courtesy of wikipedia.org
Which is it? Is our President crazy or crazy like a fox? Many mental health experts say “yes” to the first suggestion. Dr. John Gartner, a former Johns Hopkins professor, explains. … his judgment was always bad, he was always impulsive, he was always a liar, but now he really is losing his ability to think clearly, to plan, to understand things and to inhibit his speech and his behavior.
Turning on friends and allies without a reason might be an example. He’s been attacking NATO for some time, complaining that U.S. funding underpins the alliance. There’s some truth to that. But when he turns on Saudi Arabia, the country that gave rise to the petrodollar and made American currency dominant in international trade, the mind boggles.
In addition, his effort to turn immigration courts into an enforcement trap that punishes immigrants when they comply with the law is not an example of logical thinking. It sets a precedent that penalizes those who follow the procedures.
Whether by madness or method, Trump’s personal wealth, meanwhile, has been growing. The media is alive with reports that the President, his family, and close friends are making small fortunes off the government and the war in Iran. Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman sums up the obvious. Someone has exploited that inside information to make huge, instant profits.
As I’m feeling under the weather, I’ll cut this essay short. Trump’s history suggests he has long been mentally ill. The onset of dementia doesn’t help. Nonetheless, he has always been clear about where his self-interest lies. He has always been a fox of one kind or another. But he’s never been a person to trust. Even so, millions do.
About those millions, Stephen Colbert recently looked into the eye of the television camera on his late-night show and asked, “Who are you, people?”
Well, I can answer that question. “They” are us. We elected Trump twice, knowing who he was, yet we remained eager to roll the dice with our democracy. Fools, not foxes, do that. To me, that’s crazy.
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