What actions do you recommend, Mr. Blow? I agree with what you say but I'm not sure of the path for a middle of the road couple. It's all so polarized!
2
“What will Trump do to distract from the collapse or to prevent it?”
The Red Button.
11
A man with a combover lies to himself that he looks presentable before facing the world every day. Of course he lies to everyone else thereafter.
10
Ross says: “My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Yes- and the very same applies to the GOP Congress, which will follow Trump whenever their wacko donors ask them to.
19
The good news is that history has never, ever been kind to tyrants. The bad news is that, here and now, we are stuck with the most powerful tyrant in history - no offense to such fine tyrants as Caligula, Genghis Khan, or August Pinochet. This imperial ship is sinking while the 0.01% rearrange their golden chairs and the rest of us, as we drown in the septic waters of a rotting democracy, keep busy blaming each other for the stench.
9
Native Manhattanite, that now lives in the PNW. I still have lots of friends and family in NYC, who think somehow I am slumming it out here. But I am living the high life, it's relatively normal here. There's not a billionaire on every block. The traffic can be horrible by Portland standards but doesn't hold a candle to six decades of tri-state area traffic.
Let me get back on topic. TRUMP has been a liar a manipulator his entire life. He has spent his entire life satisfying his needs, others, even his ex-wives he just buys their silence with a NDC. He has gotten away with murder, per se, with impunity. BUT this time, his lawyers can't save him. His money can't buy himself out of this trouble, and he is backed into a corner, he sees no way out. He's streetwise and clever, but I sincerely hope Mueller, the DOJ, and FBI can finally make this piper pay. He has gotten away with crimes for decades!
15
He's already hinted that a big 'event' would get people to rally around the flag. It would be naive to think that he's not contemplating some 'beautiful' destruction to distract from the Mueller probe.
6
I agree with Mr. Blow's last paragraph. The prospects are chilling.
4
The truly frightening aspect of the Trump Presidency is that he has the support of a large number of Americans.
17
It looks like the Dems and Independents are still quite vulnerable, particularly if NO Russian collusion is found by the Russiagate investigation. Trump will take off like a Saturn V rocket in the polls if/when he is cleared of collusion. If there is a military parade thrown in, his most arcane supporters can breathe a sigh of relief, and feel vindicated. Perhaps knowing they have been trespassed against by the government and the opposition party will cause more serious polarization; “My way or the highway” could be the new wall that the opposition party faces in holding Trump accountable. God forbid, but if there is another San Bernadino type attack, Trumpism becomes self justifying with increasing momentum toward ejecting all kinds of immigrants. It seems to go beyond railing against Trump, since accountability is hammered out in the uncharted probabilities that opportunists will likely seize within the next two years. That said, it is possible that polarized opportunists will forge the next political direction this country takes, which no one has control of. Thank your tax dollars for making the country safer. Get religion and pray?
1
The Republican Congress is spineless. They have no mores. All they want it to push their legislative agenda through no matter what the cost to their fellow Americans. It's odd that they want pollution, poisonous medicines, anarchy, but that's what they are putting their weight behind each and every day, legislation that will (and is already) destroying our economy, our sense of union, our country.
4
Thank you, Mr. Blow. I read you articles so religiously, I think I would like to just call you a friend, and address you as Charles. I cannot say how much I appreciate your insight. I agree 100% (to say more would be the exact kind of unrealistic exaggeration Trump would make) with everything you say. Especially this: "This lying may feel minor to some. It may feel inconsequential, an inconvenience around which we can maneuver. But I say that the lying is everything — the root thing, the foundational thing."
Lying. That's what this is all about. Trump has created a world in which his followers no longer understand the difference between opinion and fact, between what they would like to believe and what is really true. And in doing that, he has found the weak point of democracy, the point at which our entire democratic system is most vulnerable to attack. He is serving Putin's interests, of course, in doing so, but that doesn't matter to him. All that matters to him is his own narcissistic safety, that the bubble of safety around him and his family isn't punctured or threatened in the slightest. And that's why your closing paragraph is so accurate, so true, so prescient, and so terrifying.
It's good to have someone as intelligent and passionate as you on the side of truth. Thank you for that.
7
Stephen Colbert said that if Trump agreed to a Mueller interview, "he'd perjure himself before he finished stating his name." Very amusing, but the danger isn't. Truth and Trump just don't go together. He also seems to have a lurking urge to start a war, drop a bomb, do something drastic that will give him another superlative achievement to brag about. Although he never cared enough about public service to run for any office except president (if he were Catholic, he might aim for pope), he just wants to be the most important, admired, applauded, talked-about person on the planet. And he seems ready to do almost anything to get there.
10
I do not understand why the evangelicals support Trump. Out of the Ten Commandments, Trump has broken at least two, Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery and Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness. Whether or not he's committing adultery right now, we don't know. But we know he bears false witness everyday since false witness means lying. Trump seems to think the Ten Commandments are the Ten Suggestions.
6
Seeing as Trump lied his way into the Presidency, it would be only fitting if he lied his way out of it. With Mueller's help.
14
I feel like I've read this Blow column before. Many, many times before. If the NYT wants to keep paying him for repeating himself over and over again it's their call. They sign the paychecks.
2
With all due respect, Trump is like a house afire: firemen can't quit battling the blaze until the fire is out...
Aloha
9
OMG, Charles! This is the scariest thing I've read since Donald Trump came down that escalator. Oh, I've thought something similar many times, but there's something very jarring about reading it. I, too, fear that "absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump." He might just be the most dangerous man in the world.
11
After reading most of these comments and thousands of other pieces analyzing 45, I conclude that he is a narcissist. The shoe fits.
"Narcissists believe 'It’s all about me, and I need to be in control.' They are glib with superficial charm. There is some element of truth in their lies that makes their stories more believable. Exhibiting a grandiose sense of self, they are callous and incapable of empathy or compassion, unless it serves their purpose. They are deceitful, manipulative, and incapable of intimate relationships." That's our 45. Ecce homo.
[source: http://www.drkristinawelker.com/NarcissismorPsychosis.en.html]
5
Better start over: he's neither glib nor charming, but guess who just was.
Would he obliterate NK in order to throw the 2018 elections into chaos? Would he go that far?
5
'If you think he is dangerous now you haven't seen anything yet'. As I sit here in calm Kenya Brook's chilling words lead me to re-think the nightmare we are on the edge of - North Korea!
The fabric of USA society is also being destroyed little by little, helped as Krugman says, by selfish Republicans. Please impeach him quickly, even Pence is a hundred times better!
2
Trump voters are too dumb to see he’s a manipulative liar? Nah, as a Bernie voter living in upper–middle class Trump country, they know exactly what he is and love every second of the faux outrage oozing from the intolerant, cultural relativist left. He’s a modern-day anti-hero: fighting the good fight– albeit with immoral tactics and for selfish, impure reasons. But that’s okay, his flaws are there for everyone to see.
Tony Montana said it best: “even when I lie, I tell the truth.”
4
"Exploit people’s covetousness, ambition, lust, greed, fear, racial tribalism and gullibility."
You forgot rage and resentment.
4
Save your energy, Charles. We all are cognizant of the pathological lies that Trump spews. Very simply, he's a sick, self loathing, selfish, scrofulous president. A hater. An embarrassment. An aberration. The key is to make sure he never gets reelected and hopefully leaves before his time is up. It's a war of attrition with him and the Republicans. We need to keep the pressure on Trump. He will hemorrhage and crack. The only parade Trump should have is the Macy's Day one. He can be a giant blimp hovering over Fifth Ave.
7
This thinking sets we Democrats up for 7 more years of Trump. Find out how to get along as best possible with him and make good things happen JOINING him and the Republicans or we will lose again. We will only win by tiny incremental differences adding up to make our points. HRS
pretty scary editorial. I do feel scared. I also despise liars.
8
If trump were Pinocchio, his nose would be as long as his tie and perhaps even longer.
10
A madman surrounded by yes men.
8
"Truth suffers, but never dies."
-St. Theresa of Avila'
13
"But you can’t lie to the F.B.I., and you can’t lie to impede an investigation, thereby obstructing justice."
How quaint of you, Mr. Blow. How droll. I almost took you seriously for a moment!
Thanks to Trumpian propaganda media and his adoring public that has defined deviancy down to the level where nothing matters anymore, I would am not sure the Constitutional guardrails you mention can stop us going off a fascist cliff.
But you know what? This is really in the hands of the people. If they continue to let this atrocity slide, America deserves the end of its rule of law based constitutional democracy. I, for one, look forward to Chief Justice Ivanka.
3
Not surprised that so many people note that Trump is a liar. We knew that before he was elected. I'm surprised that so-called progressives care about a President who is a liar. Progressives voted for Hillary, and she was known to be corrupt and a liar. They even supported Bill Clinton wo sexually harassed women and famously told us that it depends on what "is" is. If the Left is going to support known liars, why is the Left upset when America elected a liar.
2
Trump lies. And lies. And lies. And his White House knows it and still swear that he does not..........
5
Your assessment Mr. Blow is chilling and I agree. My concern is Trump, when cornered, will start a shooting war with North Korea and would not blink an eye at the loss of life there or here in the US. It would then justify his putting aside the Constitution. Frightening.
2
Another in your series of incredibly accurate, eloquent and penetrating assessments of the Trump phenomena. Your columns, one by one, could end up being a book. Hopefully one that will reach its ending soon.
4
It's ironic that to his supporters, Trump supposedly "tells it like it is." To everyone else, the man lies every time he moves his lips. If this doesn't show how divided we are as a nation, nothing does.
11
This president has no credibility, that is for sure. But we knew that-- we knew that he had a history of racism, bigotry, bullying, threatening stiffing, and denying. I'll bet he is into money manipulation big time. And YET, he was still elected. What were we thinking?
1
It's just truthful hyperbole.......
While Pence is in South Korea for the Olympics, Mr. Mueller must bring the hammer down on Donald Trump. It is the only way to keep Donald from launching a distractive nuclear weapon.
Genocide on the Korean peninsula is Donald Trump's nuclear option.
Already the probe has enough to convict Trump, his sons and son in law.
Trump knows what he's done and what he's guilty of and he knows his fate is sealed. The last resort is to carry out a preemptive strike on the Kim regime.
Do it now. It's "go time", Mr. Mueller.
I wonder if the agents working on this case know that the lives of tens of millions of innocent people in South Korea, Guam, Tokyo, and Hawaii depend on their thoroughness and diligence?
Use every legal means to remove this abomination from office.
6
For all practical purposes we have a Russian agent in the White House destroying our democracy and he's being assisted by congressional Republicans. The destructive power of our nuclear arsenal pales in comparison. We have been successfully attacked and we're doing virtually nothing in response but arguing about who is responsible when we know very well. The attack is continuing at this moment because the president not only does not care, he welcomes it, he's part of it, he's the tip of the spear!
11
I am with you Mr. Blow.
3
I agree with everything said here. As Dr. brandy Lee of yale university has stated and published, Trump will continue to unravel not because of his obstructionist relationship with Russia in collusion with Michael Flynn, Manafort or whomever but more so because he is a dangerous malignant narcissist. He lies to cover an innate severe insecurity where for all of his braggadocio and arrogance, he sees himself as less in comparison to others e.g., Putin who he appears to have an infatuation with in term sof respect.
What will Trump do? Start a war, probably with Iran that does not have nuclear capabilities unlike N. Korea.
Trump does not know how to tell the truth and as such is the worst possible kind of individual to have in charge of anything. History will record his election and administration as one of the most dangerous times in us history, about which Trump has his hands directly involved in efforts to destroy America.
2
It's even worse, Mr. Blow. Facts and truth don't matter to Trump. Reality is what he wants it to be, what he says it is. So the biggest audience ever was present for his inauguration, period. Millions of illegal aliens voted for Hillary Clinton to give her victory in the popular vote. Trump just know how many: He gave a number, 3-5 million, which meant that he won the popular vote by the same margin that he lost. Of course, as he made clear, if he had really put his mind to winning the popular election, he would have, despite the illegal aliens. Trump lives and dreams and relates to others in this alternate reality. Most people would consider that insanity, even though he can function at a high level in certain habitual ways such as rallies and tweets. Those who celebrate the hatred and fear and resentment Trump embodies are enjoying their worst emotions and negative feelings being projected out. They don't care if Trump is irrational, inconsistent, and a con man. 40% of American voters have been groomed by Fox News to be abused by Trump.
2
Trump is apparently now besotted with the Bastille Day parade in France after his visit. He should remember some of the other consequences of Bastille Day, which may be appropriate here. Abolition of feudalism, anyone?
2
The GOP has long faced a dilemma: how to defend the interests of the economic elite who bankroll their campaigns, while inducing enough ordinary voters to turn out on election day and supply the margin of victory. At times the Republican establishment seems embarrassed by Trump, but they’ve made their peace: they know that his insults and deceits are a small price to pay for a continued hold on power. The GOP-dominated Congress has pursued a conventional Republican agenda (reduced taxes, deregulation, increased military spending, tightened borders) and the apolitical man at the head of the party gets to take his periodic “victory laps.” Win or lose, that same entertainer keeps delighting his fans with his crude insomniac tweets and second-rate impersonation of a generic autocrat. The Trump die-hards may be no more than 4% of the electorate, but the party establishment knows it can no longer win without them. The question then becomes not what Trump will do to stay in power but what enablers like Ryan and McConnell will do to keep him there.
3
The Times has terrific editorial writers, and Charles Blow is in full stride in this era of Trump. He's always concise. The writing is simple yet he takes especial care to keep it simple but not simplistic. And I believe he is often right. It's fine writing with crisp thoughts and commentary.
I too fear what Trump will do when the going gets hotter with the Mueller investigation. And a thing that worries me persistently is the thought that he may call on his base of 2nd Amendment wackos to "defend himself, the Country, and the Constitution"..... Never mind he couldn't pass an 8th grade Constitution test, doesn't understand the Country, and neither do those who would start a reign of domestic terror.
He has alluded to this before and I fully expect he will again.
3
Candidates for truth in the next elections (2018 and 2020):
Here's a tip:
Use the word chaos more than a few times and then skip to reminding the nation who we once were. Then, tell Americans what we used to do to make our country real as opposed to fake, thoughtful as opposed to condescending, careful as opposed to alienating. Stress the importance of our checks and balance system (which we seem to have lost) and the consideration that goes into choosing judges, the supreme court, White House employees, government employees. Let's vote, friends! Let's vote! Am I as anxious as you are for November to roll around? It's going to be a rocky summer...
3
Just in the news today (2/8/18) it came out that Trump is completely livid at John Kelly for knowing about Rob Porter's history of domestic abuse, and not telling Trump about it. The likely reason Trump is livid is not that he employed a domestic abuser, and not that Kelly kept it from him - but the ultimate revelations make HIM look bad. That's all he cares about. It's all image with Trump. That explains those embarrassing Cabinet meetings where each member praised Dear Leader, those idiotic gatherings of evangelicals where they lay hands on him, praised him as Heaven sent and prayed for the cameras, or the ludicrous idea of a military parade. And it's why he always sends insulting tweets directed at those who have disrespected him. He has to win, to be on top, to have the last word. Blow is right - he will lie, exploit and destroy.
5
I think Trump may have done us a favor. I contend that the GOP has been piecemeal wise marching our democracy toward an eventual authoritarian/fascist takeover, to be eventually necessitated by great upheaval, an upheaval that they would cause. They have been diligently cultivating a cult of believers devoid of the ability to think rationally base on factual information. Trump saw the cult they were developing and understood how to connect with that cult even better than the original controllers. So now, the GOP is not sure if they are ready for the deletion of democracy, whether they have the needed elements in place and whether Trump is maybe simultaneously capable of controlling cult but also too unstable to maintain the overthrow. Thus the GOP has a dilemma. Is now the time for the imposition of authoritarian power or should they wait and hope they can get their cult back? I suspect they realize the cult is gone if the Donald goes down. So, here they are, maybe jumping to their intended ending, before they are really ready, and with a new unexpected cult leader who is completely inept at deceiving truthful intelligent people.
Better to face this now than at the time of the GOPs choosing.
2
Charles:
Thank you for not mincing words: Trump is a pathological liar. I also worry that he will do something beyond the pale when he is finally trapped, and runs out of lies.
2
Biden only got the tip of the iceberg right. Not only would a smart lawyer tell Trump not to talk to Mueller, they'd tell him not to talk- period. The old quote about better to keep your mouth shut and let folks wonder if you're a fool, versus opening it and removing all doubt.
And his base, and the GOP defenders on Fox News and other outlets, lap it up like a thirsty camel. To say nothing about folks elected to Congress who took an oath to defend the country against enemies both foreign and domestic . . .
2
Mr. Blow writes, "My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet." Exactly right.
But it's not Trump who is the real danger here -- it is his supporters, some forty percent of our population. As the walls begin closing in on him, he will begin to incite his supporters to turn their fellow Americans. And what will they then do? They'll do exactly what he tells them to do.
Trump's support is virtually unchanged since he took office. This means that tens of millions of Americans have absolutely no problem with an avowed racist and liar in the White House. Trump voters would do anything -- literally anything -- for him, including committing acts of violence against their fellow Americans.
We must not assume that because a majority of Americans do not support Trump, that we are somehow "safe" from his excesses, and those of his supporters. They remain in lockstep with him. As Mueller's investigation inevitably draws closer to Trump, Trump will simply tell his rabid supporters that brown-skinned Americans are to blame, that non-Christian Americans are to blame -- anyone who looks different from them is to blame. And they will believe him, hook, line and sinker. Because they want to.
Trump isn't the danger here -- it's his tens of millions of bigoted supporters looking to unleash their hatred on the rest of us.
7
Trump would be the one to abolish Net neutrality, just as Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine.
2
Let this be a lesson to all of us NOT to get our news from sound bites. It is a real pain to get through the New York Times but our education should not stop just because we have graduated. Reporters, guests and talk radio participants should be required to back up what they say with legitimate sources that can be verified. Hosts should call them out when they don't. Too often "I think" is passed off as fact. And if we are "issue" voters, we should not ignore everything else that makes a candidate unqualified just to get those court nominees. We have a real problem on our hands with an insecure egotistist with no experience in the White House with an equally unqualified staff and a Congress so bent on being re-elected that most of them ignore conduct that we could all agree is outrageous.
2
One can call Trump a liar, but we cannot call him out on his particular lies. This is because everything that emerges from his mouth is mendacious. Trump is wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, and ceiling-surface lies. The window frames and door jambs are lies. When trying to call him out, where does one start? There is no starting point and certainly no end. The outrage becomes too fatiguing to feel outrage anymore.
As Joe Biden so politely puts it, the president is poor with "precision."
4
"If you think he's dangerous now, you haven't seen anything yet."
This is all becoming terrifying. Will i wake up one morning and see a nuclear mushroom hovering over Chicago? I hope the military has taken care of this and i realize they can't say anything if they have. However, after seeing seeing former General Kelly and after learning this thoughts and his acts of secrecy my confidence in our military has dropped.
I wish i could believe in teddy bears to cuddle with at night. My cat will have to do.
BTW i don't think Trump thinks much of his family. I am waiting for the day when i see Trump reach out to Barron with some sort of a friendly gesture. His family and the rest of us are just things in Trump's sick mind.
1
Mr Blow: excellent article and great insight.... keep digging, keep turning over the rocks... keep exposing the truth... keep defending democracy and us....
1
"If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
And something every person who believes in the Constitution and [not always lived up to] ideal of this country should fear. As one commentator put it, "Trump steals peoples'dignity like the devil steals peoples' souls."
1
Once again, Mr Blow hits the nail on the head. When all is lies, and the truth can't be discerned, then all is lost. So many of Trump's lies are patently obvious, and yet so many people fall for them. My best guess for the cause of this phenomenon is Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. People tune in, and day after day these media outlets feed them lies, conspiracy theories, and other bull cookies. As is often said, a lie repeated often enough starts to sound like the truth.
Bill Maher calls the U.S. a stupid country, and more than ever I'm starting to believe him. The late George Carlin talked about this country's owners, referring to the super rich and corporations, and when I see the Koch brothers and their fellow travelers planning to spend $400 million on the midterm election, to say nothing of their nonpolitical contributions that target colleges and other institutions, I'm starting to believe him. Unless the Citizens United ruling is reversed, I fear that all is lost.
Thank you Charles Blow!
2
Trump's lies are truth to his dwindling base. To the rest of us? We can figure it out without any help from the television. 300 million in this country. His lies and swamp creatures have a shelf life. One year in? He's always been the blowhard I knew from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I keep in mind he lost the popular vote.
2
Demanding loyalty is a means of selling lies. An 'adherent' cannot question the object of that loyalty.
Trump knows this--he's a manipulator. And he's lied for so long, he owns the liars tic--"believe me." "Believe me" is something chronic liars say because they are used to have people not believe.
Trump has lied for so long and with such frequency that he's no longer able to tell the truth.
And he's a criminal firmly in the grip of the Russian mafia. In the long standing 'war' between the Russian mafia and the FBI, he's taken the mafia's side.
My only hope is for a tipping point, one that sneaks up on us when Trump supporters rise up and rediscover their dignity, when finally they say “just who in the heck does this person think he is?”
I thought the tipping point might come when he told his supporters how lucky they were that he gave them the privilege of voting for him. I was dumbfounded that salt-of-the-earth Americans would stand for that kind of arrogance.
I'm hoping the steady drip, drip, drip of demeaning and debasing his supporters (and America) may eventually overpower their denial that they elected a madman.
1
You speak for me with your columns. I refuse to be a despairing man but strongly agree that things will get much, much worse.
1
It remains disheartening that Mr. Blow employs what he eschews. His crude litany of castigations and contempt has continued unabated in staccato fashion from day one of the current administration. His campaign of vilification via reduction is an endless loop, a repeated refrain, an incessant mantra of reaction without wisdom or direction.
There is little to comprehend or respect from an individual who offers no wisdom, poses no solutions, is unwilling to compromise, has not offered an original thought, has not created one job, has built nothing, cured nothing, or made any advance to civilization in any measurable way. It is easy to criticism, Mr. Blow. It is more difficult to make a qualitative difference.
If Trumpism is about emotion over information so be it. The mainstream media is about using emotion, cherry picked stories and misinformation to mislead the public. What's worse is that people like Blow actually think that they are smarter than the majority of Americans and that we are too dumb to notice that we are being spoon fed a false narrative. At least we are now fighting fire with fire...and the corrupt journalists are losing. Maybe the journalists will act with some integrity now that Trump has kicked you all around. Thank you Trump!
I just got a survey form today from the Republican National Committee asking my political opinions. Trump's most insidious lies are now embedded within that document--and I would say within the new Republican mind set--as assumptions. They question whether I trust the FBI; whether the national news media can be trusted. Every question like this, about whether a fundamental American institution of democracy or security can be trusted, carries the implicit answer "No," since Trump and bootlickers in Congress have worked to implant that answer in the mind of Americans. Their relentless campaign to discredit honest institutions and replace them with belief in Trumpism should be the definition of treason. Not only is the conman in chief damaging the republic, but the RNC nd so many scoundrel Republicans eager to latch onto his lies as successful propoganda. Trump said during the campaign that he loved the "poorly educated." Yes, because they are the easiest to dupe. The poorly educated don't watch CNN, they flock to Fox, the megaphone for Trump propanda. The lies now feed these Americans' minds through a perfect closed loop.
1
The big question is: will we survive the Trumpapocolypse when it happens? Will it be a nuclear confrontation over North Korea or some other country that tRump decides needs to be trimmed through a nuclear attack? Will it be a conventional war with faked premises a la Bush that the sycophantic and corrupt GOP will gladly go along with? Will it be a phony smear campaign of a political rival, whether Democratic or Republican, as the 2020 elections get closer? It could be anything, because this man is amoral - without morals of any kind. He has no conscience, no ability to care for anyone or anything. He's a malignant, dangerous fool with all the pomp, circumstance and power of the presidency, and he's dying to use them all.
I hope whatever Mr. Mueller has on him comes out soon and that it is devastating enough to completely crush him and get him out of office. That's a tall order, and may be impossible, but I can't give up hope, because the thought of this lying grifter being there for his full term is very difficult to accept.
1
The problem with liars is that you have no idea whom they are and what they will do. That is a terrifying situation when it applies to the POTUS. And like Charles, I lose sleep over Trump's becoming a cornered animal and acting accordingly. One thing's for sure. He will be thinking of no one but himself.
3
I hate the fact that we actually have a word now "Trumpism". The only way I will accept it, if its Oxford Dictionary definition is shown as "chicanery, deceit, lying of such a magnitude as to defy description - from donald j. trump, elected as president of the USA with collusion of Russia, now serving fifty years in Guantanamo Bay, along with his enablers, Ryan and McConnell."
3
At some point the donald crossed over the barrier between “creative embellishment” to “pathological falsification”. Ie lieing. In college my first year roommate was creative to the almost pathological. Have a story, he had to double down, add some flourishes, On the next telling another layer was added. Eventually it became unrecogizable.
Whether it is the bull about art work in his office, original , well maybe not as the original inconveniently happens to be on display in a museum. Oops.
All this looks cute when your selling brands, marketing tv shows. The problem is the crearive embellisher turned patholigal can NOT stop expanding and inventing the truth. I found my roommate and his ilk actually sell themselves on their stories. Once grown into full fledged fantastical they BELIEVE their own creation. That is the scary part, I am convinced the donald did not believe the Obama african birth when first told, I am also convinced he believes it now. Unfortunately a shaky and scary way to lead the worlds largest economy and not least largest military.
Disconcerting to say the least.
I think Trump is really convinced that he never lies.
He is to narsissistic to even think about it.
Is Congress not meant to be a Constitutional check against such an abysmal President? And yet the GOP Congress does nothing to protect us! Surely their sins are even greater that Trump’s. He was born a lying cheat, but Congress ought to stand for something better.
Thank you, I have found Trump's appeal to be totally inexplicable, and this is an important contribution to our understanding of Trump's supporters motivations.
5
Charles Blow: "If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
Precisely. Exactly, Truly.
There is no bottom. Be warned.
12
Re Putin's story of the rat who chased him after he cornered it, who will the cornered rat chase? Mueller? His political opponents? People his base hates?
5
Trump has lied, cheated, and exploited others his entire adult life. Anyone, who's paid attention, has known this since the 1980s. Now, it seems that Trump is looking for a good excuse to use his bigly weapons by continuously provoking others. It doesn't matter whether it's Iran, North Korea, the Palestinians, or whoever/whatever. Just keep a critical eye open for anything resembling a "Reichstag Fire" event.
20
Hello Charles. I always look forward to your column. Yes, the tweet-in-chief is a pathological liar and it bothers me. It is not inconsequential. It's embarrassing and scary. He's the treasonous one. Just follow the money. You are right that nothing will be 'beyond the pale' for Trump. Your question of what Trump will do? What will the breaking point be and how much damage will he and his sycophants have done?
15
The tactics that kept Trump, the businessman, above water and in some cases kept him floating in the water in others, are the same tactics he brought with him into the White House. His refusal to talk in precise terms deludes the everyday worker and distracts those who choose to chase him down manufactured rabbit holes. His lies make it possible to steal from the poor through the shattering of regulations and enrich his pockets and those whose earnings place them in the highest 1% of earners through a redistribution of the country's resources. I do not believe he is an unwitting liar. He lies with great clarity of purpose.
12
This is a good summary of all of the dysfunctional qualities of Trump. How is it possible, given all that we know and have observed, that 40% of the country still supports him? One of the most depression conclusions to draw from this disastrous presidency is that there are a lot of ignorant people in our country. Is it wrong to conclude that every Trump supporter is ignorant? Please help me understand.
19
To clarify for you, I don't think all of that 40% are ignorant. In denial, most likely. If all you listen to is Rush Limbaugh and Fox "News," the objective realities are going to be discounted. Also a bit of "who wants to admit they were wrong?"
We must also remember that the choice of Hillary Clinton was perceived with as much vitriol on the Republican/Conservative side as Trump was on the Democratic/Liberal side. I commented back then that I'd never seen a political matchup between two candidates who were both equally despised by the other side at the same time. Give a choice of "the witch or the devil," we went with the devil we wanted to know, rather than the witch we thought we did. Trump is no Hitler, but I think there existed the same naivety that Trump, like Hitler, could be controlled and wasn't as bad as people made him out to be.
1
If everything Trump says is a lie, and he says, "I'm lying," is he not really telling the truth? Yes, but the truth according to whom? Objective reality?
When Trump opined that he "could kill someone in the middle of 5th Avenue" and get away with it, we should have given an emphatic "no, you can't" right then and there. I'm sure in his fantasy life he'd switch the anonymous "someone" for Robert Mueller, And he probably thinks he would get away with it. Even if the "killing" is only of the firing Mueller from the position, rather than a literal murder. No, you can't. Trump may be from Queens, but the Brooklyn "fugghedaboudit" is reality. That's no lie.
4
I quite sure Trump doesn't think of his lies as lies. More like salesmanship. Say anything to get someone to buy what he's selling, whether it's a building or the Presidency. It's all just selling and showmanship from a deeply flawed person.
5
Mr Trump doesn’t merely lie, he bludgeons the truth until it is unrecognizable.
Mr Trump doesn’t simply insult his perceived enemies, he offends all within reach of his words.
Mr Trump doesn’t fail to exclusively concern himself with profits, he recognizes no value to anything that cannot be monetized.
Mr Trump doesn’t just deliciously relish his executive powers, he confuses them with entitlement.
Mr Trump doesn’t just speak with grandiosity, he is it’s malevolent definition.
I tried to think of one nice thing to say about him and came up with he loves his first Daughter. He even slimed that virtue.
9
It is not just the lies but also the people that gleefully swallow them. This is not just about Trump, but also about the 35% of solid support he continues to have. They are the ones that keep the Republican Party afloat in racism, mysogny, fear and false conspiracies. It's also the Hannity's of the world that make tons of money in the promotion of the lies Trump tweats daily. He has cleverly developed a brand where lies no matter how obscene are digested and converted into alternative facts. Sadly, there is not much we can do about the 35% who provide the foundation upon which Trump tries to build a society that was but is no more. The 35% want to go back to a time where they were the kings and queens and where they could be openly racist, spewing hate speech and putting minorities in their place. The want to go back to times where they could do all of that and get away with it. So we must not only resist Trump, we must resist the 35% that have made him their emperor. The resistance must assemble in force in November to go into combat via our votes to elect people who will protect us all from Trumps forces of evil.
18
If democrats acted like republicans, then republicans would actually have something real to fuss about...
10
Instead of being a roadmap, the Constitution consists of barriers Trump needs to overcome in order to accomplish his goals. Roy Cohn isn’t rolling over in his grave. He’s doing cartwheels.
9
I saw the headline and thought surely you must be writing about Schumer, Schiff, and Pelosi. And then we saw the texts from Peter and the Paramour that said POTUS wanted to know what they were doing....
3
job you know you are either lying about the texts or you are ignorant about them; they referred to the investigation in to Russian interference with our election not Clinton email case which, at that time, had been closed.
3
I'm just waiting for Trump to lie himself into a big-time war somewhere and life in this country becomes blatantly serious. With thousands of troops dead, perhaps millions of lives lost, let him lie his way out of that one. He is already so unpopular that the desire for that level of destruction will destroy his entire presidency and the Republican Party---once and for all.
Unfortunately, this is not some imaginary belief on my part. This is a very real scenario that we could all witness. And Corporal Bone Spurs is loopy enough to believe he could lie his way out of it all.
12
"My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
I fear you're not wrong on this.
10
In other words, he’s a liar."
according to the evangelicals that would be called
TRUMPTRANSSUBSTANTIATION , but for us it is where the Constitution is turned into Putinesque dictatorspeak. The lowest creature to inhabit the WH, Kelly got a neat jab in when he said that the 10 -page democratic rebuttal memo was a "bit too long for him to read". Imagine, a president who can't read 10 pages--just PICKING UP the budget must have been an Herculean task.
Well, on July 4th when he treats us to his "hit" parade (if he lasts that long) we will see him insult the honorable men and women of the Armed Services as he stands there with his bone-spur deferment salute and he sings The STAR STRANGLED BANANA. He needs to be reminded that the Statue of Liberty is there for a reason--to honor those who fought---and died-- to throw off the yoke of George III.
Sp4
4th Army
1965-67
7
Why would Trump-supporting evangelicals have any use for that word? Transubstantiation is a Roman Catholic doctrine.
Trump has no morals, or scruples. He is a known racist, sexual predator and is ignorant of what the word "democracy" means. You don't need a college degree to understand that Trump is nothing but a uneducated Reality TV comic who is an insult to our entire nation. You don't need to live in an urban Blue State area to realize that Trump lies with every breath he takes and is disgracing the American people before the world.
However, Trump is but a hideous symbol of our broken political system. It is not by chance that the incompetent Trump is surrounded by a Republican Congress that also has no morals or scruples. They are in fact the reason he is now in office. These Republicans who obstructed, even in violation of the Constitution, every move Obama tried to make, have played the race card, gerrymandered, suppressed voters and displayed traitorous indifference to the role of the Russians in Trump's stolen victory. Trump's is the face of the Republican Party He is their poster boy and only massive voter rejection of Republican abuse of power on behalf of their corporate owners can save our democracy and our nation.
14
What an absolutely brilliant description of Trump. I agree with your pessimistic outlook of what this man is capable of and believe we should all be extremely vigilant in our observation of his words and deeds. He is more than capable of taking us into a war to avert attention away from his already numerous misdeeds and crimes. I, for one, am truly stunned by the response of republicans in congress and the lack of action and obstruction of justice that they themselves are guilty of. The undermining of the rules and norms continues unabated. Roll on November.
8
Re: “a gateway offense”
I would argue that the gateway offense is a national phenomenon, rather than a personal one tied only to Trump: to wit, just how did the country (government and populace) allow a lying tyrant with delusions of grandeur become president? And why is there no functioning mechanism (one not immobilized by party loyalty or Trump’s distractions) to remove someone so clearly a danger to this and other nations? In this, we are all complicit—perhaps buying into the myth (a la Titanic) that America is too big, too consequential, to fail, so it doesn’t really matter who is president.
5
Thanks, Mr. Blow, for a very apt observation about Trump being a man of branding. The essence of him seems to be, "I don't have to actually MAGA, because I AM 'MAGA.' I am the living embodiment of it, and anyone challenging me on this, I will crush."
4
While he seems to be able to work some people into following him with a mania approaching madness, he seems to drive the majority into implacable opposition. He's the insult we will never, ever forgive, and will work very hard to avenge.
5
This is perhaps the most insightful piece about Trump that I've read. It brings up and ties so many threads together.
"This is an essential function of branding: to capture a feeling in its purest form, to connect on a visceral level with a viewer, to compel an action."
This is the real key to Trump's hold on his followers. Simple message in a few small words, that play to his followers' deepest emotions.
"Trumpism in a way is about emotion over information. It is about heat over light. It is about hostility over comity."
In other words, demagoguery.
"... his branding and messaging playbook could actually fit on an index card: Exploit people’s covetousness, ambition, lust, greed, fear, racial tribalism and gullibility."
And it's worked for him. So far.
But Mr. Blow worries about the end game -
"The American presidency is a position unparalleled in its power. What will Trump be willing to do with that power to stir the passions of his supporters to spring to his defense? ... My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump."
Very scary.
9
Trump will try to scuttle the 2018 elections because of Russian interference. Trump will not reveal his tax returns. Trump will not speak with Mueller. Trump will not be removed from power except by force
10
Your last paragraph sums up the present situation perfectly. I fear for our country.
5
Charles, we love you but for the good of the country it's time for you to change your focus. Describing and analyzing Trump's amorality is no longer necessary. So, time to think: What policy measures can be enacted that will speak loudly to the daily concerns of the 60-65% of voters who aren't in thrall to Trump and UNITE them against Trump? This is the only real challenge facing The Resistance. My suggestions: Crystal-clear policy proposals on education, infrastructure and immigration. Hit these three notes powerfully and relentlessly (ideally using new voices and not the tired Democratic leadership) and Trump and the GOP will be out of power.
6
The late poet Paul Violi wrote a wonderful line that describes Trump's primary tactic beautifully: "selling sacks of wind to gullible peasants."
5
One unfortunate limitation of traditional journalism is that a piece like this is labeled "Opinion" rather than plain truth. The questions Mr. Blow asks are important and deserve answers. Predicting Trump's future actions is necessary because as our system continues to break down we need to be react. Fortunately, the attempt to reduce numbers of Democratic voters was set back by the States when the "electoral reform" commission overreached, but more voter suppression is on the way . And we need to be prepared for attempts to suspend the national election if Democrats appear poised for victory. The U.S. remains exceedingly vulnerable to cyber attacks and electoral attacks because Trump and his Congress, on bended knee, refuse to defend us. Trump can be expected to delay meeting with Mueller and will likely cancel meetings multiple times before Mueller finally subpoenas him to appear before the grand jury. Trump will not appear, but will pretend he is not refusing to appear. Will federal marshals need to show up at the front gates of the White House? Will they need to draw guns to enter the premises? What if Trump begins to hide in the open, like a fugitive, traveling from place to place, still denying he is ducking the subpoena, with Fox News crowing their support for his actions, claiming that our federal agents are corrupt. Americans will need to march on Washington in large numbers because Republican members of Congress will otherwise do nothing.
2
You may be right, Chris, but I just don't see this scenario happening. I think and hope it will be much less dramatic because 45 is just a narcissist, not a brazen, brutal, fearless psychopath. He will fold pretty quickly once confronted by a legal group possessed of a warrant and the wherewithal to stand their ground. Men, not mice, will bring order back from chaos. At least, that's my dream.
Trump loving Republican acquaintances will respond to accusations of Trump lying with the statement "But all politicians lie." They can't see the false equivalence, perhaps because they are blinded by the Fox propaganda machine.
2
One of the unfortunate things about Trump's ascendancy is that his style of excess has proved to be contagious. Most of current American political discourse has become intemperate and extreme.
3
Because it seemingly works. The copycats noticed.
It is time we ask the roughly four in ten voters who support Trump the question Mr. Welch posed long ago: "Have you no sense of decency ... at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
A failure to confront and defeat this 40% will result in an America unrecognizable to the rest of us. MAGA really means Make America Grovel Again.
A responsible Congress would protect our Constitution from the big man with the tiny hands (aka: "a clear and present danger").
1
"Exploit people’s covetousness, ambition, lust, greed, fear, racial tribalism and gullibility."
That statement should eventually be an epitaph for Trump. It should be carved on his headstone.
This is a great article and should be read by anyone who actually cares about what this country once stood for. But, let's not forget that Trump did not become President of the United States through a coup. Sixty-three million Americans saw EXACTLY what he was and voted for him to lead the nation. Trump is a clear and present danger to not only this country, but the entire world. However, so are the ignorant fools who voted him into office. The real existential danger is that nearly half this country is preternaturally stupid.
A healthy democracy requires an informed and rational electorate. We no longer have one.
25
Donald Trump lies pathologically and without remorse because he is a textbook sociopath for whom the truth means nothing. For the same reason there is no reason to place any atrocity up to and including nuclear war beyond him. He is simply concerned only for himself. As the Mueller investigation appears to come closer to Trump the risk of disaster grows.
The Republican Party having almost entirely surrendered to Trump bears full responsibility for exposing the American people to this outrageous situation.
All to placate the needs of a single sick and deranged individual.
32
This kind of twisting of truth is malignant. Like a little boy with toy soldiers he now wants a military parade to puff him up? And he accuses those who didn't stand and applaud him during his State of the Union address as "un-American/treasonous?" How can Republicans who set on their hands during President Obama's addresses listen to this and not rebut this man who would be king? It's not treason; it's having the freedom of choice. He's going to ruin their county too if they let him run to the length of the tether they think they have him on? Out of control? We haven't seen anything yet.
15
Well said, Mr. Blow!
But I feel it's now time to look beyond the reality of this person and analyzing his what and why.
What is distinctly more frightening is the support he receives from such a great number of the country's republican legislators. Don't they see, don't they hear, can't they understand, don't they remember? Why do they tap dance around the statements he makes and try to make sense of them? Why do they support what he proposes regardless of how bad it is? Why to they echo his lies in the face of truth? Who are these people and can lwe expect the same performances from then when this presidency is only a bad memory?
Replace them all, even with other republicans, to punish the actions and hopefully prevent future damage to America.
17
It's insightful that the cold winds of winter, perhaps an outcome of climate change, have exposed trump in a literal way.
By lifting his comb-over and showing the world that there is nothing there, everyone sees the truth that there REALLY IS NOTHING THERE. trump is equally empty on his head, as he is inside - no soul, no heart, no logic, no love - and to expect more is folly on our part.
Even the people in Alabama understand his "cover up" and mock it. Unfortunately, many of them are low information voters and susceptible to his political con even as they see his perpetual personal dishonesty.
Let "donnie comb-over" shine from the wind, as we now clearly see his bald-faced lies.
14
If Trump's lies sound like the truth to his base, it may be because we Americans are immersed in countless lies every day. So many lies that our internal lie detectors wear out.
Many advertising campaigns are built on lies. Do you remember the old McDonald's ad slogan, "We do it all for you," which many of us heard repeated thousands of times? It was a lie. They don't do it all for us -- they do it all for profit.
Today, like most other days, you will probably be exposed to dozens of lies. Lies told by advertisers, by politicians, by all sorts of public figures. And after all that, if you can still tell that Trump is lying almost every time he opens his mouth, congratulations. You still have a functioning brain.
9
Of course all that Charles wrote is undeniably true. But the pathological lying which is Trump's methodology is itself the telling symptom of a conscienceless sociopath, a genuinely defective hiuman being, among the vety worst that humankind can produce. A devil.
It bugs me that even Joe Biden, supposed to be Mr. Straight Talk Like Common Man fails to say it straight -- Trump is a pathological liar -- and uses weasel language "lacks precision", says to me that, no matter his illusions of political grandeur, he is definitely NOT what Democrats will need in 2020. I hope he, or his handlers, face that and clear the way for a genuine grass-roots Democrat 30 years younger than Biden.
Or maybe, if by then Trump has not been destroyed by his treason and crimes, in 2020 we had better nominate an exorcist.
6
Yes, the Devil is also called “The Father of Lies”. So that’s an apt description of Trump...
I was struck by one phrase in Mr. Blow's column, which was otherwise unexceptional in its take on Trump. The phrase was "According to the New Yorker". Huh? I'm a subscriber, but I've never considered The New Yorker a primary source. I'm imagining that a school-kid writing a term paper somewhere might now write, "According to Charles M. Blow, citing the New Yorker, Trump is a creep". Come on; we need op-eds based on original reporting or providing a point of view we might not easily find elsewhere.
2
I might have overlooked that citation, but I don't see it. Could you please tell us which paragraph. Also, you are using the phrase "primary source" incorrectly.
2
lying is 45's favorite sport slightly before golf.
however, his spokes woman may have trumped
him in the talent.
3
All so frightening and all so true. Thank you Charles Blow for keeping this out in the open with your writing brilliance. Please don't stop calling out this administration and the clown of a ringleader in charge of our country. Where are the defenders of the Constitution and why isn't congress doing its job? In any private business, they all would have been thrown out the door. The Republican congress is complicit every step of the way.
7
There's actually a sense in which he's one of the most honest politicians we've seen in our times: namely, he doesn't pretend to be a nice guy. The more pernicious liars are those who pat themselves and their ilk on the back for being "woke," when in fact they're every bit as selfish and full of it as everyone else.
8
When it all collapses he'll just lie some more. He won't do anything. He's just a barking dog.
3
When Trump was first elected I thought the GOP Congress--with the exception of the Freedom Caucus--would keep him in check. But looking back, the days of Paul Ryan's "I'm not there yet" seem almost quaint. Instead the bulk of the GOP has not only not reined in his worst impulses, they have adopted the Trump playbook--adopting his chin-out "just say black is white and blame somebody" strategy in face of obvious uncomfortable truths and turning legitimate concerns into "I know you are but what am I?"
The only light of hope I've seen in recent days is the reporting on the air of confidence emanating from Mueller's offices and the reported reaction by Trey Gowdy (so partisan he beat the Benghazi horse to a strip of leather and a hairball) to the actual file given to the FISA court in support of the Carter Page wiretap: "There is a Russia investigation without the dossier . . . . [T]he dossier has nothing to do with the meeting in Trump Tower, . . . with the email by Cambridge Analytica, . . . with George Papadopoulos' meeting in Great Britain. It also has nothing to do with obstruction of justice."
But then I remember Trump's presaging of a holy war with North Korea in his SOTU address, his talk of a "major event" he could use as a "Great Unifier," and I hear the recent surge of Hercules military transport aircraft taking off from nearby Dobbins ARB. And my blood runs cold.
9
Gotta hand it to you Charlie, you always hit the nails right square on their heads. Love the way Biden put it, that T has difficulty with precision. Illustrates the difference between gentlemanly dialogue and that of the man we have in charge. T wouldn't know how to tell a truth since his entire life is a lie from the getgo. He was raised and taught to be the person he is today and we're stuck with him - for now!
5
The Democrats didn't applaud at the SOTU speech because they didn't hear anything to applaud about. Just the fact he had to read from a prompter is indication enough that he was lying. There was nothing "un-American" about it.
They saw his blather for what it was: blather.
10
A third of the country has been disenfranchised since Andrew Jackson was president. My family has been angry with me since I left South Dakota and went to a Left Coast university. I’m a traitor to my class. They’ve always known that facts distort truth and common sense is always the best. They finally feel validated by Trump. Elitists complaining only increases to devotion to Trump. Blow and I agree, but nothing will change. This is going to get much much uglier.
13
This might be the only time in recent history where growing up in a dysfunctional family gives you a far more accurate read on Trump politics. It is a waste of time trying to find more descriptions for his "whoppers" and "lack of precision with the truth". Trump is a pathological liar. That is all.
We can all wander in the weeds for 3 more years trying to describe it or recognize that we know everything we need to know about Trump: he is in it for himself and he will lie to your face about anything and everything, and that is not changing. Building our institutions back up with healthy people with healthy minds means shutting the door on the lies and building an alternative.
13
Donald Trump is a grifter in the classic sense. It’s an old profession: the chiseler, the con-man, the flim-flam man. Trump’s view of humankind is twisted and cynical. Like P.T. Barnum, Trump sees other humans as “suckers” to be exploited. He is devoid of the essential human quality of empathy, unable to see others as anything but “marks.”
There is no “we” in Trumpland, only “me.” Trump’s cabinet is packed with grifters, with self-serving capitalists, billionaires, and political hustlers. The Republican Party is full of Ayn Rand devotees who think selfishness is righteous, with religious evangelicals who believe that salvation is “personal,” not for everyone.
The American Dream is built on the art of the hustle: the art of the deal is the art of capitalism is the art of the con. Our titans of industry are a rogues gallery of hustlers working the angles, inventing and creating things we don’t need (think Zuckerberg), and unable to give us what we do need. Steve Jobs: “people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” We pass tax laws that reward those who game the system. We punish those who observe the rules.
America is a hustler’s paradise: truth is negotiable; opinions are facts; standards of discourse are dead; reality, fiction and fame intermingle as equals. This is the atmosphere that allowed a Donald Trump to get elected President. And we are so far down the rabbit hole of self-deception that defining our salvation is just another sleight of hand.
13
Everything we know about this man tells us that rather than be taken down by the Mueller investigation he will wag a very real dog.
3
His lies are like a Ponzi scheme.
Everything will eventually fall and with it will come a bunk bed alongside fellow New Yorker, Madoff. The lies they will tell...
3
Trump’s recent use of the word treason was deliberate in order to cheapen the word when it will be used against him.
17
Thank you Mr. Blow! "If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet." And yet the Republicans in Congress remain complicit in this corruption and conspiracy.
6
Now more now ever, I recall my Appalachian mama, who reared eight "young'uns" in the 1940s-50s shouting wise homilies, despite having only an eighth grade education. Among them:
"Young'uns, you cain't tell jest one lie!" --"a liar will do jest about anything!" I believed it then and now in my eighth decade, I know it to be true.
10
"If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
That about sums it up.
3
Donald Trump's pathological lying is but one of his many malignant behaviorial traits. Among his other toxic behaviors are his sadistic dehumanization and evisceration of people whom he perceives as threatening or exploitable; his systematic denigration and destruction of ethical and moral values and norms; his sheer lack of remorse, empathy, kindness, love, and gratitude; his impulsivity, his recklessness, and his need for instant gratification; his objectification of others, especially girls and women (even his own daughter); and his extreme grandiosity and egocentrism.
In short, he is a narcissistic sociopath, and a highly successful one, the evidence for which includes the vast number of people he has managed to exploit and impoverish (in every sense) and destroy, the fortune he has managed to amass through his shady business dealings and ruthlessness, and his ability to skirt the edges of the law again and again. This success is what makes him so dangerous. He is utterly unaccustomed to "failure" (as sociopaths measure it), to being challenged and held accountable, so the likelihood is that he will react like a madman when the White House of cards tumbles. I, too, fear that we "haven't seen anything yet."
10
First, The writer is exactly right; we have become inured to the steady stream of seeming whoppers emanating from the Narcissist-in-Chief. On the other hand There seems to be an inability to discern the difference between an outright lie and overblown exaggeration.
FDR, Kennedy, Especially the Racist-in-Chief, LBJ, and Nixon lied to the people with much greater damaging effect.
Kennedy lied to us into and out of the Bay of Pigs, lying to the brave troops on the ground in Guantanamo about promised but undelivered air support. Most of them died in the one-sided firefight or in a Cuban Prison. That lie also lead to the closest we have ever come to a nuclear war.
LBJ lied us Into the VietNam war and was responsible for the majority of the 50,000+ deaths in that "police action". His racist speech and attitudes about African Americans were largely kept from the American People by a willing press. Lies of Omission; We were "protected" from his true nature.
Nixon lied about Watergate causing a constitutional crises that still has political ramifications to this day. He lied about Laos and Cambodia and was responsible for the deaths of many tens of thousands of citizens whose countries were not even engaged in the war. and his tapes are rife with the racism of the crudest sort.
Trump scary? Trump has not done one thing that rises--er, sinks to the level of his predecessors. He is a carnival barker, a man with no filter. but he's no Nixon.
And Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will be held accountable for allowing this monster to do irreparable damage to our country.
4
Being guilty of lying -while reprehensible-in Trump's case-couches his criminal actions which would otherwise be prosecuted...and perhaps they will be.
Being a 'liar' takes on a shameful association...but it isn't a felony. Being a 'liar' is an ugly characteristic...but it hasn't been the means to a jail sentence.
Trump's lying -whether unconscious or simply the contrived protective veneer that polishes his malfeasance into exoneration-has been in its practiced repetition-ascribed as merely just so many letters of the alphabet...just so many rearranged words...just so many tweets...just so much entertainment...ergo the underlying criminality has been safely shrouded and the lack of jail time for this predator -America's burden to bear.
1
"Exploit people’s covetousness, ambition, lust, greed, fear, racial tribalism and gullibility." That has to explain Trump's apparent rise in the polls. Those small increases in take-home pay must be causing people to go over to the dark side.
5
It's appallingly obvious what Trump will do to avert the country's gaze -- his impulse will be to go to war with North Korea. He's clearly itching to do it even now, and when his presidency finally starts to unravel, and he becomes increasingly powerless, he will exert power in the only way left to him -- by starting a war. And given his predilection to use overwhelming, blunt force, he may well choose to use nuclear weapons.
Yes, the worst is most definitely to come.
2
“Because he eschews intellectualism for intuition” really should be “Because he eschews intellectualism for impulse”.
6
Democrats need to cut thru their on-going outrage and focus on the 2018 and 2020 elections since nothing in D. tRump's history suggests he will change. In fact, if you think it's bad now just wait until the next Presidential election.
Anyone who thinks tRump and his supporters, both inside the government, in the private sector, as well as his "bromantic friends" outside of this country won't use whatever resources they have to discredit whichever Democratic candidate that runs against his is either a republican, naive, or willfully ignorant.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay must be shaking their heads over what one political party in our country condones and actively supports.
4
Mr. Blow asks: "What will Trump do to avert the gaze of scrutiny?"
How about war with North Korea? That ought to do it.
3
All of this stems from his narcissism. The lies, bullying, manipulation and need for constant stroking of his ego are merely the way this psychological malfunction manifests itself. Trump is a textbook narcissist. The wives, children and closest family members exhibit behavior of those who have had to deal with a classic narcissist. Add egomania and the power of wealth to the mix and you have the perfect storm. The problem with all of this is that it's almost impossible to treat or change a narcissist. Unless there is a way to stop this president and force him out of office there will be no re-set.
6
Check WebMD for the description of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder: "You want to make yourself look good, even if you must
hurt or ignore others to do it. You may brag a lot or pretend to be someone you’re not. You may get angry when you don’t get treated the way you want. Inside, you’re insecure, oversensitive, and may lash out if criticized." That pretty much nails it!
1
I agree with Mr. Blow’s conclusions. The recent statement calling the Dems. Traitors for not standing and applauding him during his speech and his plans for a Military parade in DC are troubling indications even foreshadowing of things to come. There are others like his statement last week that it would probably take some kind of emergency or event like a Terrorist attack to rally the whole nation behind him. Add to this the meeting this week of three of Russia ‘s top spy / security chiefs all Putin cronies with the CIA chief Mike Pompeo a Trump crony and we can almost smell what these Fascists are cooking up for us in the near future. Blow is right we are in an extremely dangerous place with this man / wild animal being backed into a corner by Mr. Mueller et. al. Blow is afraid that he’s not going to go down without dragging a lot of people with him and I think sadly he’s going to be right.
4
“My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Overall a masterful piece Mr Blow.
Certainly one very real possibility would be for Trump to follow the Bush Two scenario — push America into a bogus war.
1
I agree with David Barash that war would provide Trump the ultimate diversion from Mueller and his investigation. It does not have to be a nuclear war that irradiates/vaporizes millions, although Trump is pushing the development of mini-nukes in the belief they wouldn't escalate. He is also talking about a "bloody nose" for North Korea, which probably translates into a conventional attack on nuclear sites or Kim's long range artillery only 30-40 miles from Seoul (20 million residents including 270,000 Americans.)
All of this is frightening for those Americans who are paying attention, but the bellicosity is changing international attitudes towards the US. The solid, sensible, all-powerful American Government to whom vulnerable countries could appeal, is no longer reliable. America is no longer the largest economy, it's #3 (after China and the EU.
America First is being interpreted as Others Last.
3
Trump exploits human weakness. He himself does not try and rise above his own but wallows in it . Whatever happened to leadership that inspires us to be our better selves. Oh yeah, his name was Barack Obama, the man the Republicans were determined to destroy and replaced him with a low life.
7
I don't understand why the media does not show all the times in the past when Republicans also did not applaud Democrat Presidents who were giving speeches.
Did those Democrat Presidents complain about it? Or did Republican Presidents also audibly grumble about it whem Dems did that to them?
Are those pics hard to come by?
I recall seeing that spectacle many atimes on teevee.
5
Best hope - Meuller will save the Republican Party from itself, and in doing so, perform the greatest service to this country a true American patriot can deliver.
1
Excellent piece, Mister Blow. Lies trip off Trump's tongue with no sense of irony. His boastful claims, his vicious bullying attacks on his perceived enemies, words are used as weapons by Trump. This is a deeply troubled individual. His temper borders on the psychotic. Trump's history shows us he will do or say anything irregardless of its implausibility. There is a cancer growing on the White House. We the people must do our darnedest to remove it by first voting out Republicans who are aiding and abetting this criminal. Americans must exercise their power at the polls come November. The very survival of the United States Constitution depends upon it.
DD
Manhattan
3
Donald Trump suffers from an extreme narcissism disorder that completely explains his behavior. All you need to know about Trump is: It's all about magnificent, marvelous me, and only me. All the lying is just essential to prop up his grandiosity. But, at his empty core lurks an angry frightened and very mean- spirited child totally lacking, as is the case eith narcissists, and sense of empathy or compassion.
3
Please Charles, stop writing about him and encourage your fellow columnists to do the same. Find another focus; pick up issues that can drive voters in Nov. Call out the rampant corruption permeating every level of government. Show us the bounds of the expansive swamp that continues to deepen. Give us something to rally too. Resistance is a fine strategy when out numbered but the those that disapprove of this congress and administration are not in the minority. Please stop making it about him and start making it about us. Find the voice of the 99 % and amplify it.
2
Exactly right. There is no bottom.
2
Ultimately, it is a demand side problem.
Fox went to Canada and quit after three years because not enough audience.
2
Yes, Trump lies. The real problem, though, is that he still wakes up every morning. I don't wish death on anybody...it's just that he will never change
and he's still the President of the United States.
2
I don't think that Trump is all that interested in his family. He put them into position because he knows that they won't do anything to stop him from doing and getting what he wants. In return, they will continue to stick with him in order to get what they want from him. A narcissist's love for his or her family doesn't even go skin-deep. It is only as deep as a piece of paper, and that paper knows that it had better look the right way and say the right things or it will absolutely be tossed in the trash.
3
Our president often spouts obvious lies - his inauguration crowd was the largest in history, his state of the union address received the largest number of viewers ever, his cabinet is composed of only the best and brightest people, etc. These lies are obvious and can be fact checked quickly but they serve their purpose of promoting his agenda just by being out there.
But our president often spouts less obvious lies - he talks of the 'failing' New York Times, the 'liberal' FBI, the Affordable Care Act is a 'disaster', etc. Words stuck into sentences that send an almost subliminal message about his targets. These lies also promote his agenda just by being out there.
But they are all lies, whether obvious or subtle. They distort reality for the sole purpose of making him and his administration look good. The feed into people's preconceptions and prejudices and fears. And they are splitting the country apart.
His legacy may be that he began the movement that ended in a second American civil war.
1
I’m amazed and appalled at the way Trump is able to get those around him to eschew every visage of honour and completely degrade themselves (like John Kelly). Once he gets his tentacles around them, few (like the exception James Comey) seem able to resist base submission to Trump’s sociopathic amorality and mendacity. He really seems to be able to bring out the absolute worst in many people. How does he do it?
To quote Mick Jagger, "But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game,
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name,
3
The real problem for us is that no one is holding Trump accountable for his lies, in fact his supporters seem to love them. Our hope of sanity in Congress left the station when he won the primary and the Trumpublicans are now lying like sieves themselves to justify handing over our resources to the oligarchs. And I have lost my faith in the courts, particularly the Supreme Court. We can hope for the 2018 elections, but the Supremes seem bent on leaving Republican gerrymandering firmly in place, so I am not too optimistic. Vote, march, do what we can, and hope we won't weep at the end.
4
Think for a moment what all of this means for the Mueller investigation. He and his team must have given at least some thought to their end game, to how they are going to conclude their efforts, and that would include knowing that they are releasing whatever they have found into and environment with an unglued President and deeply divided, distracted Congress. Even if they feel they have an open and shut case for obstruction of justice, that anybody would do anything about, such as impeachment, is a pipe dream. Seems to me that Mueller knows the only hope of resolving things is by way of indictments, if not of Trump himself, at least so many other so close to him that it will terminate his time in office by way of an election, probably the one in 2020.
1
When Reagan became president in 1980, it didn't take a genius to know he was not one either. RR was an orator who, like Trump, preferred watching tv to doing the nation's business. His conservative based loved his oratory but may not have been aware that most of those policies came from others. Well, policy advisors are necessary for all presidents, of course. But Ronald Reagan was notable for his simple mindedness. He infuriated the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev at their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, when Ronny wanted to discuss his Hollywood career while Gorby was eager to discuss nuclear disarmament. Gorby finally left in a huff.
Then, years later, Bush43 is selected by the 5-4 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, and with him came a very dangerous man — Dick Cheney — who was apparently calling most of the shots without sitting at the famed desk of the Oval Office. In Cheney's One Percent Doctrine, we entered into a war that continues to this day.
After eight years of undeclared war and an economic meltdown, Barack Obama assumed the office of President with all of the promise of intergrity, honesty and thoughtfulness one could hope for. But the Republicans decided to oppose virtually every idea we needed to climb out of residual crises. Somehow, Obama still accomplished a lot along with a slow and diffinitive recovery.
Then came Trump and Trumpism: industrialist shills are unraveling the best of American ideals. Trump's lying is at the heart of it all.
1
Supporters and enablers of Trump have risen (or fallen) to the level of a cult. All cult leaders demand unquestioning allegiance of followers; or are labeled treasonous. Trump supporters keep the faith no matter what he says or does. There is no meaningful dialogue with these folks because Trump is going to save us from whatever he decides are threats - and whatever he says is right and true. By any definition “Trumpism” has morphed into a cult. What has happened to our country? People have long warned that despite foreign threats the real danger to our democracy lurks within.
4
My sister was married to such a guy. After 6 months of marriage she called it quits telling us all that the man "always played a little game." She was smart, understood reality, and made the necessary change in her life. Question is, why did the USA vote for Trump, also a man who for some 50 years as an adult also always played a little game. That is the issue. What is wrong with this country!
3
After all of the deconstructions of Donald Trump in the past year, Charles Blow understands that it really does come down to one thing: constant, obvious, willful lying about everything all of the time. This is coupled with Trump's other defining character trait: vengefulness. It will get worse before it gets better, and all of us will suffer through the process of dethroning him and his GOP enablers. It's all the more reason to end it soon. November cannot get here fast enough.
2
I can think of absolutely no president in our nation's history for whom impeachment would be more appropriate and yet there seems to be zero chance that it will happen. No president has placed the survival of our democracy in such jeopardy.
1
Mr. Blow your excellent editorial appearing in the NYT today, prompted a moving conversation between my sister and I. This is the crux of our conversation. If the American Democracy is going to be preserved, our leaders in government, business and education need to embrace and evoke accountability. Our current President does not value ACCOUNTABILITY. When you combine this fact with his propensity of dishonesty, greed and disrespect we have the makings of a disaster. It doesn't matter what political party one belongs to or is affiliated with... How can any one who is capable of critical thinking on any level trust the current leader of our country? How can any other world leader or world citizen trust this man? How can any U.S. Citizen trust any of the political leaders or staff who are continually covering up for Mr. Trump's lack of accountability? These are the important and imperative questions every American needs to be considering as the 2018 elections near. WE THE PEOPLE must send a powerful message to our government and leaders. Plausible deniability, dishonesty and manipulation has nothing to do with ACCOUNTABILITY. The American Democracy will not survive unless citizens all over this country INSIST on Accountability from our leaders.
1
Without referencing the president I instructed my 10th grade American Government students that lying is a fundamental principle of a person's identity. If trust can't be established and maintained between a society's citizens and the government then collective progress and likely, survival, are improbable.
3
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but the whole thing could have been half as long. We get it.
If only we the American people lived in a divided limited power Constitutional republic there would be no chance nor opportunity to "lie, exploit and destroy".
Did Donald Trump become President of the United States by either divine royal sanction rule or by an armed uniform military coup reign?
Hillary could not have possibly happened to lose another march to coronation.
Indeed, nothing will be beyond the pale and it appears there is nothing that congressional Republicans will not tolerate and even support and participate in. Congressional Republicans and Trump are one, and their combined power is unstoppable barring a massive election defeat. Anyone who cannot see grave danger for our nation on the horizon is living in a fantasy world.
1
“What will Trump do to distract from the collapse or to prevent it?”
Anything that he thinks will work that he can get away with. Anything at all.
3
For me, the much more interesting question is will there ever be a reckoning and what, if anything, will trigger it? He has crossed the red line so many times that at this point, I will be (pleasantly) shocked if he ever faces any consequences.
2
What's the point? What does it really matter whether we have a lying president? Many people thought Presidents Obama and GW Bush lied. Generally, we believe that all politicians lie. That's factored in to our view of politics, and of life in general. Some people lie and you have to figure out how to deal with it. The case can be made that Donald Trump tells more and bigger lies than other politicians, is unrepentant when caught in a lie, or lies about different things than past presidents. Shouldn't we focus on the real and damaging effects his particular lies have on real people? Some lies, like overestimating inauguration crowd size, don't hurt anybody. Lying about an immediate threat to our lives posed by Kim Jong Un to justify sending our soldiers to war does hurt people. Lying about Mexican and Muslim immigrants, refugees and citizens results in physical harm to some of them and economic, social and psychological harm to many. Lying about the partisan motives of some FBI officials and agents hurts those individuals personally and weakens the whole agency in its mission to protect us from all from harm. Lies told by a president can do great harm, so focus on the harm they do. Maybe even his "base" will get the message.
1
Read this: Who has done more harm?
First, The writer is exactly right; we have become inured to the steady stream of seeming whoppers emanating from the Narcissist-in-Chief. On the other hand There seems to be an inability to discern the difference between an outright lie and overblown exaggeration.
FDR, Kennedy, Especially the Racist-in-Chief, LBJ, and Nixon lied to the people with much greater damaging effect.
Kennedy lied to us into and out of the Bay of Pigs, lying to the brave troops on the ground in Guantanamo about promised but undelivered air support. Most of them died in the one-sided firefight or in a Cuban Prison. That lie also lead to the closest we have ever come to a nuclear war.
LBJ lied us Into the VietNam war and was responsible for the majority of the 50,000+ deaths in that "police action". His racist speech and attitudes about African Americans were largely kept from the American People by a willing press. Lies of Omission; We were "protected" from his true nature.
Nixon lied about Watergate causing a constitutional crises that still has political ramifications to this day. He lied about Laos and Cambodia and was responsible for the deaths of many tens of thousands of citizens whose countries were not even engaged in the war. and his tapes are rife with the racism of the crudest sort.
Trump scary? Trump has not done one thing that rises--er, sinks to the level of his predecessors. He is a carnival barker, a man with no filter. but he's no Nixon.
I recall as a youngster when I had difficulty with precision, my parents would punish me. Back then it was more commonly known as "lying".
1
"you can’t lie to impede an investigation, thereby obstructing justice"
We don't know that yet. The rule of law is in a fight right now and it's losing on my card.
2
This piece is spot on about Trump. He is dangerous and we also face the danger from our GOP controlled Congress.
Congress has now fully embraced 'Trumpism' and has joined in lying as their primary manipulative tool. From Devin Nunes to Ron Johnson, the GOP is encouraging their representatives to take turns on a weekly basis to lie in the service of Donald Trump. Paul Ryan is the leader of this GOP effort to exploit and destroy the FBI, DOJ, the free press and all who consider truth a valuable commodity.
There appears to be no "reckoning" for these co-conspirators or Trump. When has he ever had to be held accountable for even one of his lies? Our reliance upon Mueller is way too much but where is another avenue to truth, justice and the American way? Our lone knight in shining armor needs help. Vote because our democracy does depend upon it more than ever before.
Will there be a day when Trump addresses the nation from the Oval Office and apologizes before resigning? No. Seat belt sign is on.
1
@ChirstineMCM
" I believe Trump got in over his head with Russian oligarchs who now have him where they want him, sewing the chaos Putin craves in order to advance his own goals at the expense of ours."
The impact of DT's underestimating the consequences of his impulsive and self centered actions is falling squarely on "We The People's" shoulders, not DT's. Our nation is now vulnerable at every turn and his enablers are opening the door wider to our demise as a Democracy, every day. Anyone who minimizes this risk, (Richard L), is either a fool or a troll.
In the interim, DT and his family make money hand over fist, he lives in the lap of luxury at our expense as we pay for his golf weekends and his rich friends are funneled our money in droves with tax breaks and deregulation. We are being weakened as a middle class, as individuals and as voters, most importantly. We are in over our head because he has thrown us in deep water without a life preserver intentionally. All the while he is laughing all the way to the bank. Let's hope it is to jail in the end. Let's see if he is laughing then.
2
Nixon and the back door extension of the Viet Nam war. Watergate. Ford's presidential pardon of Nixon. The release of American Embassy personnel the day Reagan became president. Iran Contra. Weapons of Mass of Destruction. Does anyone think that Republican subterfuge - that Republican lying - will end when a) Trump is removed or b) (perish the thought) that he is reelected? Does anyone doubt if a) that he will be pardoned by his Republican successor? Does anyone doubt that Republican subterfuge, misdirection and outright lying will continue unabated until the party itself disappears? Does anyone doubt that the likelihood of the disappearance of the Republican Party is practically nil, given the donors at the top at the masses at the bottom? Does anyone remember Donald Trump once saying that if he ever ran for President it would be as a Republican, because 'those people' will believe anything?
My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Boy, are you so correct or what.
But if Mueller really wants to nab Trump, all he has to do is follow the money.
Find some legal way to examine his business books.
Bet he keeps at least two or three different version.
I've read somewhere that his son has admitted to borrowing money from the Russians.
How much?
Where did it go?
What were the terms of the loan?
Was there or is there money laundering going on?
I would love to see Trump serving time with Bernie Madoff.
Bet he wouldn't/couldn't make it a day.
1
Trump's lying, which is his life long habit, is infectious. He has Nunes, Purdue Cotton, Ryan, Kelly, Kellyanne, Huckabee, Spicer and countless others lying for him now. He has Reverend Pence lying for him. He has his Christian Evangelicals lying to themselves to excuse the inexcusable behavior. It is the fundamental reality of Trump that lies are the glue, the foundation that keeps it all tottering, instead of in absolute collapse. The reckoning will come soon and Trump will not abandon the lies, but double down and we must be prepared. There is no choice but to remove him. He has always been the biggest danger facing us since November 2016.
If you lie repeatedly, then after a while people stop believing anything you say. After a little while longer, people stop listening to you at all, and you lose the ability to communicate with others. But Trump doesn't use language to communicate — he uses it like a brickbat or a cudgel, a way of bullying his way to something he wants. That's why facts don't matter to him. The only thing that matters is saying whatever it takes in the moment to get his own way or to make himself feel important. I believe he is mystified when people point out that he contradicts himself, since that assumes that the content of what he says is of any importance to him at all.
2
I'm scared that our Maginot Line is Robert Mueller.
What happens when that line of defense doesn't defend us?
1
"My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
Anyone remember Alan Greenspan's admission that his economic theories never anticipated that corporate execs would destroy their own companies for personal gain?
1
Those of us of a progressive bent need to stand back a little and remember Bill Clinton. How did we end up defending the indefensible? (For the sale of this comment I am assuming that his transgressions extended only to Ms Jones and Ms Lewinsky. I am not ignoring Ms Flowers or the less well attested stories about others; but I don’t need them to make this point.) Clinton was fortunate in his enemies who stopped at nothing to try to bring him down. Because we could see that Whitewater was (using today’s parlance) a nothing-burger which was leveraged into an attempt to keep a very tawdry but ultimately consensual affair out of the public eye, we rallied to his defense and then we continued that defense because the attacks did not stop.
I remain convinced that had the Republicans (and recall that we little knew about the home life of Mr Gingrich et al in those more innocent days) backed off and tossed us the football we would have censured him and I would have given three to one in favor of his resigning. There are enough Republicans who view Mr Trump with revulsion and loathing but who defend him only because he is attacked. Mr Clinton, when the Senate voted to acquit him, had the grace to not gloat about his vindication. To me, the worst possible outcome would be a Senate trial on clear evidence which fails to attract enough Republicans for the required two-thirds.
Besides, how does it benefit any of us to jump from the Trump frying pan into the Pence fire?
Mr Blow, truer words have never graced these pages, thank you for articulating the angst and danger gripping the majority of American hearts. It's difficult to ignore the karmic justice of this obscene presidency. President Obama, a thoughtful, honest and inspirational leader, pilloried by the Right and ignored by a Republican congress, because of what he is, not who he is. Enter Trump, a man with the apocalypse looking over his shoulder, a man we can easily believe has made a Faustian deal with Russia and it's dark oligarchs, to trade our souls for his.
1
He will order a nuclear attack on North Korea in his desperation. He thinks the military is his play toy. The Sec. of Defense says the "Dear Leader's" desire for a military parade shows his "fondness for the military." When will enough people wake up and remove Trump from office?
When can we stop attacking him, and begin attacking those who put him in power? - like Fox News, die-hard supporters who benefited from Obamacare but hated Obama's name on it, and red states that generally receive more federal transfers from blue states so they can maintain low taxes and beggar blue states. As far as I can tell, sometimes the government isn't the problem, but a reflection of the voting base. While we're at it, a shout out needs to go to all those couch potatos who are complaining but failed to go to the voting booth on November 2016.
2
To answer your question Mr. Blow, he will do what Dubya did when confronted with his own lack of intellectual curiosity, faith in faith (well his own at least) and anti-intellectual tendencies (and that of the GOP in general), start a war.
1
There comes a time when the house of cards tumbles, though, and in that moment the liar is vulnerable and the reckoning becomes real. The question that nags me is, “What will Trump do to distract from the collapse or to prevent it?”
He will "wag the dog." Make war on North Korea. Or Iran. Or both.
1
Charles M. Blow, your first five paragraphs describe him perfectly.
1
You are the Times' Jeremiah and I ,for one, have no intention of ignoring your prophecies. We must remove this Trumpian cancer before it kills our republic.
2
But his favorabilty rating keeps rising... Who are these horrible Americans that support this racist liar of a man?
1
Mr. Blow’s list of Trump’s “sins” have some categories that are suspiciously similar: covetousness”, greed” and “ambition” (I looked them up). I suggest Trump be described and judged with a much more older and conventional instrument: the seven Capital sins. As we learned in catechism (I assume even Pence did), they go in descending order of gravity. The first four—Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth--refer to the willful perversion of bodily needs. The last three—Wrath, Envy and Pride—are far worse, perversions of the divine in us.
By all accounts, he's broken them all (as well as the 10 Commandments)
He’s damned. We are doomed.
3
What disturbs me is how conscientious Americans feel the creep of autocracy on a daily level and yet are helpless to do anything about it. I have never had the feeling before that we as a nation are heading towards full authoritarianism until now. We will most likely arrive there due to one impulsive move to "protect" us from North Korea or Iran. Millions dead would definitely take our minds off of the Mueller investigation. Martial law would end the story and the lifting of it would definitely be soon, believe him, maybe next week... Next thing you know Barron is our president. And I sit here cursing at my weakling Republican senate representative, Dean Heller, for being such a spineless worm and actually praising this monster. What do we do about this? Trump has all of the cards because he has the nuclear button and absolutely no moral compass. Will the Trumpies, whoever the hell this mythical sub-group is, be snickering all the time when their children are glued to the street? I don't think so. Winning isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
2
Any time Trump opens mouth, you can assume he's lying. I've almost gotten used to that. What concerns me even more is the way his supporters deny the truth. I try to have intelligent conversations with Trumpers, but they continually cite provable untruths to make their cases. Trying to correct the tangled web of their lies is exhausting, and usually futile, as they believe what they want to believe, truth be damned. We really are through the looking glass.
2
The majority of US citizens are sick of Trump's continuing his "winning" on lies. The majority of US citizens are sick that Trump's Roy Cohn, the Republican party, still has Trump's back, willfully blind to Trump's lies. Trump laid this base with his test of birtherism, a hatefully spiteful and treasonous attempt to undermine Obama's presidency, on lies. And reinforced it with the aid of Putin's hackers to undermine the Democratic candidate by projecting all of Trump's unfitness for office and shortcomings on to Hillary.
Strangely we are all caught in this prison of locking up the truth which a majority of Republicans are content to shape in their alternate reality of tribalism at the nefarious command of Trump and Putin.
When Trump's parade of arms and boots ensues we need to double down on the question: what the hell are these young men and women being asked to die for? Freedom from the truth?
1
Well, you put Trump's 'virtuosity' on the table, the only one he knows; since he never grew up into a responsible adult, he remains deeply insecure and immature; otherwise, one couldn't explain his bullying (cowardice in disguise), and his constant lying. His inability to see the truth for what it is, without alternatives into fiction if the truth is inconvenient to him; as reality is based on empiric facts, provable, if only one is willing to see and hear, and feel, like any normal human being does. Given Trump's constraints, reducing his abilities to a brutus ignoramus, why in hell do we ask the impossible from him, decent behavior? Can't we see he is like an 'enfant terrible', completely self-centered, and in desperate need of constant applause? The re is only one solution, and that is his ousting from office, before he completes destroying this already bruised democracy. To tell the truth, the harm he is causing, the loss of trust in each other, will outlast his misrule for a generation. Given that stupidity is in such great supply (just look at his vociferous base), perhaps we deserve him (Ughhhh!).
3
C'mon, just say it. Trump is damn well willing and itching to push that nuclear button, and he'll do it in his insane way of thinking that a good ol' war will rally the country around him when he needs it.
So he's willing to sacrifice, say, 16 million Americans to save his evil skin.
And he'll invent whatever lie he wants to make it happen.
5
Many big name pastors love the way he lies Charles. According to them lying is no longer an abomination as written in the Bible, but celebrated. Woe to them that call evil good and good evil. Shameful is there no fear of the Lord anymore?
3
Is this about you, Blow? Mr. Unpatriotic. Your team of fringe groups and entitlement seekers are losing traction rapidly. Trump is negotiating, bluffing and bracketing are part of this process. You may need some real life experience to understand. Your mentor Ms. Pelosi is also looking worse and worse each day. I guess her expose was to show that she still has cerebral blood flow. She has excellent entertainment value of observing a desperate fool. Your team is moving backwards as you ignore and show contempt for the average American from your ivy tower. Proceed, we are enjoying your help.
Fact: Dems are continuing to win special elections in red districts, in red states. The blue wave is coming in November.
1
How must if feel to know that he is going to be remembered as the worst president in U.S. History...can't be a good feeling. He is such a filthy liar and will forever be caricatured as such.
9
Charles, we all came to know of Trump's lies and deception during his campaign.
Actually what he said, on the day he announced his candidacy for the president of this then great country which he singlehandedly turned into a fiasco,was a lie to begin with.
And he knew it the moment he said "the Mexicans are coming here with drugs..." that it was a blatant lie because he himself was and still is using the workers from that country for manufacturing of his ties, baseball caps with the logo "Make America Great Again" and textiles,wines, suitcases et Al bearing "Trump" name right in the heart of Mexico.
But our illegal and totally illegitimate president said all these degrading words for the consumption of totally illiterate and some under educated White rural Americans who cannot even spell the word "lie" because of their hatred for our educational system.
So they never really considered their leader as a liar which we knew from the beginning of his devilish harassment of Obama, our first Black president for no reason other than his hatred of the Black Americans since the day he was born to a totally obnoxious and hateful racist father.
Yes, we can easily label Trump as the most racist president ever. Maybe the most racist human being in the world right now whose main ambition is how he can win his election again in 2020 with the help of his totally racist,dirty 'White Supremacists or 'White Nationalists',anti-Jews,anti-Black and anti-Immigrant Aryan Brotherhood supporters.
5
here's my bet: when the noose gets tight, he will a. fire mueller b. pardon everyone c. start a war with NK. he will bring down everything. because he doesnt care about anything, except himself. so get ready for armageddon Trump style. he will not go quietly into the nite.
11
No need to worry about lying when you wear Trump asbestos pants.
3
Seventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Variation on that rule is lying: stealing truth. It appears that Trump's Christian conservative core, with all its amoral members like Jerry Falwell Jr., are sanguine about dismissing this Commandment. Another one down, since the Sixth Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery (not going near #10 Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife--speaks for itself), went down, without voting disapproval from Trump's Christian conservative core, years ago. Not only is the Fake President and Real Moron destroying our country's ethics, morals and civilized codes of behavior, he is eliminating the 10 Commandments of God like the best bowler on an angry bowling team. And now we await his Glorifying Power Parade whose only intent is to exalt this conceited Demi-God who makes the rules. Nice one Charles. Keep it up: St John the Baptist is standing with you in the Wilderness.
2
Crude, coarse, ignorant, dishonest, false. Yeah, he is very scary indeed.
2
What will he do if cornered to save his self-image, his business and his family (in that order)? Start a new war, of course. It doesn't take much of an excuse when you're a pathological liar supported by a Republican Congress. "Weapons of mass destruction" was a good-enough lie for GW Bush and his Yes-men. All that remains to be seen is which country he decides to attack. Iran? North Korea? Afghanistan? Yemen? Mexico? Kenya? California?
6
Trump is a successful liar. He continues to lie reflexively because it helps him in his quest to be a winner. He tells lies which conform to what should be the truth rather than what is the truth. He lies because he listens to friends who similarly make up stuff which fits with their opaque and slanted view of the world. His lies are not pointed out by the toadies that advise him for fear of not being loyal to Dear Leader. Most of his lies are classic projection. The Democrats are traitors, not me. The Democrats are colluders, not me. The FBI are the liars, not me. Hillary was working with the Russians, not me. Never me, never me, believe me, believe me.
7
Trump is a liar, and everybody knows it. The nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him know it.
The real question: why would so many people vote for a known liar?
3
...Because they identify with him and rationalize that he is lying on their behalf. Among the many terrifying aspects of the trump debacle, this may be the saddest.
Trump is a serial liar without a doubt. He is like a cult leader - Jim Jones and David Koresh are examples. Trump fans are cultists who never question anything he says just like the fans of Jim Jones and David Koresh were. Trump and his fans are dangerous.
Like George Carlin once said "I do this real moron thing sometimes....it's called THINKING."
4
Trump isn't even an accomplished liar. It's his stupidity that his supporters like. He talks like them. To them, he tells it like it is, but they advise, "don't take him literally." His out and out, unabashed idiocy is what they admire, because he makes public their ignorance and elevates it to, apparently, an object of worship. Soon enough, those who do not clap at his every word will be labeled not traitorous, but blasphemous. Examine every religion of the world and you will find an expectation to believe what is unbelievable at its core. "Believe me."
3
Agreed. Trump will stop at nothing to preserve his tenuous grasps on power. "Tenuous" because it is based on quicksand. He has no fundamental values or competency to call on when the going gets tough. His handlers cannot keep him focused and contained and too many share his world view of "others". He encourages the basest of emotions and tribalism in his followers. Most of the GOP don't even try to tamp down the dictatorial impulses because his personal circus keeps the country transfixed while they rob us blind. The Koch cabal are the snake charmers; Trump is their snake. The country is the hapless rabbit to be eaten.
If Trump is indicted, - he will never be impeached by the GOP as long as he is their useful idiot - he will no doubt try to rile up his fanatic base to fight back. They are armed and dangerous. Charlottesville may have been the first volley in the lead-up to the next Civil War.
4
Thank you Mr.Blow for your straight talk. If only some of his sycophants in Congress would admit this and put country before their $$$politics. I fear our democracy is crumbling. Not sure the great ship of the democracy can ever be righted again.
6
The latest poll 40% give this pathological, irredeemable liar a thumbs-up! Unbelievable!
4
I was taught, along with many others, that lying is dishonorable to yourself as well as others. Lying is a coward's way out of accountability or responsibility and makes you much less of a person as well as it stunts your character growth or ability to become a responsible adult. In Trump's case you remain a man baby.
If you lie to others they will stop believing you or believing in you. If your lies do not stop you will become a social pariah and/or shunned as far as viable employment. Liars cannot be trusted and should not be trusted for the most basic and logical of reasons, when is the liar not lying? How on earth can that be determined? You are right, Mr. Blow, I take it for granted that Trump is lying unless he states a fact that has already been proven elsewhere.
In summation, we have a pathological liar in our WH, one is also all about himself and not about his country or the majority of Americans, one who is a racist, a white supremacist, a neo fascist, a misogynist, a bigot and a universal hater and destroyer of all things democratic or right or just. A man who cannot be trusted for his word so all is chaos around him. A man with hundreds of business lawsuits in his past because his word meant nothing.
It still does. He is all shadow and no substance and dangerous to America and Americans as well as the world.
3
This is the truth. Truth does matter. And the world is in grave danger from this completely amoral, lying & racist bully. The worst in human instincts has been permitted to take hold of the reins. Who will stop him? If none of our elected officials have the will or strength of purpose to stop this charade, we had best prepare for the destruction of everything worthwhile in humankind.
5
Thank you.....keep up the good work.
4
So Donalds' lawyers are telling him "man you lie too much, Mueller would kill you"? That the reason he shouldn't allow himself to be questioned under oath has nothing to do with subtle methods applied by the interrogator?
1
The photo with this column says it all! Great NOT to see the LIAR's face here. And, Charles Blow nails it again. Thank you Mr. Blow!!
1
"Branding?" I'd call it "con". It's all part of his con game, which is all Trump has ever known how to do. He's a con man, pure and simple. A liar, a crook, a thief, a two-bit grifter, a snake oil salesman, a bum, a free loader, a charlatan, a highwayman. Down through the ages, mankind has had a name to describe a con man like Trump. They are all the same and Trump is no different. You could load Trump in a time machine and send him back 200 years or 2,000 years and in a short time, everyone would know who Trump was. Just another lazy, no good, con man.
He is all those things and more, to his very core. It's the only core he has. Everything else stems and flows from that core of evil. The lying, the manipulation, the insults, the racism, the bigotry, the hatred of women, the temper, the stupidity, the abusing, the foul language, the childish behavior, the tantrums, the breaking of any and all rules, the self-enrichment, the bragging and false-bravado, all of it comes from his very core of being a con man.
I am just fascinated that after years of non-stop media coverage and examination of Trump, so few call him what he really is. A con man.
2
This column is the most concise presentation of the essense of Trump I have read. Well done, Mr. Blow, though I wish it wasn't necessary for you to spend so much of your life recording the ills of this pathetic president.
3
Thank you Mr. Blow and please keep it up!
Seriously Charles!!!
Were you in my head this morning as a lay in bed thinking so many
of the things you said in this column today??? If only there was
a way out!
Thank you, Charles Blow. If everything is a lie, there is no truth. Chaos ensues. That is now what America exists within. Sheer chaos.
Charles more and more it looks like a onetime Presidency of trump !
Hope for the sake of the World and Nation it is indeed a one time until Bobby Mueller gets done with the liar of a President !
You forgot to mention his relationship with his eldest daughter, Ivanka. There are photographs of her as an adolescent--in public--sitting on his knees in a manner that suggests onanism, and his campaign statement that "My daughter is hot!"
And then, if you have a long enough memory, you think of the scene in "Chinatown" where Faye Dunaway says, "My sister! My daughter!" and later her father (John Huston) says he's so fabulously wealthy and powerful that he can get away with anything, including father-daughter incest.
While consensual incest between adults is NOT illegal in New York, New Jersey, and many other states, it is the ultimate in poor taste, and most religions condemn it roundly. And here it seems to be, hiding in plain sight, between President Pit and his "hot" daughter.
Right on as usual, Mr. Blow. I doubt if there are many, if any, persons in our country who do not know in their hearts that Trump is a pathological liar. The greater question is what to do about it. We must put our faith in Mueller, and then in the US Congress. The former is a strong reed to lean on. The latter is so much a part of the problem (including the lying propensity) that we indeed, as many readers have said, should fear for the fate of our nation. As to what Trump will do to obscure and divert: the mushroom clouds in the sky are not beyond the limit. Probably soon after the Korean Olympics, we are in deep kimche.
"...you haven't seen anything yet..." What a dire prognosis, and a fair one, I believe. Can we not expect that there remain in the GOP enough decent people, or people with at least a sense of enlightened self-interest, to put a halt to this man's scything of American values and security? "So may the outward shows be least themselves..." If we have a visible, tangible wall, we'll be safe? If we have a very very big parade, we'll be truly great? Trump and his world are "still deceived with ornament."
As many have said the #PLIC meets all the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. To lie, cheat, steal, connive, exploit, dupe, deceive, betray are all part of the man's makeup.
In view of what’s coming out about this entire bogus investigation into Russian collusion by Trump, I would say the liar isn’t Trump but Obama, Hillary, Comey, Lynch, and the other folks at the FBI.
This is a precise unraveling of the personality of a seriously disturbed individual who has always been this way and will never change. The only criteria left out is why do people follow someone so tarnished and damaged. This is a the scary part of the equation that so many could be fooled into voting for this disturbed human. The only other thing that equates with this is the evangelical preacher types holding large crowds in thrall with a somewhat phony story that brings in millions. No names need be mentioned. It is the same thing. We must in the future do whatever is necessary to block this sort of "maniac" from being our President. The only good thing about this guy is that he is real stupid and uninformed. We can get the smartest minds to work on our protection from this happening again.
1
Does anyone really believe that Donald Trump EVER intended to be interviewed by the special counsel? Seriously? That was all a ploy and it was always intended that he use his lawyers as an excuse not to. Really, you’re the one calling him a liar! It’s ALL a lie.
"Indeed, he apparently conflates praise of him with actual patriotism."
Apparently!!
Correction Charles, he equates praise of him with actual patriotism.
1
Many Americans are liars too: scam artists who will anything for a buck, even run over their grandmothers. How else explain Trump's enablers?
1
He's a reactive and impulsive liar. I hope Mr. Mueller subpoenas him so we can observe how maniacal and devious Trump truly is — I doubt his lying brain will be able to keep pace with questioning, so many entanglements to shield. May there be accountability for his lifetime of malfeasance.
He is a conservative and so he lies, is racist and misogynist, its what defines them. He has received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russia and is now performing his side of the contract by destabilizing the U.S.. This is treason, a word we'll be hearing frequently in the near future. His personality defects Charles describes are accurate and what makes treason no big deal for him.
OK - Charles Blow, Trump is a pathological liar. May he be charged with lying to the special counsel, Robert Mueller as he has lied to the American people for decades. Lying is "everything", as you say. And Trump's lies have compounded the fracture of our democratic government. As our NIC (Narcissist in Chief), Donald Trump has turned patriotism on its head. Lying like Animal Farm speak. The Democrats were "un-American" and "treasonous", by not applauding his S.O.T.U speech! So be it. Love fests for Trump have speckled the American landscape like horse apples. Trump - despite his millions, billions and we'll never know as he won't release his tax returns - is living in a house of straw that like Rumpelstiltskin he is trying to weave into gold. Gilt. Guilt. We American people (the "losers" who didn't vote for him) are waiting to see Trump hung upside down on his Fifth Avenue petard one of these splendid hoped and prayed-for days.
Yes, that remark lays it out: people who didn't applaud the Leader are un-American and treasonous. In other words, "L'etat, c'est moi."
I agree with everything you have said about Trump, and yet I say it's better than Pence. With Pence we will have the American Taliban and fighting in the streets as Trump Cult followers fight their gods removal. As much as it pains me to say it, we have to leave him where he is. But that doesn't mean that the GOP should continue to prop him up and give him everything he wants. They need to protect our democracy, and so far I haven't seen any evidence they will. Americans who are not members of the trump cult need to get out and vote to save us.
Predicting the November turnaround...
Humpty Trumpty tried to build a great wall,
Humpty Trumpty had a monumental fall,
All the kings horses and all the kings men,
Tried to put as much distance between themselves and the Buffoon-in-Chief as possible.
"And one of his most fundamental means is lying" - just curious Mr Blow whether you attacked Pres. Obama in the same way? We now know there was plenty of lying going on there.
- Bengazi
- Blaming Libya attacks on a film maker
- Sending out Rice to lie on 5 different morning news shows
- Lois Lerner and the IRS, we know they targeted tea party groups, Justice left hem alone
- Obama and Rev Wright, hidden and lied about
- Maybe ditto with Farrakhan
- Whole HRC email investigation is riddled with lies. Comey, Strock, Page, the AG, etc.
- Whole Russian investigation into Trump, when the only evidence we have is of HRC and foreign sources colluding against Trump.
- And now maybe Obama is being tied into it.
- The whole Holder "Operation Fast and Furious"
the list goes on and on
For a moment, looking at the headline "Lie, Exploit and Destroy", it seemed possible that Mr. Blow was engaging in reflective thinking and evaluating his own one-sided writing about the Trump Presidency.
False hope. Another one-way-street view of the situation in US politics from Mr. Blow.
Mr. Blow needs to get outside the silo in which he lives.
Mr. Blow, you put clear words to all of my fears and misgivings. What will his final distraction be? What will be his Reichstag Fire? I fear the worst since none of the "patriots" on the Republican side in congress are willing to stop him while the gravy train is chugging along.
1
...agreed on all points.
I am currently reading David Cay Johnston's new book about Trump and his "administration", "It's Even Worse Than You Think." We've all known about the lies, the pathologies, etc., but in reading the book what struck me is Trump's utter stupidity in every phase of life. Yes, he is lazy, lacks any form of concentration or coherence, but there are many lazy and distracted people who still have a shred of intelligence. But truly, Trump is just a stupid person. I would suspect he got into Penn via a well-timed donation from his father because there is no way in the world he would have been admitted based on his intelligence, because there is none. Johnston's book repeatedly points out the many ways Trump simply exhibits the most telling proof of his sheer stupidity. And we are paying the price for the stupidity of those who voted for him. Keep in mind that 90% of voting Manhattanites voted for Clinton in 2016. Those who really "knew" him knew what he truly is...
1
The Republicans discovered somewhere during the general election that Trump is a useful idiot. He provides bread and circuses for the angry and left behind middle class middle America. He throws them bones (i.e., scape goats, bones without any actual red meat on them like job creation). And he doesn't too much get in the way of allowing the Republicans to do the raping and pillaging of our GDP they way they have always wanted to do. I doubt that Trump provides them enough cover to gut Social Security, because no one wants to go back to living with their children or eating cat food, but I suspect they will try to gut Medicare, Medicaid, even Veterans' benefits. It's what the rich who run the country want. To kill the middle class goose that lays the golden eggs, to get the last egg.
Stunning op/ed, Charles. My skin started to crawl as I read it.
1
"Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!"
from "Marmion" by Sir Walter Scott
Trump is a chronic, compulsive and pathological liar. Even when the truth works to his advantage, he exaggerates to make it more grand, there by invalidating the statement.
As usual Charles does the Alexander Pope thing: "What oft was thought but ne're so well expressed."
Any one with an once of sense knew what Trump was in the 2016 campaign. If you lived in NYC you knew who he was in the 1980's. Why those who had the voice to say it but did not is to their everlasting shame. This includes GOP leadership, and the press who conflated Clinton's foibles with Trump's colossal empty soul. So now we have this deeply flawed man-child and his sycophants running things. Trump=Entropy. The country falls into chaos as Trump wants everyone to clap for him and have military parades, just like the USSR, Nazi Germany and Nortk Korea.
The end is certain unless we get off our behinds and stop this madness.
Trump lies because he is a sociopath - it is that simple. He always has been - he has all the hallmarks from assaulting a teacher as a child, the lying, the cheating, treating everyone else like an object and regarding himself as the only one with value. This isn't mental illness -it causes him no pain - his brain is just different - it is the brain of a reptilian predator.
Sadly, this seems to be the American way, preceded by white colonial rulers “Exploit people’s covetousness, ambition, lust, greed, fear, racial tribalism and gullibility.” perhaps goes back to Ancient Rome Times!
1
Lies? You want lies? These excerpts are from the Bible, you know, that holy fount of goodness that is the evangelical "Christian's" index to life; to good works? They bow down and worship Trump thus:
Revelation 2:2: "I know thy works...and thou has tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and has found them liars."
Revelation 21:8: "But...all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burnt with fire and brimstone..."
Deuteronomy 32:4: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he."
Psalm 51:6: "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know wisdom."
Proverbs 23:23: "Buy the truth and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding."
These few excerpts from the Bible (should) for some sort of guidepost for all those who claim Christ but do, rather, flock behind the stinking piper of the lie, whose wind is foul and is the life-breath of those who follow.
No. 45 is buttressed by the evangelical bloc, a sect of rote and mindless ants who, knowing little of what they do, seek sustenance and gather and build their own hills for their own without the smallest inclination that what they do, and what they are, is evil.
God's shining light is truth, for without it, what knowledge and direction do we have? This singular moral virtue is quite absent from the "president" they so ardently worship.
The lie is a shame before God.
1
If there is a case, Mueller must prove it without Trump. This is intrinsic in the Bill of Rights, 5th Amendment. The lying should cost Trump and the GOP at the ballot box, since the GOP has become enablers for Trump’s lying. VOTE THEM OUT.
2
Boy Mr. Blow is quite worked up. The things that he mentions about what Trump's voters admire is basically a description of capitalism. Especially the form of rip off American capitalism which is in a full scale war to achieve the Rs libertarian, only rich people matter, mind set. The Russia story continues to embarrass the news media types who want to sink Trump's presidency. The problem is they have no case. The Ds are left with the business of unseating Trump politically. Hopefully they can do better than the doomed 2016 campaign of the deep state candidate Hillary Clinton.
2
"They have not case"? Really? Is that the story you're going with?
If Mr. Trump's voters admire his "capitalism" and think that is what Trump is carrying out they are very confused. Trump himself would rather rig the game than have free market capitalism which is really what destroyed manufacturing in this country. Real capitalists don't whine about West Virginia coal miners - they buy stock in fracking and other growth industries. Also a good capitalist would lay off all the miners, pave over West Virginia and make it a parking lot for Virginia which was what it was before it became West Virginia.
Yes, He is a liar. More than that, he simply does not care. Everything and everyone is fair game in his never-ending quest for self-adulation. There is no one but himself and as he must recite, everyday, all day, in front of his mirror, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest liar of all. Yes, Donald, you are! After all, I, a mirror, am merely a mimic of all that you are." (We might as well relate to him in his fantasy world.)
12
Absolutely. Not IEDs, But LEDs. Lie, Exploit and Destroy. The Trump Regime, in three words. Thank you.
16
Rick Wilson: "Everything he touches dies."
11
Send some hard copies of this to the Pentagon, to the Chiefs of Staff.
10
yes, i fear that he got a little taste of the bump in the polls that some cruise missile launches can bring. imagine what jihad against iran could do. i do wonder if the generals are willing to risk a coup to save the country. congress should give them some cover in advance, at the very least take first-use of nukes off the table.
4
Re: "I view lying as a gateway offense that makes permissible any manner of other offense. Lies beget lies and another is always needed to cover the one that came before."
And yet Mr. Blow had no trouble supporting Hilary whose lies enabled an abuser of women. To what lengths indeed!
1
Power, in its highest form, is the power to shape perception while creating 'virtual realities'. Money, by contrast, pales in comparison... and so, the big, big, bigly lies.
He tells his base that they're victims.... not true... but it empowers their contempt.
That he'll drain the swamp... ditto.
Hillary is crooked... and on and on and on....
TRUTH, my friends.... our best defense against our annihilation...
4
President Trump’s favorite pastime is attending campaign rallys for his sycopphantic admirers and telling lies. Taunting his opponents by demeaning them with nicknames is his stock and trade. All of this has become a new “normal” and Americans and the world now readily accept these things as if they were a quirk of his personality.
9
On 9/11 our country was attacked by foreigners; today our country is regularly attacked by a man sitting in the Oval Office of the White House. He is not our leader, not the guardian of our Constitution, not the spokesperson for the beliefs of the majority of Americans. We, the American people, are the real leaders of this country. Even though there are those of us who follow in lockstep what the person in the White House twits, in the end those of us who hug to our souls a belief in the Constitution, in the values Abraham Lincoln learned to adopt and in the spiritual force that led so many of us to acts of selflessness and compassion after 9/11 and after every natural disaster that happens, in the end our leadership will endure. The exemplar in the White House of non-truth, non-ethics, non-caring, non-justice and non-goodness will have his 15 minutes of flame. And burn out. Then those Americans who will have learned even more about democracy because of his near ruination of the country and the planet may effectively lead.
11
Many wondered why on earth Nadar would dare to molest his victims even with the victim’s parents in the room. Imagine what it would take to block the parents view by strategically positioning his body. He did this to increase his
“thrill”. The thrill is his sense of power. When Trump talked about being able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not only get away with it but continue to be adored, Trump is experiencing the same kind of thrill. The thrill of grandiose power. That’s why he compulsively lies. That’s why it is so dangerous. To continue the high of the thrill, he needs to take increasing risks so he can re-experience his absolute power. Very very dangerous compulsion. You are absolutely right, Mr. Blow. We’ve seen nothing yet.
10
So, it's pretty obvious what we have here with Trump. No more need for analyzing his reptilian brain. We must now be active to save our democracy. How? 1) contact your representatives each and every day 2) support those candidates who believe in democracy, truth, our institutions and will serve the citizens they were elected to serve 3) VOTE in every election and make sure your family, friends and neighbors VOTE in every election. Voting is the essence of a strong democracy.
16
First question: How tall are you and how much do you weigh? Then bring in the scale.
5
It’s not that I have never been lied to by a politician before, but at least the rest of them didn’t insult my intelligence by not even “doing the work” that it takes to manufacture a somewhat credible lie. This man is so spoiled and lazy that he continues to lie like a 5 year old and so self-centered that he believes the rest of us out here are as intellectually incurious and uninformed as he is.
6
This is so true, his lies define him. But lets not forget that Al Franken wrote “Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them” back in 2003, during the Bush administration. Lying is the modus operandi of the Republican Party, as they attempt to mold oligarchy out of democracy.
14
What is very scary is that Trump is blind: blind to anything except to his own image. What goes through my mind when he gets cranked up is that of riding the nuclear bomb in Dr. Strangelove.
6
What is more dangerous ? The liar in chief, the liars that are surrounding him in power, that lie as well to protect the party, instead of the country, or the people that voted for this administration ( they knew of the lies beforehand, but decided to vote for party instead of country anyways ) after said lies ?
Power cannot sustain itself in a vacuum and the man and his lies are sustained by all those around him that support him still. That is the threat.
However, that threat will be extinguished in November and 2 years after that.
14
I've always liked the quote, 'Tell the truth, it's the easiest thing to remember.' Truth is actually better and brighter than that, but liars usually are caught due to 'misremembering'. Trump, ever the showman, just keeps ranting and raving and never stops for anyone to talk about his lies; he moves on to the next one.
One thing that's becoming clearer to me is that millions of Americans really have no moral code. They don't really care about truth or honor or love, for that matter. They may talk the talk about Jesus, but they seemed much aligned with the moneychangers. Trump is the leader. Just look at the recent tax cut: the rich are so glad to have their 'man' in the driver's seat (with Republicans glad-handing right behind). No, we are not a moral nation if 40 % are now supportive of Trump. They are him. Lie, exploit, destroy and take as much as you can. Be the bully, the dictator that says, 'Only I'.
For these 'Americans', real democracy and compassion and equality mean little. Money is their madness, and they have the maddest of them all in charge.
Do they care that he skipped Vietnam and said POWs weren't really 'heroes'? Despicable. Dishonorable. Unchristian.
So God help us all, and help us stay strong with such vacuous, venal winds being blown by the great liar of our age: the boy that cries wolf, now President.
11
If the Republicans retain control of Congress this year and Donald Trump loses the next Presidential Election, Donald Trump will claim voter fraud and refuse to leave office. Republicans so hungry for power will allow it to happen. The hierarchy of the FBI and Justice Department will by then have loyal Trump people.
Demonstrations during the Vietnam war pale in comparison to what will follow.
Western States will secede from the nation.
American Democrats will move to blue states and Republicans to Red States.
Much like the Sunni/Shiite and the Hutu/Tutsi...
Civil War will destroy our country - thanks to one person -DONALD TRUMP!
Check the internet for a theater near you.
3
"If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
Mr. Blow, allow me to suggest an example. When he talks about the wall "and Mexico will pay for it", what many in his base hear is "Or we're going to start shooting them when the come across". Bullets are cheap and we have the technology so no human being will be charged, and the ILLEGALS triggered their own death. Punishment.
Bullies act in fear of what someone else will do to them, so they have to do it first. Not all that complicated.
9
Psychiatrists always have a hard time saying people like Trump are crazy, but if you ask psychiatrist's mothers nine times out of ten they will tell you straight off that these people are meshuggah and there is nothing you can do about it.
5
The constant Jeremiads are getting old. Life goes on until it doesn't. As far as I can tell, who or who has not been president has had zero impact on my life. Chalk it up to being low-income. The presidents who cared about that are long gone. One exception to that was the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare, though that needs improvement. Anyone in my situation who can't see that is a fool.
4
Ah, VT. If you lived in TN you wouldn't have even seen an expansion in Medicaid.
And that means that if you owned stock in a big hospital chain (like HCA) that receives federal funds (like Medicare), you would have seen your income go down. Because part of the PPACA deal was that the "unreimbursed care" portion of patient reimbursements would go down because there wouldn't be any more unreimbursed care. So now you really hate Obama. (Boo hoo, aren't you crying for your rich Red State friends?)
1
Trump fits the definition of a serial sociopath: a pathological liar who sees himself as a victim when anyone confronts his persistent lies. The problem becomes when the media and 37% of the population including supposedly religious evangelicals approve of the lying. Societies fail when the population accepts lying delusional thinking by the political system and also attempts to destroy the legal system that oversees political corruption.
6
This presidency was constructed upon a monstrous lie: that America was an impoverished wasteland, peopled by “losers,” a situation that he promised to rectify. He told the 63-millions who would believe the lie that he would be their pied piper. They have trailed in his wake, not for a moment nauseated by the windy stench of his serial untruths.
America’s “greatness” is a narcotic that drugged generations of citizens. Exemplary citizenship requires the fullest, most complete understanding of history, the complex dynamics of time and space; of opportunity seized or neglected; of unaccountable fortune—good or bad—of geography and nature ‘s unpredictable ways. One cannot see the overall and then pronounce it good or bad without taking into account factors unforeseen at the time of their development.
So when this liar purports to give judgment upon history as a predictor of the present and future, he does so from ignorance and deceit.
Do we accept this or reject it?
5
Don't forget we will have a "dear leader" military parade which of course will be the biggest in history and attended by the largest audience not to mention with highest price tag to stroke the president's ego. Our dear non-military leader will be able to show the world: this is all mine mine mine. The Trump Parade.
1
My concern is to what extent are Ryan, McConnell, Kelly and the rest of the repubs willing to go to support Cadette BoneSpur?
1
OK, we've established that the 4-year old narcissist lies multiple times a day and wants his military parade. I say, let's give him a 'parade.' With a quick Google search, one can find several army toy sets, many with tanks and other military hardware that fascinate him. I'll even write out the check for $17.50 plus shipping to have the AliExpress 307-piece Military Plastic Soldier Model set sent to the W.H. The 'Commander-in-Chief' then can arrange the plastic figurines in parade formation on the residence floor. Clear solution--this army set plus his large-screen TV will keep him just as distracted as any other 4-year old. The country then gets a twofer--we might hear fewer lies and also avoid multiple millions of $$s spent on an actual, ill-conceived parade.
Trump's lies alone should be a basis for impeachment;the GOP Congress, corrupted in so many ways, suick with him because passing the tax cuts for the selfish wealthy, the Kochs, et al., who do not understand democracy, demanded the tax cuts or else they would stop giving GOP donations that paid for the campaigns of lies and for the Kochs and their operatives to literally buy the GOP their elections;they have corrupted the Judiciary with people who live and breathe what the Kochs dictate, people like sessions and roy moore, his cabinet are all billionaires, former lobbyists, or long time crocked republicans like Mulvaney;trump's feckless, evangelical pres secty, lies every day ,but in her evangelical spun mind, its not lying if it advances the evangelical political agenda of totalitarian system;mnuchin wastes govt money, our money, flying his wife around performing stupid human tricks to impress his wife and thereby has become the clown of economic matters; because Janet Yellen is too smart for trump, he had to get rid of her;trump's art of the deal has always been bullying, lying, cheating, then filing for bankruptcy;he started out with $1mill from his father;many have calculated that if he had invested that money instead of playing monopoly he would be richer today;his son bragged the most money they have is from Russian oil deals,this was before the campaign,but if Americans don't read&remember,will be fighting the American Revolution again.
What is more dangerous ? The liar in chief, the liars that are surrounding him in power, that lie as well to protect the party, instead of the country, or the people that voted for this administration ( they knew of the lies beforehand, but decided to vote for party instead of country anyways ) after said lies ?
Power cannot sustain itself in a vacuum and the man and his lies are sustained by all those around him that support him still. That is the threat.
However, that threat will be extinguished in November and 2 years after that.
"He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
No offense Charles, but most of us figured this out more than a year ago.
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Everything you say is true and I have no doubt that he his struggling to find a way to use nuclear weapons without starting WWIII. The question is what ever havoc he rains upon the nation we must ask ourselves who is is ultimately to blame for the actsof a lying, incompetent president who was elected with the aid of a hostile foreign power to damage this nation and is doing just that.
The Constitution provides the remedy but the Republican party has become corrupted by power and money and represents the wealthy and corporations and are ignoring their oaths of office. They are like the owners of a mad dog who won't put him down. They have become traitors with few exceptions. What's next, a presidential uniform so we can pin medals for lying and he can have a military parade with Trump dressed as a sex star general. Something can be done now is sane Republicans in Congress who are patriots start resigning from the GOP and become Independents who caucus with the Democrats. It would take only 3 Senators to flip the Senate and the threat of that happening would make Trump more reasonable, if that word can be applied to him..
A demagogue is a politician that tells the lies people want to hear . But do not compare Trump to people like Mussolini or Peron . They were sane people in comparison . Compare him to Emperor Caligula . Trump wants to build a wall and wants Mexico to pay for it . He wants a big military parade to celebrate himself . Before he was a candidate he was tapped bragging about having sex with the wives of his friends . Caligula wanted to build a bridge across the Bay of Naples . He said he wanted to invade England and took the troops to collect sea shelf on the beach and organized a triumphal parade on his return to Rome . He humiliated the senators by flirting and sleeping openly with their wives . History tells us that there is nothing really new under the Sun .
Charles, that's just what Empires do --- "Lie, Exploit, and Destroy"
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As the late great Jewish public intellectual, historian, and later U.S. professor at Stanford, Yale, NorthWestern academic expert on empires, Hannah Arendt, tried to warn her own German people and others about all empires:
"Empire abroad entails tyranny at home" --- which all but one last disguised global capitalist Empire's 'subjects' have learned painfully from the First, Second, and Cold World Wars of Empires during the 20th century.
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You have emerged as a unique voice in the cacophony of voices commenting on Trump. Not only are you clear eyed in your assessments, but your emphasis on the morality (or lack) about the whole thing is refreshing. I appreciate every word you write and it comforts me.
But here is a question: How do we get your voice heard beyond this megaphone? Because increasingly, some of us go to NYT, or the WaPo and MSNBC while the rest strictly listen to Fox News.
Doctor, Is the patient dead, or is there hope? And if there is hope, what is the remedy?
If you can write about that, I would be grateful.
Tell me how to reach my cousins in the midwest, who claim to be law-abiding Christians and who see abortion but also immigration and gay rights in stark black and white terms.
Tell me how to reach that FB friend who is truly bothered by her inability to find white faces in her child's school?
Tell me how to reach that jerk commenting on Fox News and brandishing the word "liberal" as thought it mean Nazi?
How do we reach the deplorables, the bigots, the haters, the greedies and the entitled?
Because they are the malignant blood running through the veins of our country right now and I am at a loss to how we get through their reptilian need to protect their tribe. Name any reason to like Trump and behind it is one of these adjectives: anger, fear, jealousy, greed, bigotry, resentment and hate.
How do we speak to that?
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The focus should not merely be on Trump: it should also be on those in power who stand silently in the face of his lies and his racism. It should be on those who voted for him and remain loyal after more than a year of his extraordinary litany of spewing hate about all who oppose him. Who have we become? Have we always been this way? I’m frightened and ashamed.
This is far too eloquent for so low of a subject considering the deluge of lies that our "president" floods us with... If the adage "a lies has short legs" holds true, than where will his thousands of lies take him to? Hopefully to jail, for any other retribution will be untoward. America deserves to hear from his future inmates what lies he concocts there - where he belongs - in jail!
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I disagree with the statement his lying being diagnosed as an "endearing feature". I find nothing about his lying endearing, in fact, I find nothing about the man endearing. I do agree with your statement "He is a pathological, irredeemable liar".
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“The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”
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Excellent column, Charles! And in your next one, tell us WHO IS GOING TO STOP HIM?
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When the house of cards goes, we can expect psychological catastrophe.
Trump has no inner self except the one he gins up daily by attention-grabbing, lies and manipulation. Take that self away and he will have no psychic structure. Trump's secret inner fear is that he is a disgrace and a nothing, and when he is exposed as such he will implode.
Mr. Blow, every column you write is better than the last. Thank you. You make me weep, because you speak the ugliest of the truth. So it should be, and so it must be. Few people are willing to write repeated what needs to be said. Thank you, again.
Charles Blow, this is the best column you've ever written. You've outdone yourself and, in my view, as a longtime fan, that's hard to do.
"And, everything is very, very, very."
The essence of Trump-World; a very-very-very mean version of a Dr. Seuss book- "The Sheeple and Me."
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An immature analysis as usual. Instead of attacking his personality why not talk about whether his attempt to solve the DACA problem merits support. After all
President Obama promised to solve the DACA problem and failed. Worse than failed he resorted to an illegal executive order.
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Saggio- what are you talking about? Trump isn't trying to solve the DACA problem. Rather, he created it by eliminating the program by executive order last September. Also, there was nothing illegal about Obama's executive order. Why would you think that? What about Trump's executive orders? Are they all illegal too?
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Wow. Charles has really found his voice. Earlier on last time I read it was a little hysterical. Now it's just diamond-knife cutting. Scary too.
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There is a reason the Devil is called "the Prince of Lies." Lying is the sin that paves the way for all others.
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In my thirty two years as a ptirest I have received hundreds of baptismal promises. In one version of the ritual I ask, "Do you reject Satan, the father of lies?"
Trump obviously does not reject Satan, the father of lies. He embraces him as a true follower.
The decision that this is a Christian man is absurd. Even as I type this he is woodenly reading a speech from a TelePrompTer to the National Prayer Breakfast, a feast of hypocracy.
We also ask in the Catholic baptismal rite, "Do you reject Satan and all his empty promises and all his false allurements?"
The American people of faith should rise up and reject this father of lies and all his empty promises and all his false allurements.
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The party of "Honest Abe" Lincoln, voters who revere a mythic "Can't Tell a Lie" George Washington, a crowd that was completely taken with 'tellin' it like it is' by impugning others like "Lyin' Ted", needs to have their face rubbed in this every day.
Of course if this were a Democrat, Fox would have the lies scrolling 24/7 in a marquise on every screen & every falsehood would be a daily, epic, treasonous scandal, a betrayal of 'real Americans', those honest Christian folk in Hannity's heartland. And it would work like a charm: Red-statists would be mobbing Washington with pitchforks demanding the President's head.
We know why Trump gets away with it, because God blesses any 'imperfect sinner but redeemable messenger' who fights liberals, regardless of how dirty or corrupt the tactic.
But at least with Trump the sanctimonious moralizing of the red-state right needs to be forever debunked. And we need to actively oppose the notion that a president is allowed to state bald-faced lies every day, in public, with smug impunity.
I've suggested before that at the very least, we need a continually updating billboard detailing every one of trump's lies in real-time, like the old 'Debt Clock'. The falsehoods are documented, don't hide them buried in websites, put them up in bold, flashing, scrolling billboards above Times Square:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling...
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Trump’s “Seven Deadly Synergies” . . . well put Mr. Blow !
We all know that Trump lies like the rest of us breathe – effortlessly – without even thinking – “it’s automatic”!
And yes, the exploited Tribalism of his sturdy base does not require facts – merely the pandering to their fears and hopes . . . and in this case, virtually no payoff to the Tribe.
Unless of course they “believe” that Trump IS their savior – and that those who hinder his cause, oh – like that Pesky Russian Investigation – Clearly – Mueller “must be the Anti-Christ” !
The GOP does stand with Donald Trump, and have done so since President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act way back in 1964.
Just like Trump, there are several members of the GOP who are also bigots and racists, they just disguised it better over the decades.
They Stand with Trump because they ARE Trump.
I think a little tribalism in our lives is OK – Like rooting for the home team.
Healthy tribal driven comradery with our fellow fans.
However, with the Leadership of our Country, where all those sworn into office, are essentially the stewards of our great Constitution, service to the citizens –
We want these people to be fully qualified to embrace, follow, and enforce these laws of governing – and no – there is absolutely no room for lying – no room to subvert the law – no reason to do harm to our citizens – and this is exactly what Trump and the GOP are doing to us.
“Let’s make Education Great Again”
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That Trump is a liar is without question. That half of Americans still voted for him is, then, quite astounding as to the greater American condition. Many peoples of the world have long suspected it; seeing the undercurrent of hatred within an America so divided, so unequal, and so free to be unfair...and untruthful. That is the part of this travesty that needs fixing, and it can only be done through decent, generous parenting, and by a wholesome, inexpensive education system that includes, for a start, basic civics; that which has become lost to many, obviously.
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"And it is divorced from the rigors of truth and honesty. It exists as a near ecclesiastical devotion in a space where passionate faith sumounts accuracy and science." Sheer poetry. Thank you Mr. Blow. Among that of all writers for the NYTmes, yours is one of the greatest talents.
For whatever Trump is or isn’t, he understands the power of fear. Tactics Trump employs engages or assuages fears of his followers. The fears of losing one’s job, of being attacked, of being talked down to, losing your home, losing advantages, of becoming insignificant, of being ignored are all used to drive people to action. Once fear is weaponized, lies become a powerful tool creating an alternative reality that comforts and empowers the fearful. When you believe those on the other political side are treasonous criminals, that all immigrants are rapist gang members who want to take your job, that minorities have unfair advantages, that government is malevolent, the man who is able to eliminate these threats is a hero. When given a choice, fearful people embrace his lies; in your mind he exposes villains and vanquishes your oppressors. Lies are an invaluable tool.
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Trump's supporters are indeed scared and paranoid. But their fears of course are misdirected. We should all fear one thing most, Trump.
Very insightful. Wish this assessment was posted across America.
Hearing that the "Presidents" poll numbers are rising scares the beejezus out of me. What is wrong with these people?
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Best Cassandra piece i have ever read. And as the saying goes, those that fail to study (immediate and personal in this sense) history are bound to relive it (in this case on a national sense). Thank you Mr Blow.
Mr Blow, time for you to take a road trip around the US.
There’s a whole country out there that wants to succeed & thrive.
Trump won 30 of 50 states for a reason.
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Trump lost the election.
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Correction: Lost Calif. by 4.3 miilion votes.
Other 49 states: Won by 1.4 million.
It is wonderfully liberating to not care about politicians who lie - that is, all of them. Whether it's "keeping your own physician", or "we are not in Cambodia", or "we are not using LSD in clandestine experiments on Americans", prudence in securing one's own independence has paid off. The market? Not in it. Farm land and cash a-plenty. Taxes? Sure, with all kinds of exemptions, thanks to buying lying politicians. Sales taxes? Not if you're a wholesaler. Energy? We took renewables to heart decades ago and run half the acreage on those sources. The screeches and screams of columnists like this? Well, heck everyone likes a little comedic interlude from time to time.
Yeats foresaw it all:
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Watch the video of Himself shoving the President of Montenegro out of the way so he could be first in line for a photo op, and you will see all you need to know about Donald J. Trump.
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two thoughts come to mind;
1.When the noose tightens he will start a war.
2.If lying is indeed the gateway, how come you were so supportive of HRC?
The problem is that Trump is not a singular liar. He is enabled by a party and its people for who lying has been a useful means to an end that really took off with Nixon and has only amplified over the years since with Swiftboating and birtherism as only a couple of examples. Now there is even an industry of admitted liars like Alex Jones and Charlie Sykes supporting the liars. Lying may be congenital in Trump but is cynically endemic in a party's quest for power.
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My 11-year-old granddaughter sized Trump up during the campaign as a liar and a fraud. Her sixth grade class will take a trip to DC in May. Already she is worried about whether or not she and her friends will be safe there. You see my granddaughter is bi-racial and she already knows how racists and bigots feel about people like her. She asked me recently if I thought Trump would still be president by the middle of May. I told her probably. Frankly, I am concerned for her safety in DC. I don't trust the metrics of anything in America these days. Too many Americans have normalized Donald Trump's dishonesty and the lying that his administration does daily to protect him and themselves. They do not want to lose their power. So, I am hoping for a safe, fun, and educational trip for my granddaughter and her class in a few months. Unfortunately, she's already been educated to the facts that a man who lies, discriminates, hates, and bellows can become president and be backed unconditionally by the GOP. And she's only 11...
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She will be safe in D.C. as we are a multi-racial and very tolerant city despite how "outside leadership" acts. She will have a wonderful experience and she will enjoy learning about other U.S. leaders, far more competent, far more gracious and far more democratic than what is currently occupying the White House - she will learn about the strength and wisdom of past leaders like Lincoln, Roosevelt, Obama to name a few. In fact, I think her visit to the nation's Capitol will allow her to her see that all races and ethnic groups can co-exit and thrive together and she will learn that despite tough times like now, in the end justice and democracy will prevail. Washington, D.C. is the perfect place to learn this lesson and I hope she and her class enjoy their trip.
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note correction: all races and ethnic groups can co-exist
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Please reassure your granddaughter that Trump and his minions are not representative of the people who actually live in DC. More than 90 percent voted for the Democratic candidate in 2016. The city will welcome your granddaughter and her friends with open arms.
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You describe the nature of Trump's sickness clearly and eloquently. The questions is, how did this conman connect with a large swath of Americans and how or what can fracture that connection? His infamous "base," in their present state of mind, seems to tolerate almost anything (and the GOP Congress as well), something Trump himself noted early on in his campaign. He can lie constantly, behave boorishly, sleep with porn stars and toy with nuclear war without stirring much concern in their ranks. What can Mueller possibly turn up that would shake this loyalty? Proof that Trump and Putin conspired over the phone about joining forces to undermine Hilary Clinton? Would even that do it?
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Trump's disregard for the truth, for facts, for science, and for evidence is a perfect storm of intellectual laziness and arrogance. He uses alternate facts out of shear convenience. This makes him a near perfect demagogue. America burns while Trump fiddles with the truth.
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Even more, if Trump believes something he seems to convince himself that it must be true. He will say that "people say" or make an assertion that "everyone knows that . . . " Or, "I know it and so do you," pointing to the audience. No one at the time challenges these usually ridiculous assertions, I guess because he is President. We are marching off of a cliff and despite reasoned and honest analyses by others, nothing stops him or us in this grim march. Trump is using a completely different playbook than most people. His apologists have swallowed their integrity and their common sense in order to placate and genuflect to him. Why?
I don't believe Trump is a pathological liar. As I understand that diagnosis, a pathological liar lies even when their lying brings them no benefit. Everything we know about Trump's lies suggest that there is or potentially is a benefit to him when he lies.
I have no doubt that Trump would be diagnosed with one or more mental health conditions/disorders were he to be evaluated by the appropriate mental health professional. But, I would be surprised if being a pathological liar is a symptom of any of those or a stand alone diagnosis. He is crazy like a fox!
Our constitution and laws provide little or no remedy for his presidency. Congressional Republicans wouldn't allow it in any case! Indeed, they are almost lock-step protecting their party over their country. Republicans are willing to trade our democracy, freedom, liberty, etc. to get what they want. They care more about preserving their hold on 2 of our branches of government than on protecting our elections from Russian interference. They are working on controlling the judiciary as we speak.
Meanwhile, his effect on most Americans, outside his base, is the normalization of his behavior. Everyone is effected by it. It's only a matter of degrees.
Something must be done. What I'm not sure. But, Blow is right that we've seen nothing yet! Trump will stop at nothing. Remember to watch what he does more than you pay attention to his words. His words form lies that distract us from his mission.
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"Everything we know about Trump's lies suggest that there is or potentially is a benefit to him when he lies."
Yes and no. Trump's lies create about as many problems as they solve; and, because he's a one-trick pony, he will use lies to address *those* problems; and so on. Case in point: the Mueller investigation, about which it's impossible to say that any of his lies have been remotely beneficial to him.
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RE: "As I understand that diagnosis, a pathological liar lies even when their lying brings them no benefit."
I am not sure how to apply this to Trump as he seems to believe that almost everything can be turned to his benefit. And if it doesn't benefit him he has no interest in it or is openly hostile toward it, and thus will lie about it.
RE: "Everything we know about Trump's lies suggest that there is or potentially is a benefit to him when he lies."
The fact that he will lie about things that are easily verifiable as a lie, that he will lie when the truth is harmless, seems to be evidence that he is a compulsive pathological liar.
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I think what has happened is that the so-called "alt-right," in their takeover of the Republican party, represents the descendants of slave owners and Confederates (whether rich or poor) who strongly felt that slavery was essential to their way of life. Slavery is more desirable than equality or than the Constitution. This is in part why the Civil War was fought, to try to reconcile these two extremes. They were irreconcilable back then, and they are coming very close to being irreconcilable today. And this is a battle we have been fighting throughout our history.
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Trump reflects the Republican Party's tendency to lie, obfuscate, lie, chase conspiracies, lie, deny, denigrate and lie.
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Give credit where credit is due, he is a master con man. I'm impressed, in a weird sort of way, with his ability to stand there defiantly and pronounce with certainty on any subject. Especially when he is completely ignorant of that subject which is the majority of the time. But what is most impressive is that a third of the population believe him. If he didn't have his finger on the big nuclear button it would be more enjoyable watching him but, I guess, I can't have everything.
Thanks Charles for another great analogy of our supposed leader's weaknesses. I pray every day that our elected Republican Representatives will come to America's rescue and stop the Mad Man.
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I dislike Trump intensely, but is his never ending lies that frighten me. Lies are a way of ignoring reality and I don't think our president in living in reality.
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Shout it from the rooftops, keep saying it every day! There is no exaggeration in this well-written piece. Lying is lying, and for Trump it is a way of life.
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As always, beautiful writing, Charles. Too bad you have to write about this charlatan, though. There are so many other subjects more worthy of attention. Hopefully, we'll all enjoy your take on those in the future.
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War is the ultimate distraction. And Trump is smart enough to know it. What an awful possibility.
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May I direct readers to the the NYT piece yesterday on evangelicals' access to the White House:
nytimes.com/2018/02/07/us/politics/trump-evangelicals-national-prayer-breakfast.html?hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
This is truly scary, particularly the picture showing hands laid on DT's back during a "prayer". Separation of church and state anyone?
The evangelicals' political positions (on women's issues and on science/environment particularly) will lead to harm and, yes, the death of American citizens. The fact is that Americans have a much greater chance of being harmed by these people than by terrorists. Evangelicals, at least those who support the President, are a serious menace to the well-being of American citizens. Now imagine a President who, just as regularly as for the Evangelicals, welcomed at the WH the best and brightest minds of the country: the almost countless American Nobel Prizes, its greatest writers and artists, some of the the almost obscene number of American "great brains" in universities across the country, deep thinkers...
But no, the door is wide open to ignorant evolution-denying fanatics who seek to impose their superstitions on all Americans. As I said: more dangerous than terrorists.
Trump has figured out the quickest way into you head - emotional self preservation with a "me versus thee" mantra that requires minimal thinking and plays to immediate gratification.....short term, ego driven , and guilt free..
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Charles Blow is correct. As Trump gets backed more and more into a corner, there is nothing he would not to protect himself or his family.
I have a real fear that even if he is defeated in the 2020 presidential election (or impeached before then), he will refuse to step down and will try to use the military to support him staying in office. Many might scoff at that idea, but really, would you put that past Donald Trump?
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"He [Trump] will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
I agree with Mr. Blow's assessment, which is why Trump and Trumpism must be resisted (and replaced). Part of such resistance is incorporated in the question posed in another Op/Ed (by Mr. Leonhardt): "Should Republicans Vote Democratic?"
The answer is "of course". I've long argued that at present "real" Republicans (e.g. Romney-, Bush-, Reagan-ites) have more in common with Democrats than with Trump. Democrats are but a conventional political opposition, a characteristic of any democracy. In contrast, Trump is a danger to both parties, is destroying the Republican Party, and, most importantly, is undermining the Nation itself. There are times when voting for the other party's candidate, at least as a temporary expedient, is the (only) proper thing to do -- it's not a sin. Indeed, the current so-called Trumpian Republican Party is fast making a straight Democratic ticket appear reasonable, virtuous, and perhaps even necessary.
My guess -- and hope -- is that Trumpism will follow the course of McCarthyism and Wallace's segregationism.
1
"What will he be willing to....?" He's already showing his willingness to do many things that are costly to us and destructive to American institutions to save his own skin. Not only is "he willing to" but so are Republicans in Congress "willing to" assault our FBI, State Department, etc. etc without allowing even other Republicans in the Senate to review their allegations or go through processes delineated, because they know they wouldn't pass the muster. Speaking of muster, what is this U.S. president doing asking for a military parade? He knows he needs the military behind him to lead the coup on our democracy that Russia and he colluded to plan, but this is what authoritarian regimes do, not our democracy. His continuing fraud of our government and deregulation and tax rip off have costs us enough. Heck, he golfs more than he works. We should not have to pay millions for him to have his parade when people are still without food and clean water and electricity in parts of the U.S. from storm damage. Charles, is right "that absolutely nothing will be beyond" what he is willing to do to save himself. I disagree with Charles on him selflessly doing anything for family, even to protect them, though. He has never done anything beyond selfish motives for his family before. It is always about how he appears and his fans will see him. He's obsessed with appearances, and has nothing but selfish ambition as motivation for everything. He's a bully and needs consequences.
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Lying is a learned behavior. Often a family survival/compensation tool. The abused/neglected child liar then becomes the father (or mother) liar and the process repeats itself, often for generations. We all have known such unfortunate people and families. As Mr. Blow says, the truth eventually becomes acute and we choose to move away, to end the relationship. In this case though the father liar is the President of our country, and the majority of his supporters have learned to believe and repeat the lies in an hopeless effort to win his attention and his approval. Maladaptive behavior learned as a child, repeating itself in our adult lives on a national scale
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Thank you Mr. Blow, for your on-going energy. I couldn't agree more with your final sentiments. Trump is not the type to go down easy and he will be more than willing, when his turn comes, to go out in a blaze of nuclear glory. I hope there are those more powerful than I to convince him to "put the gun down" when he's finally done for.
1
He will "lie, exploit and destroy," backed by the Republican party. The GOP has been laying the ground for this moment since Nixon, since the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. They are poised, with gerrymandering, a threatened census, and a slavish willingness to act as one, to change our democracy into an oligarchy. Trump is a sick man held up as a leader so that the GOP can continue their agenda. You are right about his lying, but anyone who has ever known a true narcissist knows that lying rolls off the tongue as easily as any other kind of speech, perhaps easier. This support by the GOP is not ultimately about Trump, who will be discarded if he ceases to serve their purpose. Look behind the scenes at the donors and the money. Many GOP politicians are completely willing to abandon all principle for the almighty dollar.
Just note--besides the destruction of regulations that protect people and the environment, besides the promotion of anti-science, of extremist fundamentalist Christianity, besides appeals to a minority base--the quiet funding of a private army by Congress at Trump's request. This army will do Trump's bidding when the US military may not.
Yes, "absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump." It is essential Mueller continue his investigation to its full conclusion, and that the GOP be brought to account as well. This means even with voter obstruction and gerrymandering, non-Republican candidates must prevail this year.
Let me fill in the big blank left by Mr. Blow: the great, overwhelming and utterly terrifying thing that Trump may well do - or at least attempt to do - in a frantic effort to protect himself and/or his family from the legal consequences they deserve is to start a war, most horrifically a nuclear war with North Korea. What can we do to head this off? Impeachment seems obvious, but this would likely precipitate just the disaster we need to avoid as Trump seeks to "wag the dog." So first, let's get Congress to pass a no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons bill (as introduced by Markey and Lieu) asap!
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And second, VOTE.
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As terrifying as this nuclear scenario may be, I'm actually more concerned that Trump will push the button on his followers and incite a civil war at home. Given the echo chamber of conservative media, the susceptibility of conservatives to conspiracy theories, and their proclivity to violence it is not hard to imagine that Trump would call them to arms to protect his presidency from the "deep state" and others who threaten to undo the election.
4
David, if you read between Charlie's lines I think you will see that he eludes to exactly what you say. At least, that's what I see and, in fact, it was my first thought too, just as you say. He will stop at nothing, put nothing before his ego, even this golden country of ours. He is far more dangerous than we even know and I live with fear every day since his inauguration. Keeps getting worse each day.
It is sadly curious that despite Mr Blow's and others' precise and irrefutable analyses of Mr trump's extreme egotism and mendacity Mr Trump's popularity has not dropped further but has started to rise. Sadly curious indeed. It seems to me ( and probably to many, many others) that Mr Trump's Presidency is not the disease but merely the main symptom of a condition far more sinister and prevalent.
As usual, you are right, and I am terrified as well as great saddened for our country.
1
Nuance and complexity are founts of confusion in Trump’s basest mind. So he gravitates to the most emotionally charged parts of any issue and amplifies them.
This is an essential function of branding: to capture a feeling in its purest form, to connect on a visceral level with a viewer, to compel an action.
"Trumpism in a way is about emotion over information. It is about heat over light. It is about hostility over comity.
And it is divorced from the rigors of truth and honesty. It exists as a near ecclesiastical devotion in a space where passionate faith surmounts accuracy and science."
Your best take yet, Mr. Blow. But what are we going to DO ABOUT IT?
I don't think there is any President that while sitting in office hasn't been overly concerned about his image, and how he looks. Trump isn't overly concerned. It is an obsession, at our expense.
"There comes a time when the house of cards tumbles, though, and in that moment the liar is vulnerable and the reckoning becomes real. The question that nags me is, 'What will Trump do to distract from the collapse or to prevent it?'"
And at that point, how will our elected officials and the American people react to ensure that our country is adequately protected? That is when we will discover how robust our democracy truly is.
1
I take comfort these days that in some alternate universe, Trump never got elected president. I go there visually after I read articles like this.
1
Thank you, Charles M. Blow, for speaking truth, again and again. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the "we create our own facts" ethos that has predominated in the GOP since the G.W. Bush presidency. Absolutely all of 45's henchmen lie with regularity and impunity. Politicians come and go, but will this country ever recover from such a total degradation of governance? The jury is out.
As a country we seem to be waiting for some magical genie maybe on twitter or through our cell phones to pop up and give us three wishes. We wait and wait and wait and all the while become more enured to what is happening right in front of our eyes. The truth: is the lie sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and it has taken our nation hostage.
I am a mental health professional, and for many of us, the lying is consistent with Trump’s pathological narcissism and easily predicted as well as observed. He cannot tolerate any image of himself that does not match his own distorted, inflated view (crowd size and “I won the popular vote” being two very prominent examples; then we can look at fake Time magazine covers; and every single assertion he makes that his administration is the very very best because he has the best brain. Examples abound.). I agree with Blow that the root of this is actually a very deep insecurity and sense of shame. I also agree that Trump might very well do anything to prevent that being exposed. Trump holding the powers of the presidency is about the scariest scenario one could imagine. Trump IS delusional: he holds fixed false beliefs in the absence of evidence, and/or in the presence of contradictory evidence. Delusions distort reality, as Blow describes. Because he is delusional, Trump believes his own lies, he does not recognize them as lies —he has bought his own brand, swallowed it whole. This is in part why he is so effective and persuasive with his base: he ‘tells it like it is.’ This is also why Trump really does want to talk with Mueller, to show how he can ‘handle him,’ that he Trump can win at that game. Whether by consent or through being compelled, I hope Trump does have to answer to the people, through the person of Robert Mueller. It may save the country further harm.
1
I can’t understand why Trump’s lawyers don’t want him to testify because it could be what they called a “perjury trap”. Is a perjury trap merely a situation where someone is committing perjury and is caught at it?
Oh, okay—now I understand why they don’t want him to testify.
" If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet." Yes, and we will see that increased danger as the Mueller investigation gets closer to its inevitable climax. With Trump, anything is possible.
I share your fears, Mr. Blow. In particular, I am afraid that once he feels his back is really against the wall, his remedy will be starting a war - possibly nuclear.
"Because he eschews intellectualism for intuition, because he prefers to watch rather than to read, he has honed his talent for reflexive reductionism."
Doesn't this explain why he can't see the Mueller investigation as a hoax?
"My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy."
And doesn't this explain why he'd not only be involved with Russian oligarchs and operatives before he ran for office but would be part and parcel of his campaign and a staple of his administration?
Your fear is my fear, Mr. Blow. It feels like a race against time. I am doing all I can to put Dems into office in 2018 but I don't even know if he will let the election go forward if he thinks the Koch Brothers and the Russians aren't doing enough to prevent Dems taking over the House.
The photograph at the top of this column says a lot. We will all have to go to the streets. We don't even need to go to the trouble of making signs—just standing there will be enough. It's time for a general strike. The kind of strike that brings an entire country to a grinding screeching halt. A general strike.
My mind is still unable to accept that such a totally unqualified person has been elected to the presidency of the United States of America.
I can’t find in this individual and in his family any fragment of even any insignificant quality.
Each morning I am hesitant about reading or watching the news because all the acts , tweets, any form of communication from this despicable individual wound my mind and diminish hope for the future.
My only wish is that all young Americans will wake up this November and cast their ballots to reverse this calamitous course .
Their livelihood is at stake, they will inherit a huge debt, a catastrophic environment , healthcare system and education.
2
Mr. Blow - You are national asset. Simply our best, and perhaps our only remaining, cut-to-the-chase writer about this moment in our history. Thankfully, you don't mess around. Your writing is efficiently yet elegantly spot on. History thanks you.
Integrity is the crucial element in public service. Without integrity you are destined to fail. This does not bode well for Trump’s presidency.
Trump's zeitgeist consists only of superlatives. It's a stripped down, racing reductionism. Verbs and nouns have gone way of brakes on speedway bikes. Superlative, superlative, adverb. Trump probably thinks that's a compliment, because he doesn't know what superlative means.
1
I'm certain that Trump's lawyers have already come up with a defense for his dissembling to Mueller: he doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction. He's incapable of lying because he genuinely believes that everything that escapes his maw is the absolute truth. He sincerely wants to tell the truth; he just doesn't know how .He's ignorant He's stupid. You can't convict a man for stupidity, can you?
5
" You can't convict a man for stupidity, can you? "
You can convict a stupid man for criminal behavior.
2
"he gravitates to the most emotionally charged parts of any issue and amplifies them"
He does.
Charles assumes Trump cannot do otherwise. It is also possible that Trump chooses not to do otherwise, because he has learned this works. It works in marketing, and it works in politics (which is a variant on marketing as done in the US).
Charles may feel superior, assuming Trump can't think like Charles can think. However, that comfortable emotional assumption may overlook choice, a choice that made Trump President just as the opposite made Charles a columnist.
A hard look at politics in America today is not flattering to our political system. It is done by marketing of political image over substance. That marketing is done with vast amounts of money gained by overt corruption from a tiny elite who use that influence to buy power.
Seen this way, Trump's choice is not personal weakness, it is a symptom of systemic failure. And yes, our system shows many other signs of systemic failure.
Bernie and Warren explain this failure in vast detail. Other Democrats instead sold out to it, and then lost across the country, not just the Presidency but also everything else.
There is a lesson in that. Stop feeling superior long enough to learn the lessons from the loss. Stop insulting, and start seeing.
6
So you're telling us that inasmuch as Trump won the Presidency by lying, all politicians should lie if they want to succeed? And if someone manages to get away with murder, we should all go ahead and do it? And then we can just blame "the system" that makes it all possible...?
6
Stu -- Not "should lie" but rather "do lie." Tell me you believe the promises of politicians?
Anyway, that it is all marketing is a larger issue than just lying. It is the mode of communicating, the subjects of that communication, the featuring of simplified images of candidates, and pushing it all Madison Ave style with big money gained via means that defeat democracy.
Mark, I'm following you with "systemic failure" up to "learning the lessons from the loss". Since the "system", presumably the money needed to run a national campaign, can only be changed from within once you have power, how do you propose we do that? Bernie and Warren did not get the nomination and are still not "national" candidates. They appeal to a part of the electorate that doesn't normally vote; but they lose others. We all see the failure in the system, but you need to be in power to make changes. Explaining it is not enough. Have you seen how Trump is systematically reversing gains made by Obama including rights for minorities and protections from financial predators that Warren talked about but needed Obama as president to implement? Trump has now taken the power away from her agency. Who isn't seeing?
1
There is a book called "The Sociopath Next Door", by Martha Stout (2015) which I first heard of while watching a Bluray disc of the film "Safe House" (2012), starring Denzel Washington and a terrific cast.
Very briefly, he is in the CIA, and in "the making of" part of this disc, Mr. Washington said that it became his"bible" (so to speak) for his part in this film. "Perfect for the CIA" he said.
Mr. Washington had mentioned it because one of the executive producers gave it to him to help with his preparation for his role.
My point is, President Trump fits this description perfectly. He is the book incarnate; "spot on", one might say.
I highly recommend both the film and the book I mentioned to watch and read. It is an uncanny description of a person just like President Trump.
8
Charles, your column is my first stop every Monday and Thursday when I open my NYT. Your work has become absolutely indispensable during this siege. I thank you for being an amalgamation of d'Artagnan, Simon Wiesenthal and Daniel Ellsberg with maybe a touch of Alan Dershowitz.
If you ever make it down to Florida I’d love to share a pizza with you.
15
Perhaps the worst of it all is that Trump is de-legitimizing the Presidency at least for our lifetimes. The next President to counter that, Republican (if there are any) or Democrat will have to be squeaky clean, and rational. Joe Biden comes to mind, maybe Kasich on the other side, but he is a lot more conservative and not respectful of women (anti-choice) in his politics than many would like. We all know, and yes including his Republican supporters, that he is unqualified, and a serial liar, and just doesn't really know what the truth is. As others have said that may work in business, but is damaging in a long-term way as President.
8
Immediately after the election I was very scared, but having lived through Watergate I still had confidence that the institutions of the federal government would serve as guardrails and that things would be bad but the republic would hold.
I am now officially terrified. He is a wannbe Dictator—who wants a military parade to laud him. The GOP has lost whatever was left of their backbones. He rolls over them likes he rolls over everyone. There will be no Goldwater to go in and tell the president he needs to resign.
He lies with impunity and he has Twitter to communicate his lies directly to the public. Not a news conference where he has to talk to a group and take questions, not a televised speech where the networks can refuse to broadcast or have reporters and fact checkers on hand. And he has Fox and Rush to back him up. By the time Mueller gives his report to Congress it will be too late. No one will believe it and the GOP held Congress won’t act.
36
Everything you note is true , but to his followers it's irrelevant. He is their hero, standing up to the Blacks, the immigrants and the women all whom they think have benefitted and prospered on their backs and taken what is their rightful inheritance , stolen their vision of America. THis is a man addicted to power, to self glorification and adulation whatever the cost whoever he needs to sacrifice. Whatever Mueller finds and I am certain he will find multiple criminal acts and conspiracies, Trump will not leave the White HOuse or resign like Nixon did but rather defy the rule of law and challenge his followers ( who are armed or to quote Sarah Palin, " locked and loaded" ) to defend him and to go after those that seek to remove him. Never has our nation faced such a perilous situation and how we recover and move forward from this is anyone's guess.
36
And considering the behavior of the "generals" in this administration, the military's behavior might be questionable.
1
I share your sentiments. However we have faced far more perilous challenges than the naked emperor, and survived them all. A civil war, two world wars, Vietnam, Watergate, slavery, assassinations of political and moral leaders, a British invasion (1814, not the Beatles), and Richard Simmons. The sky hasn't fallen yet!
Audibly more Fauvist than Pointillist, the tonal movement of our stringed instrument-like values will eventually yield higher purpose to bipolar meaning of the keyboard-like specificity of mere black & white bents. Thanks to this so-called president, Charlottesville's 8/11 will put 9/11 in the context of an atonement for lies demonstrably more universally fit than self-servingly exclusive.
1
As reader Aubrey points out, most people try to remain truthful most of the time. In a culture that prizes honesty, habitual lying can jeopardize an individual's reputation. But politicians, who must appeal to a diverse electorate, have developed the skill of shading the truth into a fine art, which helps explain the skepticism with which many voters regard them.
Trump, however, scorns the subtleties of political speech. His bald-faced, easily refutable lies astonish us because they seem to serve no useful purpose. But, as Mr. Blow suggests, Trump uses these falsehoods to create an alternative reality, one in which he alone can protect America from enemies, both foreign and domestic, who threaten to destroy the bright past that made this country the envy of the world.
Many of those Americans who sense that the US has lost its dominant position on the international scene find this mythical version of reality highly appealing. These voters, regardless of their economic status, had already rejected the leadership of the two parties, whom they held responsible for the impact of globalization and the automation of factory jobs.
Trump's relationship to his so-called base will eventually erode, as harsh reality shatters the thick carapace of lies he has constructed to conceal the emptiness of his plan to improve their lives. But how much damage will he inflict before that day of reckoning arrives?
4
Everyone who comments on here should take the added further step of emailing their comment to their congressmen and -women. Daily. That might have some effect, in the end.
17
No voting Congressman to write. Live in the District and pay taxes, but do not have representation.
Charles, your insights and reflections generate hope and belief that with perseverance and the unwavering pursuit of truth the American Democracy will survive the diabolical destruction created by "Trumptopia". ALL Americans need to awaken and realize that WE THE PEOPLE are being used and manipulated not just by Trump but by an elitist, wealthy clan of White Males who are motivated by insatiable greed. Many of them are businessmen, many of them are political world leaders and many of them are pious religious authorities. Collectively, none of them are concerned or are interested in the well-being of a wide spectrum of American Citizens. They are totally motivated their own greed and focused on strategies that will allow them to accumulate their insatiable need to generate individual wealth and power. They honor and worship elitism, racism and sexism. Trump is their puppet. It is time for Americans to wake up, utilize our voices and take to the streets. It is the American People who need to unite and end this nightmare. Since the beginning of this campaign, our country's posterity has been blatantly threatened time and time again. It is time for every American Citizen to WAKE UP and ACTIVELY demonstrate initiatives to end this moral devastation and destruction of civil and human rights that are destroying our nation, humanity and frankly, Planet Earth.
13
Well expressed.
i was relieved when the donald picked general kelly to be his chief of staff. i thought there's a rational, smart, honorable general who will keep the hands off the nuke button unless we were being attacked. silly me. guess i should watch Dr. Strangelove again.
10
I wouldn't call lies the essence of Trump's stance toward others. His essential stance is bullying. Lies are merely an aspect, by which he demands submission in trampling over truth.
295
Trump is what happens when a willful toddler is left to his own devices and grows up with zero guidance. He has no regards or feelings or concerns for anything beyond himself. He preys on other people. He views everything under the guise of win/lose. He lies to himself and to others without guilt or awareness. He has no honor. No love. He is not particularly bright in any area other than in bullying. That he has mastered to an art form.
If humanity has an ideal, Trump is the opposite of the spectrum. You could not give me enough money to even break bread with him.....
3
The other side of your coin is that you are describing Clinton. We Democrats need to do better. HRS
I agree with you, Mr. Blow. Trump's own wellbeing is not just the first thing he considers. It is the only thing he considers.
493
You are right Trump's well being is all he considers. He would and will throw his family under the bus if he thinks it will be to his own benefit.
What's next? He tipped his hand before the election - as in, if he lost, "the system is rigged". So when indictment and/or impeachment comes knocking he will then have his "proof".
9
Charles Blow, you’ve nailed it yet again. If we survive this presidency, it will be incumbent on all of us to insist on changes to both the vetting of presidential candidates, and the breadth of presidential powers, so a travesty such as Trump never happens again.
13
Charles and SDT--you are both right. We need some laws to defend against candidates who are dangerous. Don't forget to re-write the use of the nuclear attack away from one impulsive and infantile president all by himself.
1
I can hear it all over the land, now. It's being translated by speakers of most of the world's languages.
No longer does Johnny yell, "That's a lie!" Today, he's bellowing: "You're having some difficulty with precision!" And the teacher is marching him straight to the principal's office.
The word "lie" will be wiped from dictionaries. It no longer means anything.
4
All true. But Trump's not the real danger. The tens of millions of Americans who adore him are the real danger.
44
Dishonesty has always been the hallmark of Trump's career, campaign, and presidency. The fact that his "difficulty with precision" has become a euphemism for lying is testament to the increasing acceptance of his lies as "rhetorical hyperbole," as Priebus put it last April.
The Washington Post has amassed a list of over 2,000 lies Trump has told since his inauguration last January.
This malevolent wanna-be dictator who occupies the White House needs to be called out on his lies as LIES whenever they occur, regardless of his base's deluded and blind belief that whenever he is exposed, it is simply evidence of malicious media attacks.
In addition, the members of the GOP who are now acting as Trump's stooges and/or apologists need to wake up if they want to maintain control of Congress. In poll after poll, a significant majority of voters respond that he is not honest, nor presidential. By "standing by their man" their silence or even vocal support of Trump will lead to their losses on November 6th. It can't come soon enough!
4
@wysiwg
Yes, Trump needs to be called out on each one of his lies. I propose LLPOF (pronounced le-poof), acronym for the school yard taunt 'liar, liar, pants on fire,' accompanied by a dismissive hand gesture and French face of displeasure.
My fear is that we will see something occur that will make the term "Kent State" a fond memory.
Will American troops once again fire on peacefully protesting unarmed civilians?
11
If Mr. Trump were to have his way, the atrocities of Kent State and marches on Alabama will seem like a picnic! He showed that desire during his campaign and his gradual takeover ( the parade is first) of the military(?), will give us great concern!
Thank you, once again, Mr. Blow.
Trump's mendacity subverts the American brand: the first thing most Americans remember learning about our Presidents is the story of George Washington and the cherry tree: "I cannot tell a lie."
What are our children learning, today?
13
This is one of those rare moments where Republicans and Democrats could come together to save the country. I wish they would go arm-in-arm, stand in front of the White House, and show the world exactly who we are - before we completely lose who we are.
13
"What will Trump be willing to do with that power to stir the passions of his supporters to spring to his defense? "
Answer: the same thing he's been doing that keeps his supporters still loyal: yell fake news.
2
What would he be willing to do?
Yell fake news, of course. But also --
Invent a war? --and label anyone who opposes it as un-American? (or "should we call it treason?") His supporters would rise to the occasion. To quote another reader who quoted Sarah Palin: they're "locked and loaded."
The problem with Trump's lying, as his wise and learned lawyers and trusted advisers surely must know, is that Trump has either lost, or perhaps never acquired, the capacity to know the difference between truth and non-truth. That is why they are worried about him speaking with investigators from Mueller's team. That is why he is a danger to himself and surely to all of us citizens who must acknowledge that he is our ''President Trump.''
Truth of lie? Right or wrong? I argue Trump doesn't have the capacity to know the difference. Like a person who has lost their sense of smell, sight or taste, Trump has lost (or never acquired) the ability to see "truth" because his own hulking Ego has obstructed the view.
8
I have had the same fears that Blow expresses for months now. And as events ratchet up and and the investigation edges closer and closer to the President will the ultimate act to distract be declaring martial law?
11
Brilliantly stated.
You've written dozens of great columns on Trump but this is the pinnacle.
Trump will do anything to save himself, up to and including the destruction of this democracy.
He is bound by no moral or ethical conventions, propelled only by the relentless, unquenchable pursuit of his own self aggrandizement and pure greed.
And yes, he's just getting warmed up. If Mueller were to find the courage to bring a criminal indictment against him, we will see things that make Nixon and Watergate look quaint.
12
But we’ve always known this. The people who cast their lot (and their vote) for him always knew this. Trump is a symptom of a deeper problem our country has with truth, facts, intelligence, and honesty. Lying until your truth becomes acceptable out of resignation, bullying the opposition rather than making cogent, supported arguments, and heralding ignorance are supposed to be negative things. In this instance, they get you the presidency. We are a depleted nation because of this man, for his election revealed just as much about us and our standards as it did about him.
8
"Emotion over information. Heat over light. Hostility over comity." This pretty much sums up IQ45 and his cult followers. It never ceases to amaze me how often his cult followers can be fooled into believing him. It's disappointing to think how gullible and ill-informed over 30% of the citizenry is.
7
Please don't spoil this show. Where are those pundits who were ripping into Obama for his deeds and misdeeds? Are they the ones I now hear taking opportunities to explain away the gross pathologies of Trump? Whether grabbing women, lying or demanding parades, please let him go on. To many, he will clearly rise on the first or second day, turn some liquid into liquor and go into orbit with the Tesla. Let's see how that goes. This guy makes tilting at windmills look like an Award worthy event.
2
We knew well in advance that Trump was a liar, and yet we still made him president. This is not about Trump, it points clearly to an amazingly wide gap in the health of our democracy. We don't know how or even try very hard to educate our people to practice democracy. The paltry K-12, hardly-used civics curriculum is case in point. This curriculum is about procedures and testable facts, not about the daily practice of democracy. Trump lies because we don't have any sense of the value of accuracy in our practice of democracy. We don't know how important truth is in democratic involvement in collective decision making and working together to solve problems. This won't happen until we make it happen.
8
Mike Wilson, I wish I could put a thousand likes on your comment. The whittling away at our education budgets started under Ronald Reagan. I've had neighbors tell me how they're going to resent paying taxes for school once their children are educated. She was mute when I pointed out that I had no children and willingly pay school taxes because I want a civilized country. We stopped paying attention. Trump is the end result.
Pay attention to what he says. He projects many of his deepest thoughts onto others. Treason has been buried deeply there. It has only come up to the surface as a projection this week. In his mind a military parade may be a necessary distraction to stop us from thinking about who really committed "treason" and probably continues to do so.
3
My concern is Trump's lying its so all consuming, so all pervasive, that he will be utterly incapable of understanding that any charges brought against him for dishonesty and deception are true. And his base suffers from a similar disease, unable to understand the mendacity and deception that is right before their eyes. They see it as forthrightness and "straight talk". Their problem is ignorance. Trump's is something much deeper.
3
Yes, agreed... but a year or more ago we knew and commented on his lies and other characteristics that he believes empowers him while harming if not destroying those less favored, especially those who offer any opposition. Thus far, with active and perhaps gleeful GOP enablers, his self-glorification has worked. Many whom we thought were responsible adults with moral compasses and respect for our laws and constitutional norms have proven themselves crass, small, servile, and self-serving people seemingly happy to swim in Trump's polluted waters. He and his followers believe they are above the law; that they are the state and therefore untouchable. Are they wrong? Every day that passes requires more from the "resistance." Every day that passes we place increasing faith in the Special Counsel's work and outcome. What happens if the Special Counsel's work is not the coup de grace we (desperately) would like it to be? By then, will our military and law enforcement agencies have been successfully co-opted? Will the courts have been packed with his sympathetic judges? Trump cares nothing about policy and, I'm convinced, about our nation. He cares only about power and ego-gratification. Will we and our system have sufficient resilience to stop him and his acolytes? I hope so.
3
I agree. If ultimately trapped and cornered, his response may be far worse than we have see to date.
4
Who would have thought that the Emperor in his new clothes would be coddled by so many. But there was an industrious child, Charlotte Macort, selling Girl Scout cookies who stood out amongst all with her statement "If you are not honest, what are you?"
3
Sadly, we seem to have totally lost our normal checks-and-balances dynamic. And I continue to be amazed at the passionate non-critical loyalty of his base, which he slyly wields as a weapon to keep the Congressional weasels in line. The lawmakers who have reelection as their primary goal in life dare not anger Trump loyalists, who mostly all vote in off-year elections.
As the Meuller investigation noose tightens and panic builds, I just pray that our military will refuse to carry out any act of blatant distraction. They are about our only remaining restraining hope in these crazy times.
2
If the circumstance get down to the existential nitty-gritty of Trump's survival, Charles, Trump's family is on its own.
1
Mr. Blow, you are absolutely right about the real dangers of Trump’s pathological lying. The house of cards he has constructed is loosely glued together with lies. Whenever one of those cards threatens to bring the others toppling down, he applies a temporary “fix” his house’s instability by distractions by automatically throwing blame. (More lies which begets more wobbliness). If the house of cards really does begin to fall, like with Mueller, Trump will stop at NOTHING to distract. That is when he becomes the most dangerous. The closer Mueller gets the more likely he will rattle the nuclear sword.
1
What a demoralizing, depressing way to start the day. Of course Charles is spot-on in all of his assessments, and truth hurts. I just wish the NYT had a comics section. Easier to 'read' while making the coffee.
2
",,,the lying is everything — the root thing, the foundational thing."
Thank you, Mr. Blow.
Yes, this is it. Lying is Trump's brand.
Ironically, those in Trump's "base" who buy this brand only prove that they are living a lie, especially when they have the gall to describe themselves as "Christian" and "moral". Nothing could be further from the truth.
Just like Trump.
2
The major problem is Trumps internal weakness, the fragility of his overblown ego. Any question of his position, any question of his views, is a taken as a direct assault on that fragile ego and he rebels in anger. His internal weakness gives strength to every nation that is aligned against us, and brings fear to every nation that would call us a friend.
1
A very good analysis of the Trump phenomenon, but describing telling lies as a "fundamental means" makes it sound too calculated. Trump's legal team, with their panic over Trump talking to Mueller under oath, indicates people close to him think Trump lies like a five year old, spouting his wishful thinking and hoping that we will believe him, unable to keep it all straight in his mind, unable to think about consequences extending beyond the moment. It is Trump's fundamental deficiency that has made the Trump phenomenon what it is. He is a rich, spoiled, five year old that never grew up, because money made it work for him. If they had ignored the "bone spurs" and drafted him into the military, they might have made a man out of him, but unfortunately, as often happens with the wealthy he was indulged. See what happens???
1
Trump's characteristic exaggerations about anything positive or that could be positive or should be positive (even when it blatantly is not) connected or slightly connected with him are a known part of the grandiosity that is a symptom of pathological narcissism -- everything the person (and Trump) associates with himself is best, greatest, biggest, most famous, prettiest, most beautiful, most wonderful. Paradoxically, it appears to be a form of a three year old's magical thinking and an infantile desire to have all its needs responded to with the coos, cuddles, and applause a baby receives. It is both the pathetic gasps of a serial loser and dangerous.
1
Mr. Blow precisely describes the Presidents' profound intellectual and psychological deficiencies as well as his vacuous mendacity, he has however omitted the amorality which frees Trump to destroy and desecrate without concern.
Trumps past was an open book, actually told in seamy detail by the tabloids. A large group of Americans either didn't know, didn't want to know, or knew and didn't care that the man running for the Presidency was depraved and proud of it. Trump is less our problem than those who accepted him as our leader.
1
Having a Putin stooge in the White House, doing what he can to enrich himself by taking from the poor and handing those billions to the American oligarchs, a man who uses hate and humiliation as his main tools of manipulation...it gives us the perfect way to judge our fellow human beings. Like the other person Manafort helped get into power in Ukraine, Trump needs to live where he is the most loved, Russia.
Those Americans who are in bed with him are either incompetent to see evil, or are so compromised as to be worthless as friends or allies. To negotiate with Trump is to be charmed into revealing what we want, then he uses that as a weakness and demands our total surrender to get that one thing. His business mind and thinking is of an animalistic time when humans were enslaved and women were to be beaten and children were property.
Before the Ukrainians got rid of their leader, there were many bodies on the streets, gunned down by snipers as they protested. I do expect to see far more evil before we are free of Trump.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
2
That's the scary part. In the window of time between Trump's certainty that he will either be forced to resign or be removed from office, and the time that actually happens, there will be an angry, wounded psychopath feeling like he has nothing left to lose. That's when we will need the "adults" in the Cabinet to put their big-boy pants on and save the world.
What adults?
I think Rep John Kennedy from Louisiana, a Republican, said it best yesterday when talking about the possibility of a military parade:
“I think confidence is silent and insecurity is loud,” Kennedy told reporters. “America is the most powerful country in all of human history; you don’t need to show it off.”
While Mr Blow's article is about incessant lying, the lying and emphasis he places on it when trumpeting it constantly covers Trump's insecurity. He can't shut up.
The most dangerous part of the lying (not that the normalcy we attribute to it now isn't dangerous) is that when the real emergencies that place people's lives in danger, or when there is a military action somewhere in the world that places our troops in danger, 70% of the American people will not believe him. The lying is now corrupting every single person he has placed in power and they are not stepping out and subverting or contradicting him. If they do so they risk becoming the newest subject of his lies via twitter or shouted comments.
Recently there was something on tv about the period surrounding Watergate. There were videos of things Nixon came out and said at press conferences about the relentless pressure from the press. It was terrifying to hear nearly identical words from this president..... 45 years later, president 45 rose to power with scarily similar lies and tactics and covers his deeds with them to maintain that power.
The only way to stop it is a Dem majority. VOTE every election.
Lying must be more common in America than most of us realize because so many of Trumps supporters don’t even blink an eye at it. Fact checking doesn’t work when the people don’t care. This will not end well. Honest.
1
Truth is everything, without truth our democracy will die. I believe that Muller and the FBI, whatever their personal feelings about Trump, will seek to expose the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; that is why they must be allowed to continue. If they end up finding that Trump and his crew lied and/or were colluding, money laundering, and/or attempting to obstruct the investigation, then that doesn't make them anti-Republican, it means they are actually working to defend the Republic.
400
Well said, Ted Morton: The Republican Party is against the Republic and, I fear, the Democratic Party on the whole is only weakly for Democracy.
"In this space, everything must exist at the extremes, or not at all. Everything is love or hate, big or little, best or worst."
While your diagnosis of Trump is correct, he is unfortunately not alone. This same space you describe is occupied by millions of Americans. They gravitate to what is emotionally closest at hand, whether the issue is the economy, civil liberties, the environment, religion, or a woman's right to choose, because in their willfully limited view of things their opponent is not only wrong but also evil. The real question is how can thinking people effectively combat this insanity? Any ideas?
3
If we are to assume Trump is a ‘manipulative liar’ then we must believe he lies with intent. To be good at it, one needs a malleable audience. He has that. A popular media outlet supporting your every word is imperative. He has that. His knowledge gap forces him to steer around facts and head straight into an alternate reality of his making. The press is sent on more goose chases as Trump’s verbal diarrhea is spread in small amounts in many places and puts their fact checkers on hyper drive. Trump’s ‘autocratic tendencies’ cause little consternation with his base because they believe that everything they hear from the media is ‘fake news’. That leaves them having to believe in Trump (and FOX News). To make that stretch, many things need to be manipulated which only a despot can achieve. I wish things were different, but here we are.
7
A man is only as good as his word. It is that simple.
449
This comment says everything that needs to be said except "impeach." But that leads us to Trump's number one enabler, Pence, followed by his number two (and scarier) enabler, Paul Ryan. We are between a mountain of rocks and a hard place.
1
....unless you are a Trump supporter. Then a man is only worth the power he has over others.
Therein lies the division.
1
Many years ago Mayor Koch of New York City said of Trump, "I wouldn't believe Trump if his tongue was notarized." New Yorkers knew that Trump was full of it forever. Too bad the country was naive enough to buy into his shtick.
2
apologies to Neil Young.
Tin Generals and Trump a coming,
It's clear we're on our own
Everywhere you hear the call for
Impeach him he's got to go.
Gotta get down to it
Lies are cutting us down
Should have been gone long ago.
What if you knew them
And saw them spread on the ground.
They are one with us don't you know.
4
Since Trump's rise as "The Grand Wizard of Birtherism," you have refused to turn your attention from the danger Trump poses to our democracy. Thank you, Mr. Blow.
That nickname you coined is how I long thought of Trump, until my daughter introduced me to a term from her science class, which captures his inflammatory & shape-shifting lying: ballistic gelatin.
1
"My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
My first reaction to this was that it was an understatement. My worst fears, from the word go, have been validated. I have lost any pretense that I can be shocked anymore by DT's vile behavior at the expense of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING but him.
485
The last paragraph of William L. Shirer's Forward to his book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", 1960:
In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.
3
Nothing Trump does is beyond the pale for Trump's supporters. He's their savior, their hope.
1
Charles, this is all true, but in a way it is old news.
We have long seen Trump for the miserable failure of a man that he is. What continues to shock me is the level of depravity and deceit the Republicans are capable of. As much as I despised George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, I never doubted they loved their country.
It's not only Trump who shows a cold indifference to the welfare of the people he governs, it's nearly the whole of the Republican party.
4
this is the best analysis of trump´s character and behavior that I have seen anywhere. The only way patriotic Americans can fight him and his sycophants in congress is to take to the streets and march, march, march! This is very scary. His is a path to destruction to all we hold dear.
1
Christopher Steele and Sally Yates overestimated Trump's loyalty to the United States. They worried that Trump could be blackmailed. Trump actually was way beyond that. He is a willing stooge of the Russians, because the Trump Organization needs their money.
1
He will be removed from office. Not by Mueller but by the voters in 2020 and it will be an ugly scene with claims of election fraud and God knows what, 24 hour scandal reports on Fox about how illegals voted etc. Worst will be Trump out of office with his base intact to harass the next president with angry tweets, threats and instigation. What would he do between election day and Inauguration day? war?
He will not go quietly into the night.
9
I'm just curious what Republican parents say to their children about Donald Trump. Do they say that he's a good man even though he insults people? That it's OK to throw a tantrum when you don't get what you want? That lying is OK if it serves a larger personal goal? Do they say it's OK to grab women any time you want as long as you're rich and powerful? Donald Trump is more than an embarrassing uncle. He is an anti-role model. He is everything you don't want your children to grow up to be. And I'm afraid we're stuck with him for at least another year, probably 3.
865
They tell their kids that anyone is better than Obama & Hillary.
6
These same Republican parents taught and told their children that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that he was an illegitimate President and that he was anti- American , anti- military and that his administration was the most crooked in history. When in fact , he was the exact opposite of Donald Trump, an excellent role model, extremely well educated, honest, compassionate , self made and a model husband, father and Son In Law and kind considerate caring human being. He was the embodiment of the American Dream yet because of the color of his skin they had disdain for him and everything he tired to accomplish. They will suffer the consequences as will we all of their foolish actions.
11
Perhaps the only thing left for them to do is lie to their kids like Trump lies to us.
4
I don’t think he knowingly “lies”. I think he “believes” everything he hears on Fox, or from some sycophant. That seems to be his only source of information and it has constructed his world view--which doesn’t really include the world beyond wherever he is at the moment. Lying takes planning and creativity, actually believing nonsense is just being a sponge--and I mean no insult to living sponges.
1
What other kind of governance can a country that lies to itself about itself expect to have?
13
Trump lied during the run up to his candidacy, during the election and now continues in the White House. He lied all of his business life to banks.
The fact that he continues this pattern is not surprising. What is surprising is that it has infected the Republican Congress. There was a time when there was integrity in the Republican Party. The fact that Ryan, McConnell, et al defend, cover for Trump or downright lie themselves is twice as scary. They are in charge of whether or not Trump continues in power. The fact that the Republicans are now trying to build a case for getting rid of Mueller is proof that they also are big time liars.
This country has been in danger before by some of its leaders, but this is more ominous.
Even his base will feel the dismal and irrevocable damage to this country perpetrated by Trump, his Administration and the Republican Party.
As far as protecting his family, Trump will sell them down the river as well as his base.
655
This didn’t begin with Trump - it began 37 years ago with Ronald Reagan - the worst president ever - All of Trump’s tactics were Reagan’s - Reagan just delivered them better. Trickle down began and failed with him yet the Republicans continued to promote it for their donors. Deficits were terrible if the president was Democrat, acceptable and tolerable under Republicans, who run them up every time.
Boehner, Gingrich began the extreme right shift of the party who only continued and grew this national nightmare.
19
Jean, when i was growing up, Nixon was the republican president, and i thought it couldnt get any worse. It did, we got Reagan, and i thought it couldnt get any worse. It did, and we got Bush. And I thought it couldnt get any worse. Then we got trump. I just want to know, when was that integrity in the republican party?
4
Will? In the future tense?
He already has. It just takes a while to get one's mind around the utter abyss of wretchedness that is this man's soul.
2
Character and moral fiber. Care and compassion. He has none of these attributes and we are watching the wrecking ball of his presidency unfold. I agree with a previous writer who wrote that war could be the ultimate distraction - we must ensure he is not successful in taking us down that dark path.
22
Lies beget more lies. So we will see some lies grow as more untruths are piled onto the first. We know what we have in Donald and if Republicans would not ignore or worse sign on to the lies our Democracy would continue to function. But we are at the point where lies cover up past crimes, and the failure of the congress to do its duty to Truth, we are about to have government ignore foreign intervention in the 2018 election. This of course could result in meaningless elections. It has finally been admitted that Russia had successfully attacked voter roles in many key states. What else have they done that we don't know. In Pa. the voting machines do not leave a trail of actual votes to be able to verify results. In Mich. and Wisconsin there are questions about vote totals. All scary possibilities.
18
Great analysis by Mr Blow. The Trump Brand is as twisted as a Ram Truck commercial, completely inverting reality to drive an emotional response.
The Trump Brand is not just exaggeration, though there is plenty of that. It is the Big Lie, the most important of which is that climate change is a hoax.
This is not some empty campaign promise. It is a vast effort by the Trump Administration, involving EPA, Interior, State, Defense and other Agencies to erase "climate change" from government research, websites, communications, budgets, laws and policies, with the enthusiastic support of the GOP Congress.
The leadership of the US Navy understands that 70% of its facilities will be impacted by sea level rise, costing trillions to relocate or raise them now and in the future. Because of the Big Lie, they cannot speak of "climate change" or sea level rise in their plans and budgets, only repairs and upgrades are allowed to address recurrent flooding.
Just as the 195 countries of world converge on the urgency of reversing carbon emissions, with key leadership by Obama, the GOP and fossil fuel industry collude to hold back the tide of alternative energy and low emission technology.
Scott Pruitt at EPA had to install a sound proof chamber to hide the collusion, inspired perhaps by Kushner's proposal for a secret communication channel to the Kremlin inside the Russian Embassy.
The Big Lie is right before us. Our grandchildren and theirs will know how we responded.
44
Charles’s arguments about Trump seek in their tone (at the outset) to appeal to reason rather than emotion, a rare tactic lately in his offerings. He would be more persuasive to those not already fully-paid-up members of the choir in today’s attempt if 1) it didn’t rely so heavily on liberals’ assumption that their social convictions are delivered from a burning bush that speaks only to them, 2) it avoided use of incendiary clickbait such as “lie, exploit and destroy”, and 3) those who might usefully pay attention to him electorally hadn’t long ago ceased reading him because he offers nothing but mono-tonal and context-free spleen on one subject: Donald Trump.
And I mourn all that, because for a long time a lot of insight and passion on racial and other issues of the day that could bridge divides came from Charles’s keyboard, and today the only purpose of his columns, week in and week out, is merely eagerly-awaited justifications for one side to hate the other, and the welcome regular supplement to MSNBC talking-points on Trump.
Americans concluded, in just the right numbers, in just the right places, that for a time we needed a president who shook the trees and broke open the logjam of a politics that had been frozen for years, rather than resting on his credentials as an avatar of political correctness who would fail to work productively with this Congress and merely perpetuate that frozen state. Because Democrats failed to offer up such a candidate, Trump was elected.
8
His persona comes with the bargain – but he’s delivering on that bargain, even if Democrats don’t like the results. Trump’s is a persona well-known to those of us who have chosen to live in the real world rather than MERELY in the cloistered elevations of ideal states and noble aspirations. We learned long ago that such people have their uses, but you need to hold them to account and to manage a fairly short leash. Offerings such as Charles’s provide no useful counsel on the wise use of such personas and merely rail at HIS inability to manage that short leash.
There will come a time when America no longer needs Donald Trump as president; and the sooner that time comes, the better. For the time being, the Senate has agreed (and perhaps today all of government will agree) to end fiscal cliffs for two years, a consensus is forming that we MUST resolve comprehensive immigration and specifically the Dreamers issue very soon, the economy is humming (not just in the U.S. but dependent economies everywhere), ISIS is just about dead as an organized force, and it’s been weeks since we heard anything particularly bellicose from “Little Rocket Man”.
Life is good and getting better, Donald Trump played an important part in making that happen, and let’s just get on with healing ourselves using the best tools we’ve managed to fashion for that important task. AFTER we’ve done that, we can afford to elect a president more to Charles’s liking.
2
Just a simple question, Richard: If a President Hillary Clinton did what Trump did, would you feel so sanguine? No problem, right?
32
Richard
"Just the right numbers, in just the right places" means that my vote, in Seattle, doesn't count as much as a person in a red state. This is not one person, one vote. The gop cannot win 2 presidential elections in a row without assistance from the e.c., supreme court or Russia. At least you are admitting, sorta, that Clinton won the popular vote.
13
"My sense is that absolutely nothing will be beyond the pale for Trump. He will lie, exploit and destroy. If you think he’s dangerous now, you haven’t seen anything yet."
From the narcissist in chief anything is possible. The complaint from the little baby in charge directed to the Democrats who didn't applaud and genuflect during the state of the union is pathetic. But it is also frightening. But Mueller will get to the evil that is in the White House and prosecute.
58
Apologies; In my main comment, I wrote 2015 when I meant 2005 for the date a book was released.
Lie, yes, but just as harmful, distract. When the going gets tough, he'll just change the conversation, point in some other direction, find or invent some other problem or opportunity, project his thorny issue onto somebody else. Always Hillary, of course. The military parade is another example. Even if he's criticized for it, it's a distraction. Who knows what's next. Maybe a war. That always distracts. Scary times.
83
One of your best, Charles. One of anyone's best; you really covered a lot of ground, in fact, pretty much the whole waterfront, in this opinion piece.
I would change one small thing: "Nuance and complexity are founts of confusion in Trump’s base's mind," although your original sentence is also accurate.
Then, right after this sentence, you point out probably something obvious, which I nonetheless managed to miss: "So he gravitates to the most emotionally charged parts of any issue and amplifies them." Score! Bulls-eye. Bases-loaded homerun in the bottom of the ninth!
Yes, and as you say, he does this reflexively; it's a learned, polished skill. It's instinctive for him.
He is a fascinating study in political personalities. The psychological gift that keeps on giving. What will be seen next from this narcissist in a fishbowl?
130
Charles raises a good point. How will Trump react if his back is against the wall? He realizes that if he is impeached his brand will be forever tarnished. What actions will he take? His autocratic tendencies might reign.
49
Scatman - After being sued 1,500 times (just recently being judged to pay out a $25 million settlement on the bogus Trump University scam) and after suing others 2,000 times to pursue imagined or real insults and honorable resistance, I do not sense that Trump absorbs or wears tarnishing, guilt, accountability, or responsibility like normal, ethical people do. He is consistently and historically an actor in bad faith whose petrified neuronal pathways cycle the same-old-same-old just like an automatic washer. For Trump, "better and different" (if he would even acknowledge the need for such) is about appearances, propaganda, lies, and exaggerations, not about true, honest, fundamental change.
2
My son, who is 27, told me that the military will never, ever use force against the American people. I told him to look up Kent state.
4
Trump University, Trump Steak, Trump Ties, Trump Vodka, Trump Shuttle - I'd say Trump doesn't fear failure or a 'tarnished' brand.
2
It's not just the GOP, it's all conservatives everywhere, everywhen. The question is: will non-conservatives actually fight back and when? Given 400 years of North American history, it's hard to be optimistic.
17
It’s one thing for Trump to brand a steak, a university, bottled water, a hotel/casino or a tie made in China but when he applies the outrageous, often done in advertising, to America while he is president, it cheapens how we and people throughout the world see our country.
That could be a reason why he’s losing elections large and small in places where he won by big margins in red states. The people seem to be awakening to what he has done to our country and no military parade will alter the perception that this would-be emperor wears no clothes.
95
I tend to agree, mix Trumps compulsive lying with his new found position of power and a recipe for the perfect storm exists. I wouldn't mind so much if I had any reason to believe that congress is watching him with caution and has a backup plan if he goes seriously off the deep end. By most modern day standards he would normally be considered as well past that point of acceptable behavior. He has made it pretty clear that in his mind there are no boundaries to his degree of depravity. At this point the question is not when will the final explosion happen but what will be the final cost to democracy.
56
As usual, Blow nails it. And I do believe that when the day of reckoning comes for Trump--and I sincerely believe it will--he will ignite a firestorm among his followers. I've run into some of these folks on social media, and they are scary in their blindness, in their faith that this president is in fact making the country great again. And furthermore, I suspect that many of these people are well-armed and will be ready to use those arms to defend Trump against the truth. I do fear for our future.
156
Don't be afraid. Consider that the "torches" were *tiki* torches. Made in China, bought at Wal-Mart. Carried around by feeble-minded little guys in khakis and white shirts.
2
This is Donald John Trump. That was him before the campaign, during the campaign, now and into the future. It's who he is. It's part of his psychological make up. We need to accept it, acknowledge it, and remove him from power by invoking the incapacitation clause of the 25th Amendment.
30
And yet after having witnessed his methods for over a year, his popularity is on the rise. How does one explain that? Trump is gaining popularity with the all important independent voter. Try this on for size. Morality and ethics has so eroded in this country that Trump's behavior is not viewed with disgust and horror, rather it is accepted. No big deal.
41
You can thank Bill & Hillary for that
"...where passionate faith surmounts accuracy and science." This part worries me a lot. For instance, the HHS Secretary got up yesterday to talk about the flu pandemic. Anyone, like me, who read the Times' excellent piece on the 1917 flu outbreak (truly scary) probably took up the coverage of the Secretary's statement with more than a little anxiety. It didn't seem to say much, except that they're working diligently, blah, blah, blah. As I was reading that, I realized that it might very well be just a big, giant lie and that I don't really know how this flu pandemic is going, scientifically speaking. But that, I guess, anyone who is a Trump worshipper was likely reassured somehow. But because Trump lies about everything, and so do his Congressional and White House cronies, how do we know if we can believe the HHS on a serious public health threat? This is why Trump's lying is so bad: The people are very well being kept in the dark about matters of life and death. If the pandemic did get as bad as 1917 (the outgoing HHS secretary said that was his worst nightmare--it could happen), I am sure we would not know this until it was too late. But, boy, would people ever be angry if they figured out the gov't lied to them. I wish someone would stand up and say that a government official lying is absolutely unacceptable...we can't do government that way. Draw the line, call them out, and don't just laugh it off any more.
43
1918
1
Since he was elected, I’ve been worried about the nuclear button. Or at least war with someone who could really cause damage to us. That is the ultimate distraction, and Trump will see America burn to save his own sorry hide.
44
Mr. Blow,
By now most Americans understand that Trump is a self-centered individual that will do anything to get praise or to protect the skin of him and his family. My real concern is the enablers like Fox , other right-wing outlets, and the GOP who amplify the lie and seek to protect a man who is dismantling our democracy. Trump is nothing without his supporters.
152
With Trump the whole world has discovered to its horror what can happen when children aren't severely punished for telling lies. The presidency certainly wasn't intended by the founding fathers to be a tv show, but if it had been that tv show probably would have been called Truth or Consequences and with Trump in the contestant's chair we'd already have moved by now into the 'consequences' phase.
10
Wow, Mr. Blow once again zones in and describes the situation perfectly. His words are powerful and direct. Glad he’s not Trump’s speechwriter. I look forward to the day when words matter again, and we’re led by a leader, with similar patriots in Congress and the Supreme Court, who truly put country over party or pocket.
28
The current occupant of the White House is not a man of his word. He cannot be trusted. This translates overseas, both with allies and non-allies alike, into: the USA can currently not be trusted to uphold previously made international commitments (today Paris Climate Accord, NAFTA; tomorrow Iran nuclear deal, NATO?) let alone new ones. Domestically this pathological obfuscation may be viewed through a partisan lens. But make no mistake, the universal international view is that ex-leader of the free world has gone AWOL.
21
It’s only a matter of time before Trump tweets: My lawyers have nothing to worry about. I’m the best perjurer. No one commits perjury better than I do.
66
I agree that Trump is indeed an unusual case. I think that most people make some effort to be accurate or truthful when they make statements. Most of us don't want to be caught in a bald face lie or don't want to give other people the chance to point out our lies. It seems to make absolutely no difference to Trump. He says whatever suits the moment and continues to say it even when it has been pointed out that what he says in false. The more he lies the more his base seems to like him.
It is frightening that someone who has no regard for truth or facts is making decisions about life and death issues such as war or peace as well as justice and constitutional government. That is why I do not really understand the 2016 presidential election. I know many people felt left behind, were angry at the "establishment," and hated the Clintons (Hillary in particular). But I actually think that having Trump in the presidency puts the future of the country and constitutional government in jeopardy and that was obvious before the election.
34
There is little doubt about Trump’s lying, exploitation and destruction. It’s out there for everyone to see. It is troubling, indeed, that many Americans are becoming inured to it, and go about their daily lives as if the effects of all this are nil.
They aren’t. For a self-professed conservative, applauded, aided and abetted by conservatives, Trump is whittling away at many of the fundamental underpinnings of civilized society in our country, as if it was his and only his country. It is not.
When’s sufficient numbers of Americans will wake up to the
slippery slope of damage that Trump has placed us on is the million dollar question, and whether it will hold Republicans in Congress accountable for their complicity in all of this is becoming more of a likelihood than a point of speculation.
If Trump wishes to destroy his presidency through his own ignorance, wilfulness and narcissism is his business. Destroying our country is another matter, and one which the people may just decide they have something to say about. There is a place called hope, and in our country’s case, it may just lie at the intersection of desperation. Mid-term elections have a way of directing us there, just like GPS.
29
To date, many craven Republicans seem to prefer the course of quietly choosing not to run for reelection in the face of voter disgust with the current administration and Congress, bowing out meekly instead of raising their voices iin full hue and cry against the outrages of this administration while still in office. Moral cowardice is the tenor of our times.
3
Because everything Mr. Blow has written is true, it is more important than ever for us as citizens to focus on saving our country from both self-destruction and outside foes. We must not allow our outrage to overwhelm our resolve to protect America despite its current leadership. Because we have no roadmap for how to do this, we must vote at every opportunity, make our commitment to the rule of law clear, and raise our voices clearly and consistently.
23
One year later and I am still wondering how anyone voted for this man. One year later and I wonder how anyone with a sense of decency and fairness can continue to support him.
209
You really must take a look at the daily comments of one Mr. Richard Luttegen (sorry if I didn’t get the spelling right, Mr. L). It is a puzzle indeed.
13
Pundette and Naomi - I find Richard's comments (Luettgen) extremely important and instructive, as he is someone who obviously has at least average intelligence - and if he were functioning in a purely rational (well, actually, reasonable) manner, of course he would have no difficulty seeing what Trump really is.
But, obviously, he's not. It is partly, as several other commenters put it, the effect of the hate radio echo chamber, but this is not sufficient to explain him, as he regularly cites mainstream news sources.
The problem is so many people who read the Times don't give sufficient weight to the fact that it is actually the very rare human being who is capable of assessing world events (or really, anything about life) from a purely reasonable position.
I would go even further - and farther back, to the Katha Upanishad - and say, no human being every decides anything based on "pure reason." This was an Enlightenment belief which, fortunately, our neuroscience now shows to be utterly wrong.
The ancient Sages of the Upanishadic age understood this - in their old, symbolic mythological language, they said, human being have two choices:
We can look "downward" or "upward."
"Downward" is toward our most ancient evolutionary roots, which made sense in that ancient context - pure survival, by any means whatsoever.
"Upward" is toward 'the better angels of our nature."
High IQ has nothing to do with it.
Now read Richard's comments and see what direction he is looking.
2
And THAT is the most frightening thing! We can no longer take the moral high-ground when there are so many dark forces willing to support Trump - both in government and in the constituency. As a people, we have been greatly diminished.
1
If this president goes down, he'll take the country with him. His allegiance is to himself and no one else. His very office means nothing to him, save the trappings of power. His Republican enablers are useful tools that he can discard if they cross him. The Constitution is just parchment to him, its sacred creed unknown to him and unread by him. The checks and balances of American government are inconveniences to his thirst for absolute rule. Which is why he loathes the First Amendment and the freedom of the press. If he had his way, the MSM would be suppressed and Fox News would rule the airwaves. Sean Hannity would be his minister of information.
The president has no redeeming qualities and his defiance of proper decorum is what endears him to his base. Unfortunately, his base includes elected officials of his party who are not supposed to be a part of that base. They are in Congress to represent their voters back home, not serve as cheerleaders for their party leader or feel intimidated by angry voters in the Republican heartland. America is not Germany in 1933, nor is it a "carnage" or a "mess" as describes by this president. He ran for the White House because he has a personal ax to grind with minorities, not to make America better.
99
America may not be Germany in 1933, but it sure is acting like it.
2
America is built on faith, freedom, and wealth.
When wealth becomes the great ambition and driver, faith is perverted, freedom is eroded, and a nation is exposed to the darkest of human instincts.
18
And never mind that nonsense about separation of church and state. Right Gunter?
Your truly,
I, Atheist
1
When this nightmare hopefully is over in 2018 or 2020 latest. First order of business make a law that require release of tax returns for a Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates as well as Speaker of the House and leaders of the Senate. We want transparency in Washington lets get real.
22
Being well educated with many degrees does not guarantee common sense or the ability to think critically.
Agree, the more I talk to acquaintances who are trump supporters, I marvel that some of them, well educated and reasonably intelligent, have abandoned facts entirely for belief and wonder what happened to the logical rational people I knew just a few short years ago. Even when confronted with clear and convincing evidence that Trump is lying and not factual, they are blind. How does Trump fool them so completely?
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The Trump voters aren't blind to the horrors of Trump. They are determined to keep their sense of pride by not admitting the foolishness of their choice. They are reluctant to show themselves as backers of the worst candidate for any office that has ever existed in the whole wide world.
It would take much more courage than anyone who voted for Trump could possibly have to say, "I made a terrible mistake."
6
How does he fool them so completely?
... In general, their abandonment of logic and rationality has everything to do with where they get their information -- confining themselves, as they do, to the warped information machines of Fox News and hate radio. Our military is also an echo chamber for misinformation. Based upon such propaganda, the thinking of Trump's supporters, civilian and military, makes sense.
2+3=6 if someone has convinced you that 2 is this many XXX.
6
OMG, Tom! I have had the same experience with a friend of mine who has a Ph.D and whom I’ve known for 45 years. He seems absolutely incapable of seeing DT as the destroyer he is.
7
This brilliant essay summarizes exactly what and who Trump is. However, it can be further condensed. All of these characteristics, all of them, accurately describe someone who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. There is a common thread that runs through both which is a lack of empathy. Look up both conditions. This essay reads like a description of both.
That's why Trump is such a good liar. He doesn't care. There is no emotional penalty to lie. That's why he is so hurtful to others. He doesn't care if he hurts people. He only wants to win. He falsely attacks some of the most distinguished people in the world and treats them like they were criminals. Whether his accusations are true or not is not his concern. He just wants to hit back, so he does.
In Trump's mind, there can be no dissent, no disagreement. There can only be complete fealty and submission. He is the Mighty Trump! Bow down to me! Applaud for me!
The truly scary part of his pathologies is that he is expert at utilizing them to manipulate about 35% of the population. They cheer him on. They see his failings as components of his greatness.
This is exactly how dictators rise to power on the backs of the downtrodden. Castro, Lenin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, were not installed because a bunch of rich aristocrats put them in power. The lower classes did.
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I would add one more diagnostic category for your consideration: borderline personality disorder. His inability to see or understand a middle ground between polar opposites is the giveaway, along with his tendency toward chaos.
19
"not installed because a bunch of rich aristocrats put them in power. The lower classes did."
Our 'rich aristocrats" are a willing paying members of his golf clubs. Trump's 35-40% base are not exactly downtrodden. They are not poor nor living in ghettos. Trump is George Wallace of 1960's.
It's mainly about skin color.
They want pure Christian White America.
6
Bruce, it's not that he doesn't care if he hurts people, he is a sadist, he enjoys hurting them. A man who grabs a strange woman's genitals isn't primarily looking for sexual pleasure, he is looking to humiliate and denigrate a woman he has never met. This sadistic impulse is as fundamental to Trump's personality as his undeniable narcissism.
8
It is indeed the lying - built on the foundation of 'truthiness' dismissed as spin, in order for Faux Noise Machina's 24/7 foghorn of miasma to continue its 2 decade long pollution of the normal discourse, buttressing the Tea Party crowd/Freedom Caucus, who derive their power from the egregious gerrymandering which puts extremists in control of the GOP.
In America, words matter, as they do in any society built upon laws taking precedence over feudal patronage. If our words become meaningless, the very Constitution and its Amendments turn to mush; so the termites of djt's Wrecking Crew (and the Complicit enabling gang) are busily at work gnawing away at the norm of not lying, pretending when they lie and have been caught at it, that it's of no consequence.
Whatever happened to 'the best people' we were promised ?
And note that 'best people' and 'so much winning' are words which have also now lost their meanings.
"Trump is an unparalleled combination of mendacity and ignorance" - Max Boot
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A dung heap surrounded by dung beetles.
1
"...it becomes abundantly clear that his branding and messaging playbook could actually fit on an index card: Exploit people’s covetousness, ambition, lust, greed, fear, racial tribalism and gullibility."
Excellent column, as usual.
I believe that Trump will stop at nothing--even the "distraction" of nuclear war---to stop this investigation.
I believe this man is so bereft of any concern for others, that that trait in and of itself constitutes pathology.
Or maybe it's just indicative of a mob operator. It's been said Robert Mueller is treating this investigation like a crime syndicate, where betrayal of country was the the currency, the price the campaign paid to keep certain secrets under wraps.
I believe Trump got in over his head with Russian oligarchs who now have him where they want him, sewing the chaos Putin craves in order to advance his own goals at the expense of ours.
if this isn't treason, please tell me why. Clapping for the "king" is secondary--Trump's autocratic instincts dovetail with the behavior of his handlers who probably couldn't believe their good fortune when the malleable, corruptible Trump landed in their laps during the Miss Universe pageant of 2013.
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The technical definition of Treason only applies to helping a foreign enemy that Congress has specifically declared war on.
Republicans never commit themselves to a war authorization. This is why all of our recent military actions are using long expired congressional authorizations dating from the 9/11 response.
Since we are not officially at war with anyone, aiding our adversaries to destroying our country is not technically treason. It is still vile. Taking support from any foreign power in an election is illegal, but not officially treason.
2
I actually think they were grooming him long before 2013. I think the Dossier alludes to that. And he’s selling us down the river, not just for kompromat, but for the promise of massive financial gain. I’m convinced of that.
5
Missing from this litany are Trump's laziness and cruelty.
Our sickening descent--increased rhetorical and actual violence directed at immigrants, people of color, women, anyone ''different'' from Trump's white stereotypes--are a direct result of his desire to avoid the hard work of actually understanding anything. He doesn't know, doesn't care and won't do the work.
He has used cruelty throughout his career to titillate or intimidate others and knows no other way to relate. While this may have seemed clever, but ultimately proved limiting, in business, it is a defining character trait of our highest office holder. He wants us to hate one another.
Those who serve and enable him are accelerating our national decline. They have abandoned all standards, they know no bottom. We must get them out of power as soon as possible.
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Just a quibble:
"He wants us to hate one another."
I disagree. He wants us to love him and hate anyone who doesn't; he doesn't much give a damn about how we feel about others. Moreover, he really doesn't hate any group, as long as they admire him -- that's the key, in fact, the only thing. If you're black, white, red, yellow, brown and love him, great. You're on the team. If you dislike or diss him, you're out because you're either with him or against him.
That's my take on 45 so far. Subject to change.
4
Mr. Blow, while your every word is true, the problem is the entire GOP, which has been peddling lies for decades. And the nagging question in my mind is not only what the party will do to protect Trump, but what it will do next to continue to deliver the nation's wealth to its handlers. Will they, as David Frum recently said, jettison democracy itself? Of course, we already know the answer tp that. Our future as a democracy will be determined in November, of that I am increasingly certain.
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You are so right. Without a true legislative check on our immoral president and his GOP sycophants, the damage to be done over the remaining two-plus years of his term will become harder and harder to reverse. As a lifelong Democrat, I desperately hope that all of us who believe in democracy, science and justice will realize that we must not let our own disagreements prevent us from answering history's call.
25
"Our future as a democracy will be determined in November, of that I am increasingly certain."
Or perhaps prior to that with the results of the Mueller investigation and how they are received.
9
Yes, you have to ask whether Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are any better, and it seems that they are not. The GOP’s default mod of discourse is lying.
37
LIar, Liar, pants on fire
Trump is back in town,
Don is boasting
Foes are toasting
Our POTUS is a Clown.
476
Making rhymes of Donald's deeds
Seems frivolous to me,
Though you do address your reader's needs
As impeachment talk proceeds.
1
Larry, I approve this but I think the scansion would improve if "Our" is deleted.
2
You Sir are a NATIONAL TREASURE!!! Thank you for your perception, cleverness and wit. You are a ray of sunlight in an otherwise dark time in our nation's history.
2