Too Much Thinking: Overthinking Donald Trump
I was watching the Family Feud the other day. On one side of the stage was a family of school teachers. Their quiz was, “With what famous Tom would you like to be a ‘Wife for the Day’?” They had answered Tom Cruise, Tom Brady, and Tom Selleck. The fourth school teacher daughter was on the clock. She blurted out “Thomas Edison!” Steve Harvey doubled over, wheezing with laughter. He turned to the woman and after three gasping guffaws, he said, “You are being too smart for this game. I know you all are school teachers, but you need to understand that this is a children’s game, played by adults. Your answers need to be a bit more,” he paused as the audience laughed, “a bit more ignorant. Don’t over think it.” Steve turned toward the board and, through a chuckle, blurted out “Thomas Edison?!” Bzzzzzz. A big X appeared on the screen. Wrong.
We over think Donald Trump. We watch Washington and react as if he is an adult playing an adult game. The more fanciful among us — and this includes his supporters — believe that the man is playing some wicked game of four-dimensional chess. Every one of the grandmaster’s bumbling lies, non sequiturs, and malapropisms is a stealthy bit of strategic brilliance, so intellectually advanced that the public and the “mainstream media” will never comprehend. Uhhh, no. Reality is that the man can’t even play one-dimensional chess. He is playing checkers with a dog named Checkers and losing.
This week, Trump’s new personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, ran naked through Fox TV studios covering himself with his own shit, yelling “Ain’t I pretty?” In response, his client, the President of the United States said about his #1 lawyer, “He started yesterday. He’ll get his facts straight.”
Giuliani replaced Trump’s last personal attorney, a fellow named Michael Cohen. Cohen is a graduate of Lansing, Michigan’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School, which, according to Politico, the National Advisory Council for Law School Transparency ranks №1 as the “least selective law schools in the country.” Trump shoved Cohen in a box after they made such a mess of a cover up of a cover up of a cover up that the Feds had enough evidence to hit Cohen with a search warrant and start digging deep, something which, contrary to Great Leader’s tweet bleats, is not easy to get past judges.
Trump’s “Magnificent Seven” led by Treasury Secretary Steve “Looming Feeb” Mnuchin flop around Beijing this week, hoping to get one huge company town to play by the rules of the Fortune 500. The “Mag Seven” accomplished one thing, they exposed Trump’s China “policy” as the United States playing chicken with…the United States.
Meanwhile, down south in Korea, Kim Jung Un has become the International Man of Charm. Content that Trump takes credit for a process that started long before Trump’s twitter tantrum, a process that likely was accelerated by N. Korea’s nuke test site mountain falling in on itself, Kim smiles and plays Trump the chump.
Back home, a narcissistic pop star with a new record to promote tweets obnoxious twits in support of a narcissistic pop star with a presidency to promote and the president pop star cites this as proof the “The Blacks love him,” something that he truly believes despite all evidence to the contrary. “Are there any Hispanics in the room?”
Trump’s favorite cabinet member, EPA head Scott Pruitt, so excited by his graft and corruption and so nervous now that he’s been caught, publicly pees himself. Trump, ever a fan of the Wide World of Water Sports, cheers while Piss Felcher Pruitt turns puddles into pools and is now up to his neck in yellow. Yum.
This, a wee sampling of Trumpland news. There’s also Sarah “Huckleberry” Sanders’ heavy burden of lies. There’s Poor Little Rich Boy Jared Kushner’s 40th amending of his ethics disclosure form. There’s Trump’s Day of Prayer starting out with admitting to paying off a porn star that he dinged soon after his wife gave birth to their son. There’s Trump’s demented ramblings to the NRA. There’s…
Everything I just wrote — except for my habitual viewing of the Family Feud (Steve Harvey is a comic genius!) — is beyond our control. We can’t stop what comes out of Trump’s mouth or how he reacts to anything. We do not set China “policy” or have Trump’s ear on Korea. We are powerless over Trump and that is okay. More important is that we have control over how we see what is going on, how we frame what we see, what we act on, and how we act.
Always remember that Trump is no master strategist. His “victories” come from punching down, taking advantage of those who can’t fight back, and smothering people in bullshit. His narcissism comes from insecurity not strength. He has no discipline or intellectual interest. Never has. He can’t stay on one subject. His whole life has been spent running from one scandal to the next.
It is not like Trump has never been caught in crimes and scandal. He has over and over and over again. He is a dumb crook, but unlike the petty conmen who wind up in jail, Trump has so much inherited wealth that he is able to wear people out with lawyers or, if that doesn’t work, he buys silence, which, as we’ve seen, never stays silent.
Last week, Trump tweeted that the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels was “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.” That might or might not be true. We don’t know how “common” this practice is. It happens, sure, but of all the real-life cases we know, how many of them do not involve the name Trump? The really smart, really careful, really powerful, and really strategic “celebrities and people of wealth” are not Trump sloppy. When they pay people to shut up, those people stay shutted-upped.
I keep going back to the Stormy Daniels case because it shows how inept Trump is. It puts lie to Trump the Voodoo Master of the Fourth Dimension. It shows how vulnerable he is (and how lucky we are that he is not a competent fascist). His errors are an opening. His weaknesses are opportunities to strike. We can beat this guy.
However, if we are going to beat him, we must focus on what we can control — ourselves — and not read into the nonsense that is Trump. Trump’s power comes from uncritical attention — and by “uncritical” I do not mean “not criticizing Trump.” “Uncritical attention” is when we do not question why we are paying attention to something and how we relate to the act of attention. Our opposition is more effective when we have a clear mind about who and what Trump is. A clear mind means not filling it with bullshit, panic, and fear. We cannot turn off Trump, but we can control how we interact with “him.”
As Steve Harvey say, “Don’t over think it.”
This was original published in my newsletter, Soriano’s Comment, № 2, on May 5, 2018. Sign up for a free subscription.
