It wasn’t too hard to find a list of crazy things that Caligula did when he was in charge of the Roman Empire in the 1st Century. You can probably guess why I went searching for such a thing, since we now, too, have a leader who is narcissistic beyond belief and clearly insane. Trump’s latest demonstration of this is his call for a major investigation of virtually non-existent voter fraud which he is demanding in spite of having just sent his own lawyers into court to fight recounts with the insistence that “All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”
I was in the car running an errand and had the opportunity to hear a presser given by Republican congressional leaders Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state. Listening to them dance around Trump’s clear mental imbalance on this issue was a sound to behold. Sen. Thune did manage to promise “better message coordination” between Congress and the White House in the future, chalking up the whole thing up to growing pains.
The reason Trump reminds me of an unhinged Roman emperor is because his political allies are always walking on eggshells, afraid to contradict him but (so far) largely unwilling to vouch for his false and delusional statements and beliefs.
Caligula and Trump have more than a shared fondness for show business and drag queens in common.
Like Caligula, Trump builds monuments to himself, has attended luxurious sex parties, and falsely accuses people of having committed crimes. Does this sound like something Trump would do?
Upon being declared Emperor, [Caligula] commissioned a three mile long bridge constructed of boats to be built from Baeiae to Puteoli and rode over it on his horse wearing Alexander the Great’s breastplate, because an astrologer had predicted he had “no more chance of becoming Emperor than of riding a horse across the Gulf of Baeiae”; he then compared himself to the god Neptune for having had traversed the sea.
Paul Krugman is right to call the new president “mentally ill.” And now we’ll have a major investigation of voter fraud for no other reason than to accommodate his illness. We may, perhaps, build his damned wall for the same reason.
We will all try to carry on like this is okay…like it is sustainable.
It isn’t.
But his skill at distraction is still intact. When was the last time you saw anything about Russian hacking?
yesterday.
He drives the agenda as effectively as any politician I have ever seen.
He is beating our asses, and he did beat our ass.
Yet the same stuff churns through my twitter: he is crazy. He is stupid. He is doing it all wrong.
Same stuff I have been reading for a year and half.
Not sure about the agenda but he does suck up all the oxygen on the national political stage better than anyone else in the past few decades.
And the obsession with him isn’t limited to the MSM and rightwing sector of the internet.
It’s been a FP daily, twice daily, or thrice daily focus right here for over a year. All that attention and obsession with him not only feeds his unbridled ego, but also makes a rather ordinary, overweight, ignorant, racist/misogynist, cheater, liar, bully appear larger than life. He’s a one man, PT Barnum freak show that seized the moment of Americans obsession with celebrity freaks in general. Famous for being famous. Above the laws, rules, and conventions necessary for comity in family, social and work circles, and society in general.
Tabloid America.
Serious question: What would this blog have looked like if, say, Ted Cruz had been the nominee? What would Booman have been writing, how frequently, etc.?
It would have focused how disliked and hated he is – he is – but it would have focused far more on what his stated policies would be (I am guessing)
Let me give you and example of how he is beating our ass:
At 12:32 yesterday Nancy LeTourneau at Washington Monthly touts the big Senate proposal on infrastructure spending. She wrote:
She noted nobody in the GOP is talking about the infrastructure promises that Trump made.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON McCaltchey gets a list of the proposed initial Trump infrastructure plans. I wrote about it – it lists SPECIFIC projects – something the Senate Plan does not.
Here is the Washington Post story today on this.
The entire proposal which LeTourneau would put the Democrats on the offensive was not mentioned UNTIL THE LAST PARAGRAPH. Here is all it got:
That is called getting your ass handed to you. I don’t know if the Trump White House decided that they needed to release the documents to McCaltchy in response to the Senate Dem proposal or not.
But folks someone in the White House knows that the fuck they are doing.
And they are far from crazy
link
I’m guessing it’s Kushner. all the good decisions in the T campaign were due to him iirc
It turns serious people into tabloid journalists.
Why is a Noble Prize Economist writing the drivel he wrote today?
I think it has made bloggers lazy – it all writes itself and make no mistake is generates clicks.
But there is no reflection. None of the places I used to go to actually read something substantive are close to what they used to be.
In the theater of the absurd that we are in maybe it is too much to expect.
But make no mistake, tomorrow will be more of:
THERE GOES THAT CRAZY TRUMP!!!
World-class narcissist, bully, intellectually lazy and incurious, someone with authoritarian tendencies — these add up more to personality disorders of varying degrees, not full-blown certifiable psychopathy.
Nixon and LBJ were closer to having serious mental disorders of the type that perhaps should have triggered the 25th Am, imo. Nixon in his final Watergate year or two, when Haig, Schlesinger and Henry the K, acutely aware of his mental instability, arranged to prevent Dick from starting WW3, and LBJ during the 64-5 period, per two of his top aides who saw him daily up-close and were concerned enough to consult with outside mental experts.
His speechwriter Dick Goodwin finally concluded that, had he sought to begin the process of removal via section 4, he would have had the tables turned on him by Johnson and his lackeys, who would then have had him under investigation, probably in a mental hospital, with plenty of heavy duty drugs and a straightjacket.
Reagan was obviously senile. Less subjectivity required for that assessment than your other two examples. Nancy, Reagan’s inner circle, and some members of Congress covered it up. Oh, and Wilson wasn’t fit after his stroke either.
Harder to tell with Reagan as he was naturally intellectually lazy and had come to rely on scriptwriters to tell him what to say, and had started his presidency making numerous blatant errors of fact (comically corrected the next day by his press secy as the president “misspeaking”). And some of his best governing occurred in his final term (nuke agreements and detente w/Gorbachev), when his senility should have been getting worse and the decision-making more erratic. Dunno, maybe there’s something in the DSM for special cases where senility actually helps some people think more clearly?
Maybe Don Regan was right, but was he the only one to so conclude? As for Lyndon and Dick, I cited 5 top-level insiders who saw both presidents daily, who observed frequent objective bizarre presidential behavior.
In Nixon’s case, the 3 nat’l security advisers found it so troubling that they felt they had to act to veto any vital presidential decisions that could lead to war. With LBJ, both top aides were so concerned by what they were witnessing (Johnson ranting about perceived enemies out to get him, extreme emotional outbursts over petty matters, taking to bed for hours during the day with the covers pulled up over his head, etc), they independently sought outside expert psychological advice to diagnose the condition.
The number of people with NPD and who run major corporations, or are in politics, or the law, are legion.
But what good does it do knowing this, even if you could diagnose with the DSM 5(which you can’t, so this is all psychobabble anyway)
He won. He is President.
And this does nothing to solve our problems with downscale votes, who you are unlikely to convince anyway.
Biblioklept – Huxley vs. Orwell: The Webcomic
Huxley is currently ahead, but Orwell might fast be catching up.
. . . who’s now preznit!
Hence “a FP daily, twice daily, or thrice daily focus right here for over a year” does not seem remotely inappropriate on a site with this one’s focus.
But hey, maybe that’s just me.
Yup. If he’s so stupid, so venal, so corrupt, how come we are losing so bad?
Partly, it’s because the Dems have picked the wrong horse to ride.
We picked the illegal immigrants.
The republicans picked the working class voters.
Illegal immigrants don’t vote.
Working class voters do vote.
We are losing. Gee, how can we be losing?
do all Republicans look/act a bit … odd?
Makes as much sense as anything, and the timeline for the GOP going off the rails isn’t too far off. As I recall, we’re to look for odd, robotic, affectless behavior, as well as a crooked pinkie.
Rumor had it at the time that they took that show off the air because Mr Vincent was getting a little to close to exposing the truth, and it would cause too much social unrest if people knew.
Take a hard look at Trump … McConnell … that asshole from Texas … what’s his face … Prez candidate … wouldn’t support the Trump candidacy at the Repub shindig … Cruz, Ted Cruz, that’s the asshole! Take a look at just those three and you tell me that there is not the least possibility that non-earthbased lifeforms are involved. They don’t look right !
He’s only crazy if and/or when he loses, Booman.
Until then?
That old saying “The winners write history?”
They write the definitions, too. At least the ones most people believe.
AG
Now…Giuliani?
He’s certifiable.
Reaganitis.
Bet on it.
AG
Serious question: wouldn’t it be better to have a possibly insane Trump as president than Pence in the event of an impeachment or removal via article 2, section 4 of the 25th amendment? Hair Furor keeps screwing things up, slowing them down, etc. Pence would swiftly and quietly bring about the dystopian future we’ve all been dreading since the election.
for that reason Tarheeldem’s list has remove Pence first
Yes, if possible, as a President Pence would give us consistently extreme RW governing in all aspects of DP and, worse, would return to the hardline Cold War approach to Russia that has been happening for the past 10 years, while at least Donald offers hope of a rapprochement.
But Pence seems far more popular with the GOP in congress, and doesn’t appear to have as many impeachable/indictable indicators as the Donald, so is unlikely to be Agnewed.
As far as Twitler being mentally ill, as far as the GOP is concerned that’s a feature not a bug.
As long as he’s out in front of the cameras spouting typical crazy shit, they can quietly thru Dence and crew, dismantling every vestige of 20th century liberal legislation and the Villagers a) won’t pay attention, and b) even if a few do, they’ll roll over and call this “the new norm”.
Isn’t the Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver next up in the succession?
Perhaps tarheel has anticipated and has remedy for that, too? Don’t recall seeing ref’d list.
Okay I’ll bite. Why is it not sustainable?
Also note that Caligula was a solid ruler until he got sick about 6 months onto his reign. Also he reigned about 4 years… hmm.
The donald is still using his personal phone and computer. His aides are still using RNC email. These people do not seem all that smart to me.
Well, the Prezidunt wants to make it easy for the Rooshuns to follow his every word. No hacking necessary.
That’s the most madding part–they’re all incompetent children, especially POTUS–but Intercept reporters keep bleating about “blah blah Dems need emotional comfort food so they call the master strategist a child”
No, no, those are alternative facts. He’s quite sane. Bigly sane, in fact
in the gift box Melania gave Michelle – a note
ayudame! or “take me with you”
http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2017/01/20/que-le-regalo-melania-trump-a-michelle-obama-las-redes-responde
n/
or, i.e. alternatively
But there’s a very specific reason for his voter fraud claim.
If Trump is going to demand an investigation every time he is caught lying we’re going to need a line item, ‘Trump’s lies’, added to the budget by week’s end.
Well more than a quibble. Glenn Thrush’s article needed no exposition nor any take-off riffs from it. Or using it to describe Trump as crazy which Thrush doesn’t do. The unembellished truth is more damning than that.
The color in the opening paragraph is a nice touch:
This is seriously a must read in its entirety. Share it widely as it’s short and easy to comprehend.
I read it. What is damning about it in particular? The racism? The potential NPD of our president? How fucked we are?
His ignorance, gullibility, and yes, racism. Along with his demand that Congress waste time and resources on obvious nonsense for no purpose other than to please the petty tyrant. If Congress has nothing more important or constructive to do, they should just recess until they do. Let the tyrant figure out how to cut the checks to pay for the labor and materials of his stupid wall.
Echoes of Ronald Reagan and his colorful welfare queen stories and anecdotes , substituting for real evidence and thought. Except in Ronnie’s case, he may have genuinely believed them as they fit nicely with his skewed social worldview.
With Donald, I suspect he finds it personally and politically necessary and convenient to spread this nonsense while privately knowing it’s dubious. Of course he might prefer Congress waste time and taxpayers’ $$ — what does he care about that? — if it means a distraction from the many (domestic) outrages he’s undertaking, and particularly if ongoing investigation into a non-existent problem leads to more voter suppression laws.
Actually, I’ve been thinking of this after the “5 mill” vote fraud bullshit. One of the recognition of sanity is a shared experience of reality. Something obviously missing.
And this isn’t so far fetched. Some say this was the plan all along once Trump became the nominee. Christy was pushed aside and someone whom Trump had never met was shoved in his face and made VP. Once Donald is shipped off to the funny farm, then the real dismantling of 100+ years of progressive legislation can begin.
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/25/dont-look-now-its-president-pence-donald-trump-can-be-deposed-even-w
ithout-impeachment/
The Donald is setting himself up to be godlike … just like Jebus, or whomever. Create your own reality for the faithful, make outlandish promises (If you believe in me, you’ll live forever in Heaven after you die. Satisfies your fear of death; now, give me all your money.) The Trump followers already have the prime qualification … they’re desperate idiots.
Christie was useful to Trump for a while. But not for long if one knows the Christie-Kushner story.
Link? I would like to read this. Thx.
Link is in Booman’s third sentence in this piece.
Thanks, I did not connect your comment with that link. Lord knows I don’t have time to click on every link that every writer provides, so I appreciate this.
That was what my quibble was about. The article should have been highlighted instead of buried in a sentence with a link that didn’t seem all that important to click on.
Vicente Fox Quesada
Pay for the wall or the U.S. military will invade you and bomb the shit out of your cities. What part of “The U.S. has the largest military on the planet.” don’t you understand? Maybe we should use Mexico as an example to the rest of the world. Texas has always felt very expansive; Mexico can become “New Texas”, a wholly owned subsidiary of it’s northern ruler. And let’s not forget their oil !!
Just suggesting.
Mexico has a population of 128 million.
Geographically, it is a rugged country.
A part of the geography is ruled by drug-dealing warlords.
A part of the geography has a left-wing insurrection that has been going for twenty years.
The capital city is one of the worst places in the world to think about doing urban fighting.
It is too close to the US to nuke.
Somebody better take away the drugs that those promoting this fantasy are using.
Plus, the US military is still bogged down in countries with a total population less than half the size of Mexico.
Go annoy someone else.
DT will show Mexico who’s boss: Not gonna pay, well then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.
The emperor is still crazy.
The Congressional Democrats are still feckless.
The Wall Street media are still bought off by their owners.
The US voters are still insulated in a bubble from world events.
The opposition to Trumpistan is still divided.
The juggernaut has shifted into second gear.
The blogiverse is still thrashing around.
The donkey is still dead.
The economy and the internet are still being crapified.
Basic civil liberties are still disappearing.
So whatcha gonna do about it?
Tell me something that departs from the meme that “We are so fucked.”
So I am going to try to write something to answer your question later in a serious way, BUT:
President’s are most hurt by defections in their own base. These occur because:
You can’t actually plan for 1.
Trump’s weakness is his coalition. So the strategy is to highlight tensions in his coalition, and if possible exacerbate them.
Back to the exit poll:
Which candidate quality mattered most:
Clinton won everyone but one:
Can bring change: Trump won the 39% who said that by 82-14.
When you step back you see how in some ways blog posts like this one actually help Trump. Trump is different, not a usual politician.
So one tactic: show that he is a part of the establishment. That he is just another politician.This is a difficult argument to make, though, because Trump is basically a set of 1.
Another: block him. And this means the Senate Dems need to grow some spine. Effective obstruction cuts at Trump’s core strength.
Another number to remember:
Is Trump honest 33 yes 64 no.
People already know he lies. Pointing these out is unlikely to be effective with his base.
Which groups are most likely to defect:
It needs to be said that thus far he is protecting his base. Trump won those who oppose free trade 64-32, and the TPP will likely play well with that group.
Worth noting that opposition to trade was higher in the Blue Wall. By 50-31 in Michigan people opposed the free trade, 53-34 in Pennsylvania, 50-35 in Wisconsin.
Trump won those wanted illegal immigrants deported by 83-14. So while the Wall is unpopular, it plays to the base of his core support and doesn’t seem to alienate other parts of his base. In fact Trump won only 16% of those who opposed the Wall.
The Guardian – President Trump parrots Fox News again with attack on Chelsea Manning – Trump calls army whistleblower an `ungrateful traitor’ in tweet 14 minutes after the words appeared on TV network, the third such instance in recent months
But not just Fox — CNN Trump’s Chicago tweet is another response to cable news
Donald Trump’s Twitter inspiration: cable news? (Should be revised to edit out the question mark.)
There is also this:
heh — he might really lose his sheet if “preview Trump tweet” says it before DT can get his done.
I marched in one of the sister marches last Saturday with 60,000 other folks. It was an uplifting, hopeful, and life affirming experience. Not only was I surrounded by the most diverse group of folks I’ve ever been around, more importantly, it was a very visible beginning of the resistance. Everyone there seemed to intuitively understand that this was only a beginning and would not miraculously restore Obama to power. Not would it prevent the awful things we all fear and dread from happening.
Yes, Trump does suck up all the air in the room and there’s a danger in that, but it will take constant exposure of our very own il Duce to swing enough of his voters (not supporters) to the realization that he is seriously damaging the country. And if you are interested in a road map forward, try going over to read PhoenixRising’s comment at BJ last night that was also front paged a bit later.
https:/www.balloon-juice.com/2017/01/25/a-few-more-photos-from-saturday
I’m doing my part and that will include reading Booman’s posts but largely eschewing commenters who seem to get their jollies by reveling in cynicism and negativity. I’m too old to live the rest of my life mired in a Debbie Downer world.
Watch today’s Democracy Now!
https:/www.democracynow.org
Other than Amy Goodman sounding like she’s going to collapse, one of the interviewees states that this isn’t 9/12, that there is no imminent security disaster for Trump to use to institute his fascist state. Right now the Trumpettes are making plans … would love to have a microphone in that room.
Fed military to Chicago is one flag that they have run up the flagpole.
Bet on it.
ASG
Wonder how Mayor What’s-His-Face is reacting to this.
Probably bulking up his personal security force, for one thing.
Maybe getting back into shape using his Israeli Defense Forces Krav Maga training.
Settling his affairs just in case things get out of hand.
The usual kinds of reactions the leader of a failed area makes when threatened with invasion by a hostile power.
AG
How about a music break?
Donald Trump is is not crazy. He is offering a new, postmodern paradigm in presidential tactics. He is the first U.S. president to dispense with Chain of Command government and replace it with Chain of Consciousness.
Perhaps this is a result of his apparent moderate dyslexia…he wants a summary of all information rather than a full report and he seems to prefer live reports to written ones. Whatever the reason, he is essentially governing by Twitter. Instead of handing down orders to subordinates personally, he is making broad general statements that use no more than 140 characters, and they…assisted by the media, for whom they are little more than clickbait…immediately go viral. His subordinates must tapdance like a motherfucker to keep up with this stream of consciousness approach, but his thoughts reach masses of people on an almost instagram level as a result. While his subordinates are scurrying around trying to figure out exactly what he wants and how to get it done, he freely and publicly streams his next ideas. It’s a form of controlled chaos that he is using, and…early in the game…so far it seems to be working. Everybody’s confused!!! Everybody is frightened as well. There are no buffers between his own id…his own set of uncoordinated instinctual trends…and the almost immediate conveyance of those trends to the consciousness of the U.S. public.
In short…he is acting like a king.
Now…there certainly have been kings who were line-level, batshit nuts. They were the ones whose kingdoms rapidly failed and/or the ones who were either quickly deposed or treated as figureheads by powerful surrounding influences. Reagan was treated in that figurehead way as was Bush II, and the British have pretty much institutionalized that approach since the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Trump so far seems to be succeeding at expanding and then using that “royal prerogative” in a thoroughly modern, high tech way. It’s like he is treating the entire U.S. population as a group of subjects who he expects to bow to his will, only now that will is immediately conveyed by the high tech media.
Only time…and a broadly disseminated understanding of how this new process is working…will tell the final story.
That and the powerful interests that can either attempt to depose him in some manner or isolate him from the unlimited exercise of his presidential powers.
Think on it.
He’s not “crazy” if what he is doing works.
He’s just…new.
The first real product of the digital age to come to a position of power.
I personally am more and more leaning towards becoming a digital Luddite, myself. The digital age has eliminated so many heretofore effective checks and balances to immediate gratification that we are essentially living in an almost constant state of simultaneous orgasm and satiety, which ultimately leads to pure exhaustion. Too much gratification may be far worse for humans than too little.
We shall see.
Very soon, I’m thinking.
An exhausted populace is potentially a slave populace, and we are presently being repeatedly and constantly jerked around…and off as well…by an S&M master. When the rubber masks and ball gags appear, will it be too late for us to resist?
I hope not.
Later..
ASG
God, am I missing out. Must be too old. Bummer.
What!!!??? Are you anti-pharma? Four-hour erections are a pill pop away.
AG
P.S. Forget about Trump’s taxes…I want to see his medicine cabinet.
Now a standalone post.
Donald Trump. Chain of Command? No. Chain of Consciousness.
Please go there if you wish to comment.
Thanks…
ASG