Americans may have forgotten just how disorganized and crazy things were when Donald Trump was president. Here is a brief reminder... with much more to come once he is sworn in.
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It’s quite possible that many Americans have forgotten much about Donald Trump’s first term: His unfitness for office, the objective mediocrity of his presidency, and the constant dysfunction and craziness.
That would make sense. After all, the nation went through a traumatic event together that many of us would probably rather forget (obviously, we mean the pandemic and not America’s first coup attempt).
Further evidence for this selective (and collective) amnesia is that so many voters apparently believed Trump when he told him that everything was just peachy in 2020, which isn’t backed up by facts.
In addition, a lot of the young people who voted for him may not remember that time at all (in fact, they don’t even know what “normal” in politics looks like).
Then, of course, a lot of Americans have grown numb to the insanity. Many times, when the incoming president says or does something nuts, people just shrug with their shoulders and think: “That’s just Trump being Trump,” instead of “how did anybody think that it was a good idea to make this corrupt buffoon president?”
Finally, with trust in the media declining and Americans either living in news bubbles or trying to tune out the news, it is not unreasonable to think that they never heard Trump say incredibly ridiculous and crazy things — like suggesting he will imprison Democratic donors or making repeated phallic references — on the campaign trail.
Now that he will become president again, however, let’s hope that the country starts paying a bit more attention.
It’ll be hard not to.
Let’s just look at some of the stuff that happened this week that got no attention because of the aforementioned reasons. On their own, they might seem like small things. However, it’s important to keep in mind that a deluge of them is about to flood the country.
Because of his narcissism, Trump feels compelled to be omnipresent, and the only better way to be the center of attention than being president is to be a crazy president.
Obviously, there is his Truth Social post hawking a $199 perfume that he tried to sell using a photo of First Lady Jill Biden looking at the president-elect and the words: “A Fragrance Your Enemies Can’t Resist.” He later shared the same image again with the caption: “Get you someone who looks at you like Jill looks at Trump.”
Clearly, that’s totally normal behavior, as is referring to the prime minister of Canada as “governor” in a middle school-style powerplay.
Of course, in between selling even more stuff and displaying even more infantile behavior (for example by sharing a meme on Saturday that suggests Trump critic Chris Christie, the former GOP governor of New Jersey, is responsible for unexplained drone sightings because he keeps ordering food from McDonalds), the president-elect also did some work.
In his case, that means appointing a ragtag group of incompetents, extremists and weirdos to key positions. By the way, in one of the announcements, that of Kari Lake as director of Voice of America, he claimed to have won Arizona by “record margins.” While Trump garnered 180,000 more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris, that’s hardly a record. In fact, every other Republican presidential nominee this century won the state by a greater margin than Trump.
Oh, and he also chose his son’s ex-fiancé to become ambassador to Greece shortly after the couple broke up.
As we reported, Trump also baffled people by suggesting that Democrats want to get rid of the popular vote and have the Electoral College choose the president. Not only is that the system already in place, but Democrats would love to have the American people elect presidents directly, which favors their candidates.
Then, a couple of days ago, Trump claimed to have “studied automation” and that he knows “just about everything there is to know about it.”
It would be truly hilarious if reporters asked him a specific automation-related question in the future.
Oh, he also called for the release of the “J-6 hostages,” which is what he calls the supporters of his who participated in the January 6 insurrection. That particular “Truth” was sparked by an internal Department of Justice investigation that neither Trump nor Vice President-elect JD Vance seem to have understood (since it discredits a conspiracy theory they support).
Again, this (and much more) all happened in the span of a week, and, maybe, each individual thing may not be all that noteworthy.
In totality, however, we believe that it is.
It shows that Trump is obsessed with himself (and petty grievances), tries to use his office for personal gain, surrounds himself with incompetents, and acts like a bully.
And just wait what happens when he is back in the White House.
