It remains a persistent, baffling pathology of the American commentariat to constantly search for the phantom threads of strategy within a mind that has spent a lifetime proving its absolute vacancy.
Egger posits that Trump’s bizarre compulsion to interrogate a DoorDash driver about transgender sports, or to complain about Barack Obama’s middle name to grade-schoolers, suggests an "inability to turn off" his supposed strategic "shtick." This generous framing elevates an involuntary verbal hemorrhage into a tactical choice.
I think we need to stop asking why Trump refuses to exercise discipline or alter his political calculus, because doing so falsely implies he possesses the cognitive capacity to formulate a calculus in the first place. There is no hidden genius, no calculated "secret sauce," and certainly no internal monologue weighing the optics of ranting about autopens to children at an Easter Egg Roll. To ask if Trump considered the political ramifications of his behavior is to fundamentally misunderstand the subject. The answer to any question beginning with "Did Trump think of..." is always a resounding, categorical no. He simply is not capable.
I think we would be better off, if we all just admitted that reality.
Andrew, I realize you likely skimmed my initial comment (you’re a busy guy I get it), but emphasizing that he "can't turn it off" merely reinforces my point. That phrasing implies a switch exists. You cannot turn off a lightbulb that lacks a filament.
In your piece, you speculate about "weakening impulse control" and an inability to sublimate his id, but framing his outbursts as a failure to suppress an impulse still generously credits him with a baseline of operational control he has never possessed.
My argument is not that he can or cannot flip the switch; it is that we must stop pretending the wiring is there at all. This is not a malfunction of discipline or a stubborn refusal to abandon his "secret sauce." It is an absolute structural void.
If your ultimate conclusion is that he fundamentally lacks the cognitive capacity to grasp basic reality, then we are in complete agreement.
I wrote a piece about Trump's inability to change course. Your critique is that Trump lacks the ability to change course. We agree on everything except, apparently, on the substance of what I wrote!
First, Andrew, I genuinely hope you are doing okay. Remember, I am just a random guy on the internet.
Our disagreement lies entirely in the substance of your framing. You wrote a piece analyzing a refusal to alter strategy, attributing his behavior to weakened impulse control, a stubborn reliance on his "secret sauce," and a failure to execute a tactical pivot.
My critique is that he is cognitively incapable of forming a strategy in the first place.
A strategic miscalculation and an absolute cognitive void are fundamentally different things. If they are synonymous to you, then our definitions simply diverge, but if you actually agree with my premise, I would love to read a future piece from you that abandons the tactical framing entirely and plainly states the reality: We elected the most profoundly cognitively incapable human imaginable.
This is an interesting debate to have for those of us who are psychologically normal. As a retired mental health professional I would argue that it is immaterial what cognitive lacks he may have. The point it that he lacks the motivation to change his behavior in different contexts. In a word he thinks the world revolves around him and his concerns. This is what it means to be a narcissist who can not conceive of the notion that others have separate and different needs and interests. I suspect that like many personality traits it has gotten more extreme with age.
Trump is cognitively impaired, and very likely afflicted with dementia (a progressively worsening disease).
A few of the symptoms are:
1. Trump's inability to recognize his own contradictions...
"we bombed Iran's nuclear program into oblivion" vs. "we went to war to eliminate Iran's nuclear program,"
etc. etc. etc.
2. Trump's inability to recognize when his comments are inappropriate or indecent...
"Tonight a civilization will die..."
etc. etc. etc.
3. Trumps utter lack of depth of understanding, on everything, ranging from:
a) how America's economic and moral strength relies upon our rule of law, our interdependence with our allies, and soft power,
b) how you cannot insult, demean, threaten, and economically attack (with tariffs) our allies and then expect them to support your unnecessary war,
c) how unethical his flagrant DOJ lawsuits against his political enemies are,
d) how un-American his concentration camps and masked agents are,
etc. etc. etc.
4. Trump's constant lying.
And finally, Mr. Egger, Trump's "inability to change course" is also a symptom of dementia. It is called "loss of insight" in the literature on dementia.
"2. Trump's inability to recognize when his comments are inappropriate or indecent..."
He has learned that he can get away with it, and that his fans actually bond more closely BECAUSE of his inappropriateness and indencency. So there is a certain logic to his behavior. It feels good to him and it works. Or used to. Maybe, (but only maybe) it is catching up with him and no longer works the way it always has. But his sycophantic bubble is now hermetically sealed so he doesn't know it. Granted, his narcissism is what created that bubble.
Hmm. Even though Trump is probably a sociopath who is also a narcissist, I do recall there was a time that he DID occasionally keep his mouth shut when it served his political interest to do so (his weird speech to the boy scouts being an exception). But old age and being totally surrounded by, and immersed in, an environment where the message is that his sh*t doesn't stink, has made him YOLO.
Stimulus / Response. He seeks approval above all other things, and will alter his actions to gain the most approval he can in the moment. So you're right, he did occasionally shut up or alter his messaging, but he didn't do it because of a political calculation, he did it in order to gain approval from whoever was most often in front of him. You're definitely right that the crowd of people he seeks approval from has been altered rather drastically, and now that they are entirely sycophantic the train has no brakes.
interesting point. He hasn't been doing rallies lately so he doesn't really know what is 'landing' in real time among his fans. He just gets his sycophants telling him "that's great, boss!"
Ah, but you can't turn ON a lightbulb that lacks a filament. TACO CAN shut up. Though it would take something on the order of "The Silence" episode of The Twilight Zone.
1000x this! David French, who I enjoy listening to and even occasionally agree with, has regularly insisted that he doesn't agree with the idea that Trump is simply stupid because he's been too successful for that to really be the case. My contention has always been that Trump's successes are not a reflection of his skill or intellect, but the utter brokenness of the American system and the epistemic collapse of our information environment.
Trump doesn't employ strategies, he has simply spent his life in a country that rewards relentless salesmen, and his natural impulse to proclaim that everything he does is the best thing ever only superficially resembles a sales pitch. But he doesn't care about actual sales, his sole care and occupation for his entire life (at least since his psyche learned that his father would never love him) has been to do whatever made people treat him as though he was a great success. Through stimulus and response he has come to his current regime of relentless boasting and manic focus on tasteless external symbols of wealth.
It is devilishly hard for most of us to -not- attribute intelligence or agency when we think we see it. The current AI hype craze is another perfect example. Richard Dawkins recently fell for this, despite his whole career being based on arguing for the opposite. So I get why people feel the need to treat Trump like he's, if not a rational actor, then at least someone who is making choices. But you're exactly right, he's not making choices. The internal life of a narcissistic sociopath is nothing like what most of the rest of us experience.
I like to think of him as a verbally incontinent and autistic evil Chauncey Gardener. People around him project onto him abilities that he simply does not have.
This is why I REALLY do not like Bill's Trump internal monologue things... because there isn't really much of an internal monologue happening there... and what is happening isn't really all that interesting or coherent unless you are writing a paper on extreme narcissism and various forms of psychological pathology.
It may have been better 40 or 50 years ago, but on the face of the existing evidence, not much better. I mean this is a guy who would call in posing as somone else to hype himself up... which I guess shows some minimal ability to plan... but not much.
I was actually thinking of it in terms of how people anthropomorphize chatbots, hence the Dawkins example. And while it might seem needlessly cruel to talk about falsely attributing human characteristics to someone who is ultimately - despite / because of his numerous manifest flaws - a human being, Trump genuinely leads an interior life that most of us would struggle to recognize if we could view it directly.
So maybe anthropomorphizing is the wrong term, perhaps an offshoot like intellopromorphizing?
We all have cognitively limited people in our lives who we assume will say disturbing things on every occasion, and we don't make excuses for it. The more disturbing thing is when all the people around Trump lie about what he's said and implicitly agree with his ravings.
I agree with you completely. Like many narcissists, he probably has a condition called aphantasia - the inability to voluntarily create mental images in one's mind, which is a normal thing for many people, but in a narcissist it contributes to their lack of empathy for others and their inability to think through how their words and actions affect others. It is often described as lacking an "inner eye" or having a "blind mind." In Trump's case, it means he never strategizes or plans what he is going to say, he just blabbers on about whatever pops into his head without thinking about it, and many of these people are obsessively repetitive. It is like their brain is in a loop where it just focuses on a few things over and over again and no new thoughts ever arise organically. I was married to someone like this, they just react to stimuli, and it is why they say Trump goes with whatever idea the last person he talked to had, because he is incapable of generating his own unique ideas. To have this kind of unthinking person in the White House is a huge detriment to America and why he cannot say anything of a stately nature when talking to leaders of other countries. It is why he cannot develop any talking points with Iran other than threats to destroy them if they don't do what he wants.
I am always amazed when people are wondering what Trump thinks. Sometimes I look outside at a lizard and wonder what the lizard is thinking. I understand that the lizard is more self aware than Trump.
I agree that he is not capable. It’s not because he has dementia, rather he’s just so fucking stupid. The narcissism has him thinking he’s the smartest man on earth.
A disturbing amount of our countrymen wanted what -2 was selling, even when we KNEW it would be bad for the country, as long as the “other” got it in the neck.
In Trump's defense, kids are incredibly difficult to talk to. You try to sit them down to have a meaningful conversation about how tariffs and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz are driving up toy prices, and they just keep repeating, "But I want it."
Donald Trump does not know how to read a room. He'll spew the same BS regardless of the audience. He always acts like he is on some campaign stump. How he talked to the children was inappropriate at best. What was worse is that the so called adults in the room including RFK Jr. and Linda McMahon did not do anything. You would think someone would whisper in his ear that what he is saying is inappropriate to children. Nope he just let it go on.
this *is* the guy that addressed 35K boy scouts in 2017, dissing former presidents, ranting about inside baseball politics, and yukking it up about yacht sex parties, so...
Yup! He is so out there, and we cannot normalize it.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining it and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Trump is essentially a loose cannon. He just rolls around the deck, or in this case the White House, smashing everything in sight. He sees no difference in conversing with a child than with an adult. In fact, he probably has a better chance of indoctrinating a child than a living, breathing, thinking adult.
Everything Trump does or touches ends up making things worse than it was before. He is so good at destruction of things that I cannot think of many that can compete with that. Prof. Timothy Snyder said in a recent piece that Trump has done an excellent job of destroying the US in a little over a year.
Not only do I agree, but I predicted this after the first chapter I read in Project 2025, 2 summers ago with my political book club. We did not read the chapters in order, but in order of our interest. I started with the chapter on the Dept. of Education, since I am a career educator. Just looking at the primary education plans alone I saw the US turning into a third world country of the type that Russia, North Korea and Hungary are.
Then, after reading about the plans for the Intelligence Community and the DOD, now to be called the DOW, but really the DOWC. Dept of War Crimes, I saw us sliding into global irrelevance. When you have a fascist like Trump at the helm, that is what you want except that he is not capable of understanding nukes, and I agree with a guest that Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat had on her weekly Zoom meeting that there is no reason to give that power to one person when with todays tech he is never going to be alone needing to make that decision.
I am not saying we are globally irrelevant yet, but we are closer to it than we were before he took over, and even than we were this time last year.
RFK Jr. is one of the kids. But TACO has had 1000s of other "adults" surrounding and protecting him. They could have easily slapped him down at any point in the last decade. A few did, but were greatly outnumbered by the rabid authoritarians, shameless opportunists and spineless cowards.
Exactly. We need to get rid of him and his cabinet. They enable his madness.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining it and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Sounds like you're describing talking to magats and not children. It appears from your comment that you don't spend a lot of time around children, they're much smarter than you think. Hell, they're much smarter than the average magat! I wonder how many children at those propaganda sessions were removed because they didn't want to stand next to him because they said, "That old man smells like shit!"?
True! During my last online Spanish class, the teacher (who lives in Uruguay) was trying to prompt a lady in my class to say the word for bookshelf and he asked her in Spanish, "Where are the books kept?" And his 2-year-old son yelled out from the other side of the room, "la biblioteca" (the library).
Oh, yes I remember that day in 2017 when Trump supposedly “became” president by reading incoherently from the teleprompter for nearly an entire speech. But long before even that day, American media has been giving him a pass for being a boorish, ignorant, immature, dishonest and extraordinarily narcissistic person. Even today, as he flails and zigzags between one fabrication and another, the mainstream media can’t bring itself to acknowledge what any child can see, hear and comprehend.
As a retired teacher, I feel the opposite is true. Even my mother with dementia is not having this problem. Trump does not know how to talk to people. He has insulted all of the leaders of the world, so it is not surprising that he comes across as icky to children. He does to me too.
Yes they do. If we do not socialize instincts out of them by forcing them to deal with strange adults being inappropriate with them, or even to have to speak to them (necessitating then teaching them not to talk to strangers) they would do pretty well. I do not know what parents were thinking to let their children be around Trump. Awful choices.
Al, I am in agreement with you there, but I am also just pointing out that the parents are victimizing them here by allowing them to be there, and confusing their instincts that he is an icky, crazy man.
How about they are limited to no vaccines, no health care, not enough teachers, no mental health care, no support for their parents to come to take off from work and come to school, not enough food, not enough money for clothing, a roof over their heads, etc...?
Bryson DeChambeau looks like he's wondering how the hell he ended up in a photo op with a rapidly decompensating narcissistic sociopath. Someone should remind Bryson that while he got a monstrous tax cut, our nuclear arsenal is under the exclusive control of an old man who can't shut the fuck up for a few minutes in front of children. Hope it was worth it, dude.
Andrew: "America, to its increasing distaste, has the sort of president who spends his days nattering insanely to children about the elections that have been stolen from him and the suspiciously ethnic middle names of his predecessors. And the president seems determined not to let them forget it."
To put it another way, America is getting exactly what us Bulwark folks knew they'd get should Trump win in 2024. Does anybody doubt, for example, that if Trump were in a room with the College of Cardinals, he would say with absolute conviction that he was more persecuted than Jesus Christ? Trump is who he's always been, and if economic conditions were more favorable, the great and good American people would look the other way. But now that people are feeling the pinch, they're finally noticing the crazy person who is running the country, only it's about 18 months too late.
Yep. I find it beyond ironic that the suddenly 'woke', at least to Trump, believe his assassination attempts were probably staged because you can't believe anything he says. Duh.
Tim - him, reading the room with the College of Cardinals - of course he’d say that. Since he’d have been briefed by his handlers on who they are, his keen ability at connecting to others would also trigger complaints about the Pope’s desire for Iran to have a nuke; how Catholics all love ‘Trump’, he does very well with them; Mel Gibson one of our greatest actors; my justices are Catholics; how everybody’s happy about abortion now because Trump gave it back to the states; and quizzing them on who do they like better Marco or JD?
When does Trump actually do any serious thinking and governing and developing policies? He spends the day in inane photo ops, and the night on his phone looking at memes and reposting them. This government is in total disarray with fools in charge and a president who has the mental capacity of a child. God help us.
I mean, it's certainly real life evidence to support that comics, movies, and TV are not wrong when they show super villains monologuing before they kill the Super Hero. If nothing else, this should give us some hope, because this weakness is always exploited to save the day.
At least super villain monologues make some kind of sense. You don't see Lex Luthor going off about how he had to choose the best materials for the floors in his evil lair for 20 min while Superman is trapped in a kryptonite cage.
I’m still trying to figure out why none of the adults in the room took action to release Trump’s child hostages. That performance was absolutely abusive.
Yes, but unfortunately, many of us are being groomed by this abnormal unregulated megalomaniac misfit. He has groomed many of us into saying "windmill" instead of "wind turbine" and saying "deal" instead of "agreement". When we adopt his language, we begin to adopt his way of thinking. Resistance begins with refusing to adopt his childish mob-boss vocabulary.
Diminishing filters are a marker for dementia. At one time I got together regularly with nurses who worked the dementia unit in a care center, and the things that formerly sweet old Midwest Catholic grandmas would do were hair-curling.
His obvious mental decline cannot be sidestepped. Today's Trump has significant cognitive impairment. The cognitive impairment is amplifying his deep-seated personality issues, which include always being the center of attention. It's just that now, he's literally unable to stop yammering about his grievances.
A couple of them. I believe the're described by the pros in similar fashion to majors and minors at school. Major: Narcissism; Minor: Sociopathy. Though I am not a pro, I have studied these things a wee bit. I would add Borderline--the border is between the range of personality disorders and full-blown schizophrenia.
I have experience dealing with a borderline personality, and it is a thing to behold. Trump is many things, but borderline is not one of them. For starters, he doesn't exhibit the classic "I hate you, don't leave me" behavior borderlines engage in. And he doesn't operate from a fear of loss which, ironically enough, drives people away. But what he *does* have in common with borderlines is a sense of emptiness. The man has spent decades trying to fill his psychic holes with gaining wealth, destroying people, and banging women (occasionally against their will) and nothing he does will ever fill those holes. And this is what his enablers fail to understand. They all think that if they continually kiss his orange ass that they'll be rewarded, but they ignore all the evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, our erstwhile European allies and our enemies in Iran have figured Trump out: you don't kiss his ass, and you don't play his games. There's nothing more infuriating to a disordered man like Trump than being told "no". There's nothing more infuriating to a disordered man like Trump than having boundaries enforced on him.
I think he's a world-historic narcissistic sociopath with delusions of grandeur. Since he believes his place in history is comparable to Alexander the Great's and Napoleon's -- sure, donald -- there is no way to deal with him except holding one's ground and telling him no. And when he protests as he always does, you continue to say no.
I wonder if that is because his daughter, the smartest of the litter, Ivanka, is keeping a very low profile. You never see or hear her. She is too busy really running the family business while her chucklehead brothers get the spotlight.
They're not hiding anything anymore. No need to be sneaky or plan things. The Trump boys steal in plain sight. Ivanka is busy assuaging her husband's international ambitions - they're doing so well in Iran.
Those two were always in plain sight. I remember Eric boasting that his father’s company donated Bedford Golf Resort’s facility free of charge for the St Jude’s event held there every year. It was not free. Some reporter found this information for the current year, and the past five (I think), with the cost increasing every year. This was in the first administration.
I think these events were before the first administration. It was published in Forbes in 2017. The article had a pay wall, so I couldn’t see anything else.
This is the funny part; to me, at least. I will bet that they figured- until very recently-that they, or some chosen MAGAT- would keep the Oval Office in the next election. Sadly for them, many Americans no longer have their Trump-adoring rose-colored glasses, because they had to sell them to pay for gas.
I do think it is at least probable that Junior might run. But he will have a hard time crafting a positive message now. It is possible that this damn war might be the thing that saves us from MAGA, if Trump doesn’t manage to destroy us in the next two years.
Jr is reported to have a liking for cocaine. I know that this family does things that normal people don’t engage in, but the son has the like ability of a turnip so I don’t think people will overlook his drug use. With the exception of North Korea, children of autocrats don’t usually get the job.
Oh, I think that he would have a hard time winning, and now I am fairly sure that he wouldn’t. But that family has been busily making money hand over fist, and would like to keep doing so. And I suspect that Junior lacks enough self-awareness to realize that he doesn’t have the right stuff.
The decreasing ability(or will) of the aging to “filter” their thoughts is pretty much a life thing. Add a bunch of sycophant yes men and woman around him, and that’s where we are.
"Or maybe it’s just the same solipsism and monomania Trump’s been carrying around in his skull all along". Bingo ! It was in Trump's best interests to shut up during the pandemic, too. But he just can't. This is not new; his ghostwriter noted years ago that Trump was incapable of focusing on anything for more than a few minutes.
Fortunately for Trump, people forgot or never paid attention to some of the seriously crazy shit he said during covid. That alone demonstrated the vacuousness of his brain, but too many ignored or tuned that out, hated the price of eggs, and were nostalgic for the pre-pandemic world.
That's not the only thing they forgot, judging by all the negative answers to "Is your life better now than it was four years ago?" The entire covid era never happened, it seems.
Trump reminds me of a thousand old men I've known in my life who, at neighborhood barbeques, try to convince you into agreeing with them that people on social programs are lower than low... The last one I remember was trying to convince me that people on SNAP shouldn't be allowed to vote, even though his sole income for decades came from disability insurance for an infirmity no one could identify. I not-so-subtlely suggested to him that I believed there should be an upper age limit on voting.
The two men exchanged gifts, with Leo giving Rubio a pen carved from olive wood and bearing the coat of arms of the pontificate, which the pope described as representing peace.
Little Marco gave Leo a little crystal football the size of a paperweight engraved with the U.S. State Department seal, joking that he was aware that the Pope was "a baseball guy", referencing Leo's Chicago White Sox fandom...
“I know you’re a baseball guy, but I mean it has the seal of the State Department,” Rubio told him.
The pope's reaction? "Wow. Okay."
Pure class, that Rubio. Just like his boss.
But I don't know why he didn't give the Pope a bit more useful gift than an egg-sized paperweight. He could have followed his fellow Trump administration member and icon of class Kash Patel's example of doling out classy swag in the form of bottles of his own privately labeled bourbon as gifts...
What did li'l marco big-shoes do, rummage through some WH closet and pull out this worthless goo-gaw? Did he present it with an egg sucking smile saying that's the best we could do?
The reports that Operation Freedom was nixed by the Kuwaitis and Saudis has gotten lost in the crazy. Would love to get a quick take from Mark Hertling on this and the public divorce of the UAE and the Saudis.
For decades Republicans railed on about how regulations strangle industries and innovation. Who'd have thought that, in the end, it would be them pulling the noose tight to choke the lights out?
And the "winners" they pick are complete losers...Spirit Airlines!? lol. Thank god the board/shareholders knew better than to get in it with Trump et al.
In other messaging disasters: Not sure driving up gas prices a buck and a half works great with having yourself photographed daily amongst the Liberace-but-tackier decor.
It remains a persistent, baffling pathology of the American commentariat to constantly search for the phantom threads of strategy within a mind that has spent a lifetime proving its absolute vacancy.
Egger posits that Trump’s bizarre compulsion to interrogate a DoorDash driver about transgender sports, or to complain about Barack Obama’s middle name to grade-schoolers, suggests an "inability to turn off" his supposed strategic "shtick." This generous framing elevates an involuntary verbal hemorrhage into a tactical choice.
I think we need to stop asking why Trump refuses to exercise discipline or alter his political calculus, because doing so falsely implies he possesses the cognitive capacity to formulate a calculus in the first place. There is no hidden genius, no calculated "secret sauce," and certainly no internal monologue weighing the optics of ranting about autopens to children at an Easter Egg Roll. To ask if Trump considered the political ramifications of his behavior is to fundamentally misunderstand the subject. The answer to any question beginning with "Did Trump think of..." is always a resounding, categorical no. He simply is not capable.
I think we would be better off, if we all just admitted that reality.
No offense but "can't turn it off" is literally in the subhed and repeated several times throughout the piece.
Andrew, I realize you likely skimmed my initial comment (you’re a busy guy I get it), but emphasizing that he "can't turn it off" merely reinforces my point. That phrasing implies a switch exists. You cannot turn off a lightbulb that lacks a filament.
In your piece, you speculate about "weakening impulse control" and an inability to sublimate his id, but framing his outbursts as a failure to suppress an impulse still generously credits him with a baseline of operational control he has never possessed.
My argument is not that he can or cannot flip the switch; it is that we must stop pretending the wiring is there at all. This is not a malfunction of discipline or a stubborn refusal to abandon his "secret sauce." It is an absolute structural void.
If your ultimate conclusion is that he fundamentally lacks the cognitive capacity to grasp basic reality, then we are in complete agreement.
I wrote a piece about Trump's inability to change course. Your critique is that Trump lacks the ability to change course. We agree on everything except, apparently, on the substance of what I wrote!
First, Andrew, I genuinely hope you are doing okay. Remember, I am just a random guy on the internet.
Our disagreement lies entirely in the substance of your framing. You wrote a piece analyzing a refusal to alter strategy, attributing his behavior to weakened impulse control, a stubborn reliance on his "secret sauce," and a failure to execute a tactical pivot.
My critique is that he is cognitively incapable of forming a strategy in the first place.
A strategic miscalculation and an absolute cognitive void are fundamentally different things. If they are synonymous to you, then our definitions simply diverge, but if you actually agree with my premise, I would love to read a future piece from you that abandons the tactical framing entirely and plainly states the reality: We elected the most profoundly cognitively incapable human imaginable.
This is an interesting debate to have for those of us who are psychologically normal. As a retired mental health professional I would argue that it is immaterial what cognitive lacks he may have. The point it that he lacks the motivation to change his behavior in different contexts. In a word he thinks the world revolves around him and his concerns. This is what it means to be a narcissist who can not conceive of the notion that others have separate and different needs and interests. I suspect that like many personality traits it has gotten more extreme with age.
I want, therefore I am.
I agree with Patrick.
Trump is cognitively impaired, and very likely afflicted with dementia (a progressively worsening disease).
A few of the symptoms are:
1. Trump's inability to recognize his own contradictions...
"we bombed Iran's nuclear program into oblivion" vs. "we went to war to eliminate Iran's nuclear program,"
etc. etc. etc.
2. Trump's inability to recognize when his comments are inappropriate or indecent...
"Tonight a civilization will die..."
etc. etc. etc.
3. Trumps utter lack of depth of understanding, on everything, ranging from:
a) how America's economic and moral strength relies upon our rule of law, our interdependence with our allies, and soft power,
b) how you cannot insult, demean, threaten, and economically attack (with tariffs) our allies and then expect them to support your unnecessary war,
c) how unethical his flagrant DOJ lawsuits against his political enemies are,
d) how un-American his concentration camps and masked agents are,
etc. etc. etc.
4. Trump's constant lying.
And finally, Mr. Egger, Trump's "inability to change course" is also a symptom of dementia. It is called "loss of insight" in the literature on dementia.
"2. Trump's inability to recognize when his comments are inappropriate or indecent..."
He has learned that he can get away with it, and that his fans actually bond more closely BECAUSE of his inappropriateness and indencency. So there is a certain logic to his behavior. It feels good to him and it works. Or used to. Maybe, (but only maybe) it is catching up with him and no longer works the way it always has. But his sycophantic bubble is now hermetically sealed so he doesn't know it. Granted, his narcissism is what created that bubble.
I suspect there will be some ACTUAL false-flag op from MAGA before the November elections.
Hmm. Even though Trump is probably a sociopath who is also a narcissist, I do recall there was a time that he DID occasionally keep his mouth shut when it served his political interest to do so (his weird speech to the boy scouts being an exception). But old age and being totally surrounded by, and immersed in, an environment where the message is that his sh*t doesn't stink, has made him YOLO.
He shut up quickly about the Covid vaccines after he was publicly booed by his own base for recommending them.
Good example!
Stimulus / Response. He seeks approval above all other things, and will alter his actions to gain the most approval he can in the moment. So you're right, he did occasionally shut up or alter his messaging, but he didn't do it because of a political calculation, he did it in order to gain approval from whoever was most often in front of him. You're definitely right that the crowd of people he seeks approval from has been altered rather drastically, and now that they are entirely sycophantic the train has no brakes.
interesting point. He hasn't been doing rallies lately so he doesn't really know what is 'landing' in real time among his fans. He just gets his sycophants telling him "that's great, boss!"
Like Bio 101 Planaria or Skinnerian Operant Conditioning.
Yup it's his personality disorder that rules the day.
Dead on, Patrick!
Ah, but you can't turn ON a lightbulb that lacks a filament. TACO CAN shut up. Though it would take something on the order of "The Silence" episode of The Twilight Zone.
Andrew, I think you just need to start dropping in the Grandpa Simpson yelling at clouds meme into your posts so people get the gist of what you mean.
Please reread the original comment.
In the beginning...
1000x this! David French, who I enjoy listening to and even occasionally agree with, has regularly insisted that he doesn't agree with the idea that Trump is simply stupid because he's been too successful for that to really be the case. My contention has always been that Trump's successes are not a reflection of his skill or intellect, but the utter brokenness of the American system and the epistemic collapse of our information environment.
Trump doesn't employ strategies, he has simply spent his life in a country that rewards relentless salesmen, and his natural impulse to proclaim that everything he does is the best thing ever only superficially resembles a sales pitch. But he doesn't care about actual sales, his sole care and occupation for his entire life (at least since his psyche learned that his father would never love him) has been to do whatever made people treat him as though he was a great success. Through stimulus and response he has come to his current regime of relentless boasting and manic focus on tasteless external symbols of wealth.
It is devilishly hard for most of us to -not- attribute intelligence or agency when we think we see it. The current AI hype craze is another perfect example. Richard Dawkins recently fell for this, despite his whole career being based on arguing for the opposite. So I get why people feel the need to treat Trump like he's, if not a rational actor, then at least someone who is making choices. But you're exactly right, he's not making choices. The internal life of a narcissistic sociopath is nothing like what most of the rest of us experience.
I like to think of him as a verbally incontinent and autistic evil Chauncey Gardener. People around him project onto him abilities that he simply does not have.
I could not possibly agree more.
'I can't read'. 'I can't write'. 'I like to watch TV'. 'Yes, there will be growth in the spring'.
This is why I REALLY do not like Bill's Trump internal monologue things... because there isn't really much of an internal monologue happening there... and what is happening isn't really all that interesting or coherent unless you are writing a paper on extreme narcissism and various forms of psychological pathology.
It may have been better 40 or 50 years ago, but on the face of the existing evidence, not much better. I mean this is a guy who would call in posing as somone else to hype himself up... which I guess shows some minimal ability to plan... but not much.
Everyone must praise me all the time! Am I not being praised right this second? I will praise myself then!
"It is devilishly hard for most of us to NOT attribute intelligence or agency when we think we see it."
I think it's called "Status Quo Bias." And the NY Times suffers from this phenomenon daily.
I was actually thinking of it in terms of how people anthropomorphize chatbots, hence the Dawkins example. And while it might seem needlessly cruel to talk about falsely attributing human characteristics to someone who is ultimately - despite / because of his numerous manifest flaws - a human being, Trump genuinely leads an interior life that most of us would struggle to recognize if we could view it directly.
So maybe anthropomorphizing is the wrong term, perhaps an offshoot like intellopromorphizing?
He's at sea on the pinball ocean of life.
Exactly- to paraphrase the Talking Heads, stop trying to make it make sense.
We all have cognitively limited people in our lives who we assume will say disturbing things on every occasion, and we don't make excuses for it. The more disturbing thing is when all the people around Trump lie about what he's said and implicitly agree with his ravings.
I agree with you completely. Like many narcissists, he probably has a condition called aphantasia - the inability to voluntarily create mental images in one's mind, which is a normal thing for many people, but in a narcissist it contributes to their lack of empathy for others and their inability to think through how their words and actions affect others. It is often described as lacking an "inner eye" or having a "blind mind." In Trump's case, it means he never strategizes or plans what he is going to say, he just blabbers on about whatever pops into his head without thinking about it, and many of these people are obsessively repetitive. It is like their brain is in a loop where it just focuses on a few things over and over again and no new thoughts ever arise organically. I was married to someone like this, they just react to stimuli, and it is why they say Trump goes with whatever idea the last person he talked to had, because he is incapable of generating his own unique ideas. To have this kind of unthinking person in the White House is a huge detriment to America and why he cannot say anything of a stately nature when talking to leaders of other countries. It is why he cannot develop any talking points with Iran other than threats to destroy them if they don't do what he wants.
I am always amazed when people are wondering what Trump thinks. Sometimes I look outside at a lizard and wonder what the lizard is thinking. I understand that the lizard is more self aware than Trump.
Thank you, Patrick. You have his stinking scent, as many of us do. Many Americans have no sense of smell at all.
Agree. Vehemently.
I agree that he is not capable. It’s not because he has dementia, rather he’s just so fucking stupid. The narcissism has him thinking he’s the smartest man on earth.
Patrick,
Great points but to acknowledge -2’s total lack of capacity, we would have to admit that as a country, we have been fools three times over.
Tom Cannon
Asheville, NC
Tom, I think we have to admit as a country much worse things than just being fools.
Patrick,
A disturbing amount of our countrymen wanted what -2 was selling, even when we KNEW it would be bad for the country, as long as the “other” got it in the neck.
Tom
In Trump's defense, kids are incredibly difficult to talk to. You try to sit them down to have a meaningful conversation about how tariffs and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz are driving up toy prices, and they just keep repeating, "But I want it."
Donald Trump does not know how to read a room. He'll spew the same BS regardless of the audience. He always acts like he is on some campaign stump. How he talked to the children was inappropriate at best. What was worse is that the so called adults in the room including RFK Jr. and Linda McMahon did not do anything. You would think someone would whisper in his ear that what he is saying is inappropriate to children. Nope he just let it go on.
this *is* the guy that addressed 35K boy scouts in 2017, dissing former presidents, ranting about inside baseball politics, and yukking it up about yacht sex parties, so...
Exactly what came to my mind.
Yup! He is so out there, and we cannot normalize it.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining it and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Well,to Donald the world revolves around him, so why read the room? We're just non-playing characters to him and his cabal of sycophants.
That is the only way he can read.(rooms not books) And even that he does badly.
Trump is essentially a loose cannon. He just rolls around the deck, or in this case the White House, smashing everything in sight. He sees no difference in conversing with a child than with an adult. In fact, he probably has a better chance of indoctrinating a child than a living, breathing, thinking adult.
I'd say he did a pretty good job of indoctrinating a Republican party.
They are afraid of him, and are fellow ignoramuses. He is fatter and meaner, a lifelong con, with more money, and that model wife.
cult
Everything Trump does or touches ends up making things worse than it was before. He is so good at destruction of things that I cannot think of many that can compete with that. Prof. Timothy Snyder said in a recent piece that Trump has done an excellent job of destroying the US in a little over a year.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpower-suicide?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Not only do I agree, but I predicted this after the first chapter I read in Project 2025, 2 summers ago with my political book club. We did not read the chapters in order, but in order of our interest. I started with the chapter on the Dept. of Education, since I am a career educator. Just looking at the primary education plans alone I saw the US turning into a third world country of the type that Russia, North Korea and Hungary are.
Then, after reading about the plans for the Intelligence Community and the DOD, now to be called the DOW, but really the DOWC. Dept of War Crimes, I saw us sliding into global irrelevance. When you have a fascist like Trump at the helm, that is what you want except that he is not capable of understanding nukes, and I agree with a guest that Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat had on her weekly Zoom meeting that there is no reason to give that power to one person when with todays tech he is never going to be alone needing to make that decision.
I am not saying we are globally irrelevant yet, but we are closer to it than we were before he took over, and even than we were this time last year.
Great point about him not reading a room.
Trump's lame brain starts with "ideas" he tells himself...so why not share that imbecileity with others?
But there were no adults in the room.
RFK Jr. is one of the kids. But TACO has had 1000s of other "adults" surrounding and protecting him. They could have easily slapped him down at any point in the last decade. A few did, but were greatly outnumbered by the rabid authoritarians, shameless opportunists and spineless cowards.
Exactly. We need to get rid of him and his cabinet. They enable his madness.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining it and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Sounds a lot like tRUMP himself. A petulant child with little or no understanding of reality.
Or the kids look at the adults and ask WHY? over and over and over
Sounds like you're describing talking to magats and not children. It appears from your comment that you don't spend a lot of time around children, they're much smarter than you think. Hell, they're much smarter than the average magat! I wonder how many children at those propaganda sessions were removed because they didn't want to stand next to him because they said, "That old man smells like shit!"?
True! During my last online Spanish class, the teacher (who lives in Uruguay) was trying to prompt a lady in my class to say the word for bookshelf and he asked her in Spanish, "Where are the books kept?" And his 2-year-old son yelled out from the other side of the room, "la biblioteca" (the library).
Ifcyour comment is addressed to mr, I have spent timr with children ans ageee that they can be quite perceptive.
Children, especially young ones, also go through stages of simple asking questions.
Oh, yes I remember that day in 2017 when Trump supposedly “became” president by reading incoherently from the teleprompter for nearly an entire speech. But long before even that day, American media has been giving him a pass for being a boorish, ignorant, immature, dishonest and extraordinarily narcissistic person. Even today, as he flails and zigzags between one fabrication and another, the mainstream media can’t bring itself to acknowledge what any child can see, hear and comprehend.
As a retired teacher, I feel the opposite is true. Even my mother with dementia is not having this problem. Trump does not know how to talk to people. He has insulted all of the leaders of the world, so it is not surprising that he comes across as icky to children. He does to me too.
Kids know ick :-)
Yes they do. If we do not socialize instincts out of them by forcing them to deal with strange adults being inappropriate with them, or even to have to speak to them (necessitating then teaching them not to talk to strangers) they would do pretty well. I do not know what parents were thinking to let their children be around Trump. Awful choices.
Yes Linda there is a difference between socialization and victimization. Using children as props is an assault on innocence.
Al, I am in agreement with you there, but I am also just pointing out that the parents are victimizing them here by allowing them to be there, and confusing their instincts that he is an icky, crazy man.
And when you tell them they are limited to two dolls for Christmas, well, the shit hits the fan.
Donny Two Dolls as Lawrence O'Donnell likes to call him.
How about they are limited to no vaccines, no health care, not enough teachers, no mental health care, no support for their parents to come to take off from work and come to school, not enough food, not enough money for clothing, a roof over their heads, etc...?
Sounds just like Trump.
yeah, and trying to get beyond monosyllables while an audience watches.
hard work for sure; too bad he doesn't know that and, you know, try.
like obama and mamdani and wheels on the bus ...
Bryson DeChambeau looks like he's wondering how the hell he ended up in a photo op with a rapidly decompensating narcissistic sociopath. Someone should remind Bryson that while he got a monstrous tax cut, our nuclear arsenal is under the exclusive control of an old man who can't shut the fuck up for a few minutes in front of children. Hope it was worth it, dude.
Andrew: "America, to its increasing distaste, has the sort of president who spends his days nattering insanely to children about the elections that have been stolen from him and the suspiciously ethnic middle names of his predecessors. And the president seems determined not to let them forget it."
To put it another way, America is getting exactly what us Bulwark folks knew they'd get should Trump win in 2024. Does anybody doubt, for example, that if Trump were in a room with the College of Cardinals, he would say with absolute conviction that he was more persecuted than Jesus Christ? Trump is who he's always been, and if economic conditions were more favorable, the great and good American people would look the other way. But now that people are feeling the pinch, they're finally noticing the crazy person who is running the country, only it's about 18 months too late.
FML.
"he would say with absolute conviction that he was more persecuted than Jesus Christ"
For good measure, he would add that Trump was persecuted with less justification.
Yep. I find it beyond ironic that the suddenly 'woke', at least to Trump, believe his assassination attempts were probably staged because you can't believe anything he says. Duh.
Tim - him, reading the room with the College of Cardinals - of course he’d say that. Since he’d have been briefed by his handlers on who they are, his keen ability at connecting to others would also trigger complaints about the Pope’s desire for Iran to have a nuke; how Catholics all love ‘Trump’, he does very well with them; Mel Gibson one of our greatest actors; my justices are Catholics; how everybody’s happy about abortion now because Trump gave it back to the states; and quizzing them on who do they like better Marco or JD?
When does Trump actually do any serious thinking and governing and developing policies? He spends the day in inane photo ops, and the night on his phone looking at memes and reposting them. This government is in total disarray with fools in charge and a president who has the mental capacity of a child. God help us.
My sister-in-law just became the guardian of a six year old boy with off the charts ADHD, and I'd rather have him in the Oval than Trump.
Donald Trump is psychologically and maybe even physiologically incapable of shutting the fuck up.
His narcissism overrides every instinct he has, even his highly honed instinct for self preservation.
Megalomaniac!
“Has Trump Considered Shutting The Eff Up?”
Pfft. 😂 Have you met this guy? I’ve seen supervillains less in love with their own voice.
I mean, it's certainly real life evidence to support that comics, movies, and TV are not wrong when they show super villains monologuing before they kill the Super Hero. If nothing else, this should give us some hope, because this weakness is always exploited to save the day.
At least super villain monologues make some kind of sense. You don't see Lex Luthor going off about how he had to choose the best materials for the floors in his evil lair for 20 min while Superman is trapped in a kryptonite cage.
I’m still trying to figure out why none of the adults in the room took action to release Trump’s child hostages. That performance was absolutely abusive.
Perhaps it's because those people are just as monstrous as their boss.
Yes, you’re right and that is what is so scary. These people are responsible for protecting our children.
I recall a Boy Scout speech in 2017 that was much, much worse.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40715185
It's always Groundhog Day around here!
Yes, but unfortunately, many of us are being groomed by this abnormal unregulated megalomaniac misfit. He has groomed many of us into saying "windmill" instead of "wind turbine" and saying "deal" instead of "agreement". When we adopt his language, we begin to adopt his way of thinking. Resistance begins with refusing to adopt his childish mob-boss vocabulary.
That's just a bunch of covfefe, Bob!
As far as I've seen and heard, the only people he's groomed to call them "windmills" are the people who were stupid enough to vote for him.
Diminishing filters are a marker for dementia. At one time I got together regularly with nurses who worked the dementia unit in a care center, and the things that formerly sweet old Midwest Catholic grandmas would do were hair-curling.
Then again, sleep deprivation could cause many of the same symptoms?
The sleep issue is also being caused by dementia. It's called sundowning, and is very common with dementia patients.
His obvious mental decline cannot be sidestepped. Today's Trump has significant cognitive impairment. The cognitive impairment is amplifying his deep-seated personality issues, which include always being the center of attention. It's just that now, he's literally unable to stop yammering about his grievances.
He's a walking, talking manifestation of a character disorder.
A couple of them. I believe the're described by the pros in similar fashion to majors and minors at school. Major: Narcissism; Minor: Sociopathy. Though I am not a pro, I have studied these things a wee bit. I would add Borderline--the border is between the range of personality disorders and full-blown schizophrenia.
I have experience dealing with a borderline personality, and it is a thing to behold. Trump is many things, but borderline is not one of them. For starters, he doesn't exhibit the classic "I hate you, don't leave me" behavior borderlines engage in. And he doesn't operate from a fear of loss which, ironically enough, drives people away. But what he *does* have in common with borderlines is a sense of emptiness. The man has spent decades trying to fill his psychic holes with gaining wealth, destroying people, and banging women (occasionally against their will) and nothing he does will ever fill those holes. And this is what his enablers fail to understand. They all think that if they continually kiss his orange ass that they'll be rewarded, but they ignore all the evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, our erstwhile European allies and our enemies in Iran have figured Trump out: you don't kiss his ass, and you don't play his games. There's nothing more infuriating to a disordered man like Trump than being told "no". There's nothing more infuriating to a disordered man like Trump than having boundaries enforced on him.
I think he's a world-historic narcissistic sociopath with delusions of grandeur. Since he believes his place in history is comparable to Alexander the Great's and Napoleon's -- sure, donald -- there is no way to deal with him except holding one's ground and telling him no. And when he protests as he always does, you continue to say no.
That is not how Borderline diagnosis works. Or what Borderline personality disorder is.
Well, like I said, I'm not speaking from any authority. Do you agree with Tim Coffey's explanation.
He's frankly not that much different from his first term, and his "dementia" never precludes him from sniffing out a new way to make money.
I wonder if that is because his daughter, the smartest of the litter, Ivanka, is keeping a very low profile. You never see or hear her. She is too busy really running the family business while her chucklehead brothers get the spotlight.
They're not hiding anything anymore. No need to be sneaky or plan things. The Trump boys steal in plain sight. Ivanka is busy assuaging her husband's international ambitions - they're doing so well in Iran.
Those two were always in plain sight. I remember Eric boasting that his father’s company donated Bedford Golf Resort’s facility free of charge for the St Jude’s event held there every year. It was not free. Some reporter found this information for the current year, and the past five (I think), with the cost increasing every year. This was in the first administration.
That sounds like the lie about charging unusually low rates to accommodate Secret Service people at his properties.
I think these events were before the first administration. It was published in Forbes in 2017. The article had a pay wall, so I couldn’t see anything else.
This is the funny part; to me, at least. I will bet that they figured- until very recently-that they, or some chosen MAGAT- would keep the Oval Office in the next election. Sadly for them, many Americans no longer have their Trump-adoring rose-colored glasses, because they had to sell them to pay for gas.
I do think it is at least probable that Junior might run. But he will have a hard time crafting a positive message now. It is possible that this damn war might be the thing that saves us from MAGA, if Trump doesn’t manage to destroy us in the next two years.
Jr is reported to have a liking for cocaine. I know that this family does things that normal people don’t engage in, but the son has the like ability of a turnip so I don’t think people will overlook his drug use. With the exception of North Korea, children of autocrats don’t usually get the job.
Oh, I think that he would have a hard time winning, and now I am fairly sure that he wouldn’t. But that family has been busily making money hand over fist, and would like to keep doing so. And I suspect that Junior lacks enough self-awareness to realize that he doesn’t have the right stuff.
They're too busy raking in crypto loot to care what she's up to.
True, but those two would be the one’s who get caught. The real money is in the Mid East where her husband prowls.
She’s busy counting her money
That's why I didn't use the term "dementia". He is "cognitively impaired". Not yet full-blown dementia. But getting there.
That part is in overdrive now. he never had a grip on impulse control and whatever is going on in that big, empty pumpkin is making it worse.
The decreasing ability(or will) of the aging to “filter” their thoughts is pretty much a life thing. Add a bunch of sycophant yes men and woman around him, and that’s where we are.
"Or maybe it’s just the same solipsism and monomania Trump’s been carrying around in his skull all along". Bingo ! It was in Trump's best interests to shut up during the pandemic, too. But he just can't. This is not new; his ghostwriter noted years ago that Trump was incapable of focusing on anything for more than a few minutes.
Fortunately for Trump, people forgot or never paid attention to some of the seriously crazy shit he said during covid. That alone demonstrated the vacuousness of his brain, but too many ignored or tuned that out, hated the price of eggs, and were nostalgic for the pre-pandemic world.
That's not the only thing they forgot, judging by all the negative answers to "Is your life better now than it was four years ago?" The entire covid era never happened, it seems.
Trump reminds me of a thousand old men I've known in my life who, at neighborhood barbeques, try to convince you into agreeing with them that people on social programs are lower than low... The last one I remember was trying to convince me that people on SNAP shouldn't be allowed to vote, even though his sole income for decades came from disability insurance for an infirmity no one could identify. I not-so-subtlely suggested to him that I believed there should be an upper age limit on voting.
This is why it was so viral when Joe Biden said, "Will you shut up, man?" He spoke for a nation.
Yes he did!
About that Rubio / Leo meeting...
The two men exchanged gifts, with Leo giving Rubio a pen carved from olive wood and bearing the coat of arms of the pontificate, which the pope described as representing peace.
Little Marco gave Leo a little crystal football the size of a paperweight engraved with the U.S. State Department seal, joking that he was aware that the Pope was "a baseball guy", referencing Leo's Chicago White Sox fandom...
“I know you’re a baseball guy, but I mean it has the seal of the State Department,” Rubio told him.
The pope's reaction? "Wow. Okay."
Pure class, that Rubio. Just like his boss.
But I don't know why he didn't give the Pope a bit more useful gift than an egg-sized paperweight. He could have followed his fellow Trump administration member and icon of class Kash Patel's example of doling out classy swag in the form of bottles of his own privately labeled bourbon as gifts...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/kash-patel-fbi-bourbon/687066/
Because I rather expect that by the time Little Marco was done with his visit to the Vatican, the pope was in need of a good stiff drink.
I keep reminding myself I should be saying "Wow. Okay." to everything. It's a great example.
If it's good enough for the Pope...!
A better gift would've been a signed baseball from the Sox!
What did li'l marco big-shoes do, rummage through some WH closet and pull out this worthless goo-gaw? Did he present it with an egg sucking smile saying that's the best we could do?
These classless people suck big time @ss.
The reports that Operation Freedom was nixed by the Kuwaitis and Saudis has gotten lost in the crazy. Would love to get a quick take from Mark Hertling on this and the public divorce of the UAE and the Saudis.
RE: Wind Energy Industry
For decades Republicans railed on about how regulations strangle industries and innovation. Who'd have thought that, in the end, it would be them pulling the noose tight to choke the lights out?
We all knew that was going to happen. We all knew ranting about regulations was just insisting they have the right to pollute and monopolize.
And they railed against the government picking winners and losers in business. Now they pay people to stay out of a certain business.
And the "winners" they pick are complete losers...Spirit Airlines!? lol. Thank god the board/shareholders knew better than to get in it with Trump et al.
That's a great point. I hadn't actually considered the irony of how they're planning to choke wind power out.
In other messaging disasters: Not sure driving up gas prices a buck and a half works great with having yourself photographed daily amongst the Liberace-but-tackier decor.
I grew up thinking Liberace couldn't be out-tacked.
I think even Liberace would say ol' Dementia Donnie is over the top with tackiness!
Or that it is just boring - gold, gold, gold... my goodness, the man has no taste!