Tag: President Donald Trump

TRUMP REX?

By Terence Smith

   I really liked the headline on Peter Baker’s excellent page one news analysis in today’s (12/21) New York Times on the royalist aspirations of President Donald Trump:

    SECOND TERM 

      LOOKING MORE

        LIKE A REIGN

   And the sub-head in the print edition that was delivered to my doorstep:

    “Trump is Testing Limits in Policies, and Profits.”

   Peter Baker had fun in his piece pointing out how Trump copied the royal welcome he got from Britain’s King Charles in his reception last month for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia that included….“yes,  a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and long, regal tables” at the state dinner.

   But Baker’s more substantive point: that Trump is pushing the legal and political boundaries of the American presidency well beyond his predecessors was thoroughly documented in the article that followed. There was also a companion piece inside the paper by Shawn McCreesh about Trump’s fatuous (and probably illegal) addition of his own name above that of the late President John F. Kennedy on the face of the Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. 

   Vainglorious? Of course. Silly? Yes. Tacky? Certainly. But revealing of the man, his means and motives.

   Ever since Trump was re-elected and launched his second term with a blizzard of executive orders straight out of the pages of Project 2025, I have wondered to myself what the end result will be. 

   Will Trump actually change political opinion and attitudes in the United States for years-to-come? 

   Will the agencies he has destroyed, like the estimable USAID, be reconstituted by a successor? 

   Will his passion for “Drill, Baby, Drill” dissolve in favor of climate control?

   Will we restore some sense and sensibility to our border and immigration policies? 

   Will NATO and our other alliances be revived and respected as before? 

   Will any of the fragile cease-fires and supposed peace agreements Trump brags about survive his term in office? 

   Will a future president right the wrongs and end the silliness? 

   Will the daily cheapening and corruption of our political rhetoric depart with Trump?

   Will American voters think twice about the candidates they support in the future?

   Or, will J.D. Vance or another candidate carry Trumpism into the future?

   So many questions; so few answers.

IT’S ALL ABOUT… “THE DONALD.”

By Terence Smith

Call it the Retribution Express. Most, if not all, of President Donald Trump’s erratic, contradictory, chaotic initiatives in the first two months of his off-the-wall second term, aka Trump 2.0, can be understood by how they affect The Donald. It is non-stop score settling.
—Cancelling $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University? Ostensibly, it is about Columbia’s DEI programs and pro-Palestinian demonstrations. But trace the cancelation back to Trump’s very public dispute with Columbia when the then-real estate magnate tried to sell the University some Manhattan property at an estimated four times its worth. Columbia dismissed the proposed deal, publicly embarrassing The Donald. Check.
—Trump’s open admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin? On one level, the President simply admires dictators who get things done and exercise control the way he wants to here. On another, trace it back to Trump’s long-standing desire to get Putin’s backing for a Trump Tower in Moscow. Check.
—Lifting the security clearances for certain law firms and barring them from Federal buildings? Trump calls it “law fare” against him; the lawyers maintain they are being targeted for prior legal actions. Trace it back and you’ll find that the affected law firms challenged Trump in the past.
—Trump’s bizarre and utterly unworkable proposal that the U.S. take over Gaza, deport the Palestinian residents and redevelop the Strip into a high-end beach resort, aka “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Trace it back and you’ll find a similar proposal from Jared Kushner, his opportunistic son-in-law.
I could go on, but you get the idea. His actions are classic score-settling. Psychiatrists have diagnosed it as “malignant narcissism.”
Call it what you will. It is all about The Donald.