1 week Ago By Matt Cooper
We know the US president is an unhinged narcissist, totally dedicated to attention-seeking and saying and doing whatever is necessary to get the cameras and microphones focused upon him.He is also a man who is untouched by shame, so he wasn’t humiliated by the climbdown from his global tariffs that was forced upon him on Wednesday.This is a man who has such an enhanced opinion of himself that he believes he can get away with anything.
He has boasted that he would be able to shoot someone on the streets of Manhattan and nothing would happen to him. US president Donald Trump. Pic: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty ImagesHe suffered no consequences from inciting the attempted insurrection of January 6, 2021, and has portrayed himself as a victim so often that it is clear that he isn’t putting on an act but believes it.
His enablers however feed that ego with unwarranted praise and flattery. They know they are telling lies or doing wrong but it doesn’t stop them.It either gives them preferment in the Trump orbit – jobs that they would never get in a more normalised environment – or allows them to push extreme positions that find their way onto Trump’s agenda because he is easily led.
Some examples: Trump’s tariff guru is called Peter Navarro. He has written all sorts of nonsense about the economic impact of tariffs that have been debunked by anyone with any knowledge of the subject. His books have cited an expert called Ron Vara.
Vara doesn’t exist. He was invented by Navarro to provide a form of support. This is nuts.
Peter Navarro. Pic: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty ImagesStephen Miller is the deputy chief of staff for Trump and is extreme in his deportation beliefs, something he brings to his role in homeland security. Any copped-on person can see that Trump climbed down on Wednesday as rising bond yields threatened to make the cost of US government borrowing unaffordable.
Miller: ‘You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history.’Remember Comical Ali, the Iraqi spokesman who insisted that Saddam Hussein’s defence of Baghdad was being successful, as viewers watched bombs fall and statues of the dictator tumble? He has been reincarnated as Miller.From outside the administration, there is a billionaire hedge fund guy called Bill Ackman.
Less than a week ago, he was almost wetting his bed, so terrified was he by the economic damage being wrought by the tariffs. He took to pleading publicly to Trump. Then, when Trump was forced to capitulate he wrote, ‘that was brilliantly executed by @realdonaldtrump.
Textbook, Art of the Deal. Thank you on behalf of all Americans.’Pic: Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesAckman is one of those most responsible for helping Trump back into office, pumping tens of millions into his campaign last year.
Then Ackman was astonished when Trump introduced tariffs despite promising in almost every single campaign speech to unleash the trade war we are now in. He was another idiot who said ‘treat Trump seriously but don’t take him literally’.What is sickening is how many Americans are motivated by economic self-interest and, it seems, little else.
They are now flattering him in a desperate effort to rein him in, to limit the damage. What Trump is doing to the US is awful. His actions, unnecessary for the strongest economy in the world with the highest level standards overall (even if wealth is unequally distributed), are dressed up in the guise of saving the US from some form of disaster.
He has engaged in a comprehensive assault on the American republic and the global order it was central to creating and which overall has worked well. At home he attacks the rule of law, the legislature, the courts, commitment to science and the independence of universities, for reasons that make no sense.Things are getting worse and serious people in the US are going to have to step up and find a way to stop him.
It’s not Donald Trump I have an issue with, it’s his enablers..
