannot grasp that someone may see exactly the same thing as them, but think about it in a different way.
I’m not seeing a lot of your much-vaunted “empathy” here, y’know. Just a frantic urge to label the problem as “other”, as “defective”, as not-like-you, so there must be something wrong with him. Funny how those of us who are recognised as having actual disabilities are the ones who are expected to do all the work to communicate with those of you who supposedly don’t have any deficits, isn’t it?
So, here’s the explanation, yet again, for those who are incapable of empathising with us:
Narcissism is not an Autism Spectrum Condition.
Being a thoughtless asshole is not an Autism Spectrum Condition.
Being totally unable to grasp that other people are Real? Nope.
Being a pointless, destructive dick? Dude thing.
Some of us are getting very tired of this determination to use our struggles as a way to dismiss what’s really happening, and the tendency to dump anyone you don’t like into a heap you’ve clearly just marked as “defective, ignore” is part of that.
Lacking empathy is common among males. It’s actually quite rare among Autistic people generally – we cannot easily read Normie body-language, so we may not know you’re upset. Once we know, we’re often overwhelmed by the feeling, and find it difficult to function because it’s so intense. Not “lacking” anything, are we?
Stop assuming that someone you don’t like just *has* to be one of us “freaks”. You’re not helping…
Cluecat are you talking to Omar or everyone commenting? No one agreed with Omar and several people explicitly disagreed with him.
Yes, mainly Omar, and the other dudes that love to reach for “but what if he’s Autistic!!!” every time someone behaves badly, or in a way which is different from how they personally would respond.
It’s worth reminding those people that the behaviour is inappropriate, largely because everyone else here seems to understand that. This is the only place that has ever raised the “what if *she’s* Autistic?” question, which is most encouraging!
Sorry to those who were confused, especially those making the same point – it’s been a bit of a rough time with people doing exactly what I kicked off about, so maybe that was just the final straw.
I try not to laser-focus on particular people because it can get like a personal attack, but this sometimes means that the contribution wasn’t as useful as planned.
Mostly I lurk, because usually what I might have said is covered by someone else, or if I do respond I’ll likely end up getting annoyed with someone, and then everyone gets confused, because it’s usually only one or two people, and then everyone else (who isn’t the problem) gets fed up.
So, apologies to the confused people. I will try to be less confusing when next adding anything.
That’s ok! And your comment is useful and informative – I hope Omar takes the trouble to read and absorb it.