“Proud boys stand down and stand by.” He said from the debate stage. Another sop to the meanest parts of the electorate. He talks about how much he detests violence and then endorses a violent, heavily armed militia.
It is a difficult statement to misinterpret. It isn’t nuanced or discreet. No matter how you feel about Trump you have to admire his willingness to take a stand, no matter how divisive or mean it is. He is willing to back anything if it plays out well on Fox News. He appeals to the evangelicals without ever going to church. He decries socialism while handing out government assistance to corporations and billionaires.
I have always had this feeling he doesn’t care too much about most of the things he has taken a stand supporting, it’s just show-biz. He says these things and the cheers come fast and loud, and he loves the applause. He lives for the adulation, the approval, the audience.
I never watched The Apprentice. I couldn’t understand why anybody would want to watch another person act like a jerk. Turns out it wasn’t an act.
He is a jerk.
Also, it turns out he is much better at being a jerk than he is at being a successful businessman. According to Forbes magazine, he is over a billion dollars in debt. Running up huge deficits is nothing new to this guy. It was really the only qualification he had for being press.
Of course, being president has been a windfall. His properties are raking in the cash like never before. It might be bad for the Uncle Sugar, the economy and the taxpayers, but for Trump Inc it has been so helpful, possibly preventing an embarrassing foreclosure. The Apprentice meets Repo Man.
“You’re fired.”
“OK, but we’re taking the El Camino.”
I was never happy about the Reagan presidency, I thought the Bush administrations were both disasters. But, I can think back to scores of times they were captured on camera looking real, human, decent. But, I can’t think of one time Trump has looked anything but contrived, artificial, playing to the crowd. He lives in front of the camera, he doesn’t exist to anybody except as a persona, a mean, vengeful cartoon Nero.
His followers love him and he loves that they love him. Though, there are reports it might not be mutual. His rallies are like old-time revivals, he is the traveling preacher, whipping up the faithful, calling the believers to worship, damning the non-believers to torment and destruction, fire and brimstone and nobody has to wait until they die. It’s delivered right to your television screen or Twitter feed. His unique brand of frontier, vigilante justice is focused and designed to appeal to the mob mentality and feed the anger he has worked so hard to create.
In so many ways his presidency has been a construct. Nothing about it seems real. Nothing about him seems real.
He hasn’t left his career as a reality television “star.” He has negotiated a raise and a larger audience, but he is still, just a jerk, firing people, even those who were smart enough to quit.
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