DONALD J. TRUMP CONTINUES TO SHOW OFF HIS INSECURITIES

…Trump & Chinese Honor Guard on the Red Carpet

 

Trump falsely brags that he is tougher, smarter and better respected that Obama….NOT!

 

As the Washington Post reported this week, according to President Trump: “The 45th president [Trump] is, by his own accounting superlative to the 44^th [Obama] in almost every way [of course],.”

 

According to #45, he is “Tougher than former president Barack Obama. He is smarter than Obama, he is more shrewd, more effective, and even more respected.”

 

In private and in public, Trump frequently draws flattering comparisons of him versus his predecessor, and as usual, Trump never lets the truth get in his way, and that was the case this week when he tweeted:

 

“I have been much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts.”

 

And Trump’s White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in the same-day press conference, she repeated the bare-faced-lie that: “President Trump has been extremely tougher on Russia than Obama!”

 

It is disgusting that Trump also continues to repeatedly doubt the conclusions of his own US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election and he has undermined the FBI’s investigation of the matter.

On Russia, and a host of other issues, Trump’s aides and advisers say that, Trump’s near-compulsion with measuring himself against Obama reflects an innate need to be judged superior to his peers and to have a singular opponent to target.  This just confirms how insecure our current Commander-in-Chief is today.

 

Trump has accused Obama of being an outsider ever since he stepped onto the political scene in 2011.  That was when the New York builder-developer-reality-TV star became the public face of “Birtherism”.  He did this through his racial falsehood about Obama’s birthplace. Trump’s birther crusade helped fuel his own presidential rise as he rode the populist wave that distrusted a Black US president.

 

It has always been just pure racism.

What Trump has learned is that this strategy also puts him back into campaign mode, which is a place where the self-described “counterpuncher” is totally comfortable.  It also echo’s the lines of attack that move his most dedicate supporters to cheers and applause, items that Trump must have in order to survive his own insecurities.

 

“If you watch Trump, he understands that there are two ways to be really tall, and one is to have your opponent be really short,” said Newt Gingrich, the Trump supporter and the former House Speaker that was forced out of office.  “He spends a fair amount of his time shrinking his opponents.”

 

With some rare exceptions, most presidents are generally respectful of their predecessors and they avoid attacking them or drawing unkind comparisons, but not Donald Trump.  On the other side, Obama has largely stayed back from hitting at Trump.  However, he has made his difference known, and sometimes sharply, especially at any Trump issues he views as being against the nation and its character.

 

“Trump sees Obama as one of the people around whom the other side organizes,” Gingrich said. “I don’t think he even sees him as a former president. He sees him as a powerful symbol of the left-wing opposition to Trump.”

Trump comparing himself to Obama ranges from the real to the superficial. He often exaggerates the truth while engineering his own reality. “He realizes the power of the hatred of Obama,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House aide who co-hosts the “Save America” podcast. “I do think Trump just started showing up to rallies and going after Obama, and the things people liked the most became his policies. The go-to move became to attack Obama. That’s Trump’s greatest hit.”

 

Trump seizes upon every piece of economic data that he can find to try to portray his presidency as more financially enriching for voters, even though the US economy has been growing for more than nine years and many experts and voters, credit Obama, not Trump, for making that happen.

 

On more trivial matters, Trump always draws unflattering comparisons between himself and his predecessor.  Because it is so obvious, foreign leaders have literally rolled out the red carpets and they have planned elaborate state visits, just to curry favor with Trump and his administration.

 

During a trip to Asia, leaders in Japan, South Korea, China and Vietnam all fawned over and pampered Trump. Chinese President Xi Jinping treated Trump to a bawdy welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of People in Beijing.  The ceremony included cannon fire and a large military honor guard. Trump loves this pomp in his honor and he later boasted about his reception at a private meeting of House Republicans.  He told the House that only emperors had received the lavish treatment he’d received.  (But Trump already considers himself the Emperor of America!)

Foreign leaders have learned how to get in good standing with President Trump, and he soaks it all up every time.

 

As a presidential candidate, Trump attacked Obama for arriving in China and descending from Air Force One on metal steps that folded down from the belly of the aircraft, rather than from a grander staircase at the upper level of the plane and onto a red carpet.

 

“Terrible!” Trump tweeted, summarizing the incident.

Upon becoming president, Trump decided to start showing off the trappings of his job, just as he did at his luxury hotels.  He now takes visitors into the White House Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room. He quickly started using his favorite last stop, by ushering guests into the Oval Office.

 

“Obama never used the Oval, but Trump is different,” the president now says, referring to himself in the third person as he often does.

 

His guests always marvel at the White House space, as Trump presses them, asking if Obama had ever shown them the West Wing’s inner sanctum.

 

When he is told “no”, Trump always beams with pride.

 

Proving that this presidency needs to be over ASAP.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2018