MAJORITY OF AMERICANS ARE “CONCERNED” ABOUT TRUMP’S STATEMENTS

…The picture of an “aging, narcissistic president”

69% of polled Americans are embarrassed by their US President

Do you feel as I do about a president that hi-jacks our nation’s birthday?

There is the usual celebration at the US Capital’s end of the Washington Mall with other major artists such as the singer, song writer, Carol King.

Here’s a comment from Ms. King on 4^th of July event:

“In a message at the top of her Twitter page, with a little line drawing by the New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly, King writes, “Just to be clear – I am appearing in ‘A Capitol 4^th,’ the traditional event held annually on the lawn [the Mall] at the Capitol Bldg. I am NOT participating in T’s political rally.” 

The drawing’s foreground features King sitting at a piano on the lawn, with an American flag planted on the edge of her piano.  In the background, a tiny Trump figure, obviously recognizable by his hair, that is accompanied by a thought bubble reading “So far away,”  That is her play on King’s classic hit song, and it refers to the distance she no doubt wants to establish between Ms. KIng and Trump’s, Fourth of July political campaign event.

The president wants to turn the celebration of America’s founding into a celebration of himself. Obscene, of course, but entirely in character for Donald J. Trump.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt’s eldest child, said: “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.” That fits Trump to a T — minus any of President Roosevelt’s redeeming qualities.

The desire to be the center of attention has been, along with the desire for more money and his desire to grab women by their private parts, apparently Trump’s defining passion in life.

This is why Trump has plastered his name on so many buildings and products, and why for years, he fed the New York tabloids so many stories about himself.

Ultimately, it’s why he ran for president, a position he didn’t think he’d win.  It was just another way to get the attention he always craves.

What is amazing is that after winning by a sliver of votes, Trump hasn’t become any less greedy for publicity since he entered the White House.

Having drunk so deeply at the well of ego gratification, he keeps coming back for ever-bigger gulps.

In reality, Trump has turned into the nation’s: “Narrator-in -Chief”.

He apparently feels compelled to comment on any matter, especially those that do not involve him, just so he stays in the conversation, no matter what the topic.

Recent examples include comments about technical glitches at the Democratic presidential debate, a helicopter crash in New York, and the controversial outcome of the Kentucky Derby.

Trump is obsessed with his poll ratings and how he is perceived by what he calls the: “Fake News Media.” (He calls it “Fake News”, but covets its coverage because he knows it isn’t “fake”.)  His approach to international diplomacy for example, is three summits with North Korea, without doing any preparation, which makes no sense diplomatically. 

However, it makes perfect sense if the only point is to put Trump on center stage.

But what is so dangerous for the nation is that lots of people are as mesmerized by Trump as he is by himself.  

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has covered him obsessively, and minutely, ever since he announced his candidacy in 2015.  Trump has been president for less than 3 years, but has dominated the nation’s, and parts of the world’s “head space”, for four years, and it continues.

I have to also plead guilty at being fixated on Trump. I have been writing at least two or three times a week for the past three years about Trump.  

But to some extent, this is natural because any US president is always the No. 1 newsmaker.  But Trump’s bizarre, disgusting, repulsive and totally erratic behavior causes the attention-meter to stay in the red zone.

Some critics of the media suggest that we stop feeding Trump’s ego and start ignoring him. I sincerely wish we could. But how do you ignore the most powerful man in the world, a man with his finger on the nuclear button?  His Tweets provide an ongoing MRI of his mentally disordered mind.  

Despite his pathological lying and pervasive inconsistency, his Tweets offer a more reliable update on his actions than anything his clueless spokespeople.  Trump has announced many important policy decisions on Twitter.  

Sorry, but that’s news, and the media, including these blogs, need to cover it.  But it is at the cost of gratifying Trump’s insatiable ego-demand for publicity.

Trump’s approval numbers are always low because most voters do disapprove of his offensive statements and actions.  The more they hear, the less they like it.

A new Pew Research Center,(which is usually correct) shows how the public reacts to Trump’s comments:

• 76% are “concerned”
• 70% are “confused”
• 69% are “embarrassed”
• 67% are “exhausted”
• 65% are “angry”
• 62% are “insulted,”
• 56% are “frightened”

Even a majority of Republicans are “concerned” and “embarrassed.”

The best that can be said for Trump is that he entertains about 54% of the country.

Sure, he is a riveting spectacle, but so is a car crash.

However, that doesn’t mean anyone would want to be chauffeured by the world’s worst driver.

If Trump were a normal politicians who wanted to get things done and win reelection, he might be assured to win re-election.  But Trump’s presidency has been a fiasco.

However, by the standards of a reality TV show performer, he is accomplishing far more than he could have ever imagined.  Getting attention as a real estate developer took a lot of work. For a president, it’s effortless. He finally has his narcissist’s dream job, and he will try to keep it as long as he can.

The irony appears that the more he struggles to stay in the limelight, the likelier he is to lose his re-election.

At least, that is what most of us want to see.

So I guess we should just cheer him on, and hopefully our desire will come to fruition.

Copyright G. Ater 2019