Basura: Is President Trump tough, or is he just mean?

“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”  — Mark Twain

It’s been since Jan. 20, 2017, that Donald Trump has been the President of the United States. We’ve had lots of opportunity to assess his administration, and his performance of the duties inherent to the office. I don’t think he’s done well at all. But that’s no surprise to anyone that knows me. I am having trouble with understanding his followers. I will try to use the term Trump loyalists.

It is known that President Trump received (almost 3 million) fewer popular votes than Hillary Clinton, but he won the Electoral College. He is the President. His apologists report that he is a novice, and still learning the job. But he’s had four months now, and hasn’t shown a lot of improvement learning the rudiments of governance. He doesn’t read. He watches a great deal of television. He seems to hang on to fixed ideas. Remember his old contention that Barack Obama was not an American?  He said that he sent a team of private investigators to Honolulu to uncover the real truth.

We’re told that Trump loyalists take him seriously, but not literally. Kellyanne Conway says we should not listen to the words he says, but to his meanings. Does anyone out there see a problem with that approach? How can we understand his meanings if we can’t rely on what he says? He reported that his inauguration crowd was the biggest ever. The evidence proves otherwise. If he meant that a great deal of people attended, and that a lot of Americans supported him – well, sure, that is true. It’s just not what he said.

I wonder if the veneer is starting to come apart. President Trump presented himself as a tough guy. Now he whines constantly. The press is picking on him. The news outlets (that aren’t Fox) are making up false reports to try to hurt him. The Democrats are mean. The so-called tough guy whines an awful lot. I’ve known little kids that didn’t whine that much.

Speaking of his toughness, he wasn’t so tough when his right heel was bothering him during the draft for military service during the War in Vietnam. Or was it his left heel? Or was it both heels? His accounts of heel pain during those critical years was suspiciously inconsistent, especially for a guy who wants us to believe he is tough. He was tough through multiple ski trips during those years, enduring the pain as he schussed down ski runs at the nicest resorts. I’ve skied, and I’ve hiked through the jungle of Vietnam. Maybe the heel pain (left heel, right heel, both heels) was too much for military service, but was endurable, with brave effort for skiing. Believe me, I know this much — it takes unbelievable toughness to ski with heel pain. Toughness that is really really unbelievable! Bigly.

I wonder how those Trump loyalists feel now. Are they proud of their vote? Are they concerned about climate change? People in Louisiana are; they are reporting losing a football field of land every day to rising seas levels. Louisiana, like all of Dixie, and like our own beloved Michigan, voted for President Trump.

Are there Trump loyalists who were saying in January that they were 100% on board with Donald Trump, and are now saying they are behind him 99%? Maybe still hopeful, but less than even 99% behind the guy. More and more Republicans seem a little concerned about the guy. Paul Ryan said that people need to support Donald Trump (right or wrong, perhaps) or risk losing the next election. This sounds to me like putting party before country – unless Paul Ryan actually thinks Trump is doing a good job.

What was he trying to do with Comey and the Flynn investigation?

What’s with all the coziness with Russia? Jared Kushner wants a secret channel to the Kremlin, out of the Russian embassy, that will use Russian communication and be (Kushner apparently thought) hidden from the FBI and CIA? Why did President Trump have two Russians in the oval office, with no media — except Russian media?  Why the wooing of Saudi Arabia? And Duterte of the Philippines? And, of course, Vladimir Putin? Meanwhile he insults Prime Ministers May of the UK and Merkel of German.

How many of his boys have met secretly with Russians? Kushner, Sessions, Manafort, Flynn.

I’m not Roman Catholic, but Catholicism is a huge deal to Sean Spicer, the President’s press secretary. He’s devoutly Catholic. Seeing the Pope would be a high point of Spicer’s life. This could have happened for the beleaguered press secretary. Spicer went on the eleven-day trip to the Middle East and to Europe. President Trump had an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis. Many of President Trump’s people got to attend the meeting. Not Sean. That decision, to exclude Spicer, was just mean.  

I don’t know many Trump supporters personally. I can’t help but wonder what they are thinking. In Townbroadcast, we read a lot about the choice in November 2016. Most of what is offered is a contention (with which I do not agree) that Hillary would have been worse.

What I would like to see is some sort argument in defense for Donald Trump. Tell me how he’s really growing on the job, learning the subtleties and nuances of his role, beginning to moderate his odd contentions and bizarre tweets, moving forward with plans to provide health care coverage to all Americans, as he said, explain why the border wall makes sense, how tax cuts for the rich will trickle down to the rest of the country, how abdicating our leadership role in the world makes sense for us, how climate change really is a hoax, how we can tout religious freedom while seeking to (unconstitutionally) ban people of one religion from immigration, and how people like Putin and Duterte, are to be admired, and people like Merkel and May are bad.