Friday, April 4, 2025

Donald J. Trump – the man we elected President

 

The thoughts expressed here are solely my own.

A few people have pointed out on social media that we should stop attacking his policies and give them time to work their “magic.” Fair enough. (Although nearly every economist, with any credibility at all, is saying the results are going to be terrible. And that’s just on the economic actions! How about that foreign policy?)

Let’s focus on Trump, the man, then.

What do we know about him?

He was born into wealth and yet claims that he built his entire fortune himself, pulling himself up by his bootstraps. He says he was an incredible student at Fordham University and then at Wharton Business school where he graduated with a BS in economics in 1968. His grades have never been seen by the public and for someone who leans heavily to the vainglorious, I can only imagine how awful they must have been, or he would have been waving them around for all to see. (He claims to have won his golf club “championship” 18 times over the years. Does everyone else just not show up?)

He claims that his track record as a businessman gives him incredible insight into how the economy works and is best maximized. For the record, his various enterprises have filed for bankruptcy six times, including a casino. Casinos are among the most lucrative businesses in the world because the house always wins. The only way to bankrupt one is through horrible mismanagement.

He claims to be a devout Christian yet in one interview was unable to name a single Bible verse by which he likes to live. He has been married four times and has proved to be a serial philanderer during each of those. He has been adjudicated as a sexual abuser and ordered to pay millions to E. Jean Carroll. He has lied over 30,000 times in public and each has been documented by the press. His actions clearly don’t match up to the common definition of a Christian. They also don’t line up well with commonly accepted moral standards, for that matter.

He claims to be a patriot and yet he managed to receive five deferments from the military draft during the Vietnam war, the first four for education and the fifth for a medical condition of bone spurs. (The details surrounding this are murky and unclear.) He has been quoted as not wanting to attend veteran funerals because “those guys are all losers!” Unlike other Presidents, he has been unwilling to spend time welcoming injured veterans home from overseas. (He allegedly attended one ceremony early in his first term and said he’d never do it again.)

He claims that our country needs to abolish its DEI efforts, and signed executive orders to do so, because they’re biased against some people (white folks) and that merit and competence will rule the way people are promoted in all government roles. He then appointed administration officials based on their loyalty to him instead of their merit, background, and competence. The Secretaries of Defense and Health and Human Services are just two glaring examples. He has fired many people in top positions of the government, simply because he sees them as disloyal to him and his cause.

With these examples, I believe it is possible to define Donald Trump. He is a lying, philandering, ignorant, immoral, narcissistic, racist, megalomaniac.

That’s who we’ve elected to the most powerful position in the world.

No wonder the world is wondering what happened to the United States. I wonder that, myself.

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