FILE – In this Friday, March 27, 2015 file photo, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson delivers remarks on the release of a report by the National Petroleum Council on oil drilling in the Arctic, in Washington. On Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump moved closer to nominating Tillerson as his secretary of state, meeting privately with the business leader for the second time in a week. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
As we continue slouching toward Jan. 20, Trump continues to stack his cabinet and break his campaign promises. At this point, I don’t think there’s anything from his campaign that is possible. Building a wall is for sure not going to happen, he’s already said he’s keeping most aspects of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promises to destroy it entirely.
There’s nothing funny about this. Trump is beyond moronic, and as more time passes, more of his supporters are realizing it. The promises to “drain the swamp” have completely been abandoned, as Trump stacks his cabinet with billionaires and CEOs, white supremacists and Putin’s buddies. At this point, based on his cabinet choices, he’s got the largest, nastiest, muckiest swamp to ever grace American politics. And still, plenty of his supporters remain blind to that.
Time magazine recently named Trump the Person of the Year, a dubious distinction at best. After all, Time’s honor hasn’t always been for folks like Obama or Angela Merkel. Trump should find himself in familiar company as Time’s “honor” has gone to the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Aayatollah Khomeini in years past. Trump is but the latest scary world leader to find himself on the cover.
America has never felt like this big of a reality show. Trump is skipping daily intelligence briefings because “[He’s], like, a smart guy.” These are actual words that actually left his mouth during an interview, without the smallest hint of irony. I’m not the most engaged person with the day-to-days of the presidency, but even I understand that the word ‘intelligence’ in ‘intelligence briefings’ has absolutely nothing to do with one’s brain power. Add to that that we’ve got a president-elect who acts like the world’s most ADHD teen boy on social media and I’m not even sure what the hell else to say about that. Our president-elect has spent more than one Saturday watching Saturday Night Live and tweeting about how horrible and mean it is. When he gets mad about something, he takes to those 140 characters as fast as he can, with little to no regard of how that ends up looking. I don’t want a president who argues with children like he’s in high school, do you? Do you really?
Then there’s the situation internationally. Trump hasn’t even taken office yet, and he’s somehow already managing to set diplomatic relations with China back decades. America has this thing called a “One China” policy, and as awful as it is, it’s necessary because we want China as an ally, or at the very least, not an enemy. This means that we look at countries like Taiwan and Tibet as if they were a part of China as a whole, we don’t formally recognize their government. Fast forward to Trump making a phone call to Taiwan’s president. On the one hand, the “eff you” to China is a bit admirable. I like Tibet, I don’t like China’s shock-trooper way in the world, and as an effort to say one positive thing about our Cheeto-gestapo, the casual nature with which he carried out that maneuver was what the people ostensibly voted for. That qualifies as something an outsider would do.
However, that is just looking at it without taking the nuance of the situation into consideration. Diplomacy is a balancing game, and a precarious one at that, and that immediately angered Chinese officials and baffled American diplomats. It wasn’t a smart move, plain and simple.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m absolutely at the “throw your hands up in exhaustion” point with all of this. One thing is for sure, though: It’s going to be quite a four seasons… I mean years. Quite a four years.
All The King’s Men
FILE – In this Friday, March 27, 2015 file photo, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson delivers remarks on the release of a report by the National Petroleum Council on oil drilling in the Arctic, in Washington. On Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump moved closer to nominating Tillerson as his secretary of state, meeting privately with the business leader for the second time in a week. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
As we continue slouching toward Jan. 20, Trump continues to stack his cabinet and break his campaign promises. At this point, I don’t think there’s anything from his campaign that is possible. Building a wall is for sure not going to happen, he’s already said he’s keeping most aspects of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promises to destroy it entirely.
There’s nothing funny about this. Trump is beyond moronic, and as more time passes, more of his supporters are realizing it. The promises to “drain the swamp” have completely been abandoned, as Trump stacks his cabinet with billionaires and CEOs, white supremacists and Putin’s buddies. At this point, based on his cabinet choices, he’s got the largest, nastiest, muckiest swamp to ever grace American politics. And still, plenty of his supporters remain blind to that.
Time magazine recently named Trump the Person of the Year, a dubious distinction at best. After all, Time’s honor hasn’t always been for folks like Obama or Angela Merkel. Trump should find himself in familiar company as Time’s “honor” has gone to the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Aayatollah Khomeini in years past. Trump is but the latest scary world leader to find himself on the cover.
America has never felt like this big of a reality show. Trump is skipping daily intelligence briefings because “[He’s], like, a smart guy.” These are actual words that actually left his mouth during an interview, without the smallest hint of irony. I’m not the most engaged person with the day-to-days of the presidency, but even I understand that the word ‘intelligence’ in ‘intelligence briefings’ has absolutely nothing to do with one’s brain power. Add to that that we’ve got a president-elect who acts like the world’s most ADHD teen boy on social media and I’m not even sure what the hell else to say about that. Our president-elect has spent more than one Saturday watching Saturday Night Live and tweeting about how horrible and mean it is. When he gets mad about something, he takes to those 140 characters as fast as he can, with little to no regard of how that ends up looking. I don’t want a president who argues with children like he’s in high school, do you? Do you really?
Then there’s the situation internationally. Trump hasn’t even taken office yet, and he’s somehow already managing to set diplomatic relations with China back decades. America has this thing called a “One China” policy, and as awful as it is, it’s necessary because we want China as an ally, or at the very least, not an enemy. This means that we look at countries like Taiwan and Tibet as if they were a part of China as a whole, we don’t formally recognize their government. Fast forward to Trump making a phone call to Taiwan’s president. On the one hand, the “eff you” to China is a bit admirable. I like Tibet, I don’t like China’s shock-trooper way in the world, and as an effort to say one positive thing about our Cheeto-gestapo, the casual nature with which he carried out that maneuver was what the people ostensibly voted for. That qualifies as something an outsider would do.
However, that is just looking at it without taking the nuance of the situation into consideration. Diplomacy is a balancing game, and a precarious one at that, and that immediately angered Chinese officials and baffled American diplomats. It wasn’t a smart move, plain and simple.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m absolutely at the “throw your hands up in exhaustion” point with all of this. One thing is for sure, though: It’s going to be quite a four seasons… I mean years. Quite a four years.