Yesterday at work, in the employee break room a friendly co-worker tells me “Trump will go down as the greatest president in our lifetime”. I assumed he was joking and made a sarcastic remark.
He was not joking. He doubled down.
So I asked, “On what measurement, what criteria is he the best ever?”
My co-worker replied, “Best Economy Ever, look at your 401-K”.
I came back with, “If I can show you that other presidents did better, will you take that back?”
He said, “Yes, but no Fake News and nothing from the Deep State”…(honestly I was getting worried about this guy as he seemed normal up until now)
So today, I gave him this:
Here’s the change in Dow Jones Industrial Average from Inauguration Day to Aug 12 of their 3rd year in the White House:
GHWB: +34.2%
Clinton: +42.4%
GWB: -11.9%
Obama: +41.7%
Trump: +30.1%
Trump is 4th our of 5 in presidents relative to raises in the DOW.
He replied, “Where did YOU get these numbers?”
I answered, “Simple, just looked them up on the internet and used a calculator to figure the numbers.”
He ended the conversation with, “Okay, I better find out for myself.”
In other words, I am lying, or the Fake News has taken over the DOW…or the Deep State is involved.
I’ve never met a cult follower, until now, and now I am seeing them everywhere.
Even if Trump were in first place he’s still a horrible human being and grossly unqualified to be President.
This is another example of how deeply our culture and society is broken.
A supporter of Donald Trump today MUST BE a cult follower, because virtually all reason, rationality, and objectivity leads to the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Trump is at best an ignorant pathological liar, bully, misogynist, and bigot. It is only through the intentional denial of reality that a person who is not all of these things can still support him.
I really do wonder if and how we heal these gaping wounds.
I am most struck of what is being used as the criteria. First, the president really doesn’t control Wall Street results. It happens simultaneously, but the cause and effect link is weak. Second, Bernie was right when he said the business plan of Wall Street is fraud. I would be less charitable. It is a giant Ponzi scheme. So saying that the Ponzi scheme is running well as proof of being a good president just shows how totally screwed up America and the modern world is. Trump is a symptom of this dysfunction where anything can be believed 2+2=5. There are cults within the bigger cults that oppose each other (red vs blue, etc) but to heal we all need to vomit at our reflection. Who we are isn’t very pretty. For my part I sold all my stocks years ago. Bin laden was another rich a-hole who thinks he knows better than everyone else, and his critique of America was far too narrow. The whole world is guilty of this Ponzi scheme which is only sustainable by all nations having trillions of dollars in deficits. This house of cards will implode one day, again. The real question is what will we build after. Will we resurrect the Ponzi scheme again like was done in 1929, or will we build a real world based on justice, logic and fairness?
The level of cognitive dissonance to cite the stock market after El Paso is mind boggling. We spent most of today at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and while it was shameful to see Emmet Till’s coffin, vestiges of segregated rail cars and fountains, and film clips of the Klan and Gov. Wallace, the exhibits end on a hopeful note with Obama’s inauguration . I now feel we are undoing that arc of history with this presidency.
There was a harrowing painting with audio re-enactment of an enslaved mother having her child wrested from her at an auction. I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the family separation policies today. I am glad every Democratic candidate is stressing the racist toxicity of this administration and the need to fight to save the soul of this country. Unfortunately, I’m rooting for a recession so he has nothing to conceivably brag about. This president needs to go.
Update:
Since this exchange, the Trump supporter simply greets me with a “hello” and no longer mentions politics.
However, I did get the chance to enter a rabbit hole of Trump supporters in my home town of Franklin and until they kicked me off their web page, I learned that:
1. Hillary Clinton killed Epstein.
2. Jamal Khashoggi is alive.
3. Pizzagate was real, and they have video proof the pedophile ring run by the Clintons.
4. The protesters at the RI facility that were struck and injured “deserved it” and the man who stuck them was a patriot.
Scary stuff that self-medication.
I went to the eye doctor today. We both agreed that Trump had a unique opportunity to lead in a non or bi-partisan way. I don’t quite get why he didn’t stop campaigning. He actually could have been a great president, but he blew it bigly time.
To the question, “who is worse, the fool or the fool who follows?” I think the followers are worse. Trump might be mixed up but the followers project their idiocy into an abyss of layered contradictions that are almost impossible to untangle
Candidate Trump was genuinely interesting and on the opposite side of the GOP on a lot of issues he could have done something differently on. Instead, they have settled for an arrangement where he passes Koch brothers bills and Federalist society judges and in turn Moscow Mitch and the establishment offers no oversight on this lawless presidency.
It’s your voting for this guy in 2020 you are voting for him for the racism and xenophobia. He offers you nothing on the economy, guns, climate, and other issues swing voters care about.
Well, I think this is true only if we willfully ignore who Donald Trump was for the decades before his decision to run for President.
Anybody who paid the slightest bit of attention to the media knew or should have known that Donald Trump is a pathological liar and con-man, a fraud, and deeply enmeshed in organized crime and the underworld.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about his corrupt and bankrupt casinos, his bankrupt airline, his fraudulent health supplements pyramid scheme, his bogus steaks, his “Trump University” boondoggle, or his wrestling acquisition — ALL of them and each of them are the same a millimeter under the surface.
In 2005, more than a decade before his campaign began, he BRAGGED on the Howard Stern show about buying the Miss Universe pageant so that he could violate underage women (no wonder he’s nervous about Mr. Epstein’s prosecution).
NOTHING that Mr. Trump has done or said since his election is new or out of character.
Anybody who voted for this impostor in 2016 did so in spite of or — in too many cases — because of all this.
There was no excuse for voting for Donald Trump in 2016, and even less excuse now.