Today,
the tidal wave known as the Trump Phenomenon will crest and roll back, falling
short of its objectives; to the betterment of mankind, according to most.
Sixteen months after Donald Trump made
that now-famous elevator ride, his third wife in tow, 14 months after I
explained for you in two simple words the reason for his rise ("Duck
Dynasty"), four months after receiving the nomination of the Republican
party for President and one month after the conclusion of a series of debates
which proved once and for all that Trump is not only temperamentally unfit for
the office, but mentally unprepared, the day has arrived.
Election Day. Hallelujah!
Yes, the "temporarily unfit"
part we're well aware of – but he was going to change! When the Republican
debates began, he was going to "pivot" and get serious. (He didn't.)
Then after he secured the nomination, he was going to pivot and act like a
respectful, real candidate. (He didn't.) Then his handlers said, "just
wait until Labor Day when the REAL campaign starts …" but again, he
refused to pivot. Proof that a leopard can't change his spots.
But in addition to his volatile,
child-like temperament, Trump showed in these last two months that he doesn't
have the knowledge or the mental capacity to run the big show. Simply put, he's
out of his league; a true mental lightweight. And why wouldn't he be? He's had
no need, as it were, to be smart.
As youths, most of us are not given $1
million to play with (like Trump), so we pursue knowledge in an area that
interests us so that we might make a living. We continue to pursue the knowledge
of things around us that may or may not affect us for the purpose of ever
growing said knowledge. But in Trump's case, he had no need to learn anything
in the first place, even the need for any knowledge about his enterprises. If
one of his businesses fail, shut it down and file bankruptcy. If he runs out of
money, just don't pay contractors. This has been his life for 40 years and now
that he has run for president, we're all familiar with the pattern. He has
proven to be a shallow little man with a small brain containing zero real ideas
for our nation. During more than one moment in the third and final debate, I was
reminded, once again, of Marlow's discovery of Kurtz in the jungle in Conrad's Heart of Darkness: " … he could not
have been more irretrievably lost than he was at this very moment …"
However, for me personally, the lack
of intelligence is the least of it. Beyond this, even beyond the specific personal
jibes, the disparaging of entire cultures and myriad other sectors of society,
there's an overriding cloud that hangs over Donald Trump.
He's an asshole.
Not a troublemaker, per se, for the
sake of righteousness in the classic political, cultural or even journalistic
sense; not a muckraker; not even your basic shit-disturber. He's just a plain
asshole. That said, I understand that many in Trumpdom may like these qualities
in the guy, or even in their friends or themselves because they think it's time
somebody stirred the pot. And when you do so for a good reason, well, that
makes you a muckraker. But when you do something with no factual basis or no
sincere cause, but merely for the sport of it, that makes you an asshole.
Unfit to be president? Given his
professional history of red ink, bankruptcies, legal problems and stiffing
contractors, Donald Trump is unfit to run a business.
Given his personal history of playing
the victim in virtually every challenging situation he's been in, Donald Trump
is unfit to be a human being.
