Donald Trump: Part-time President of the United States

Who but Donald Trump would have the ego-centric audacity to unilaterally decide that the Presidency of the United States should be a part-time job?  Now that he’s been elected he has informed those he supposedly serves, the American public, that he doesn’t expect to give up his day job while in office.

Really?

Certainly, it cannot take a brilliant, energized, diplomatic dynamo like Trump much time and effort to attend to world crises both known and emerging – to maintain foreign relations around the globe – to deal with military policy  and preparedness as Commander in Chief – to wipe out ISIS and secure our borders – to prepare effective economic, educational, social, health care and (risking an oxymoron) intelligence strategies – to (snicker) fulfill his campaign promises – and to take care of all the other business entrusted to him by the American people when he was elected.   Undoubtedly, he will be able to handle all that with one hand tied behind his back and standing on one foot while he continues to run his insignificant family fruit stand.  Heck, he’ll probably have have ample free time to improve his golf game three or four days a week at one of his many golf clubs.

Don’t worry about it.  We’re in good hands.

Donald says he sees “no conflict of interest” in running the country and his company at the same time.  I don’t know about you, but I am so relieved to know that he doesn’t see any conflict of interest there.  That must mean there is no chance that anything like the Teapot Dome scandal during Warren G. Harding’s crooked Presidency might happen.  I was afraid that might be a cause for concern, but evidently the Donald is cool with it.

Actually, it’s easy to understand why he sees no conflict of interest because, given his eyesight, it is true.  He doesn’t want to see any conflict of interest, so by Royal Proclamation there simply isn’t any.  Its absence suits his purposes at the moment, so it must be true… at the moment.  End of story.

Always Remember:

There is one, and only one, interest that drives every single thing that Donald Trump does.  It’s called self-interest, and he has made that an art form.  The sooner we all recognize this about the man front and center, the better we will understand what he is likely to do in a given situation.  We may despise his “logic,” but we elected it.  It isn’t new.  It’s been plainly there throughout his entire miserable celebrity career.  Reality is what he says it is.  Otherwise you’re fired!

Truthfully, the U.S. Presidency is much more than just a part-time job (with benefits) to him.  He covets the opportunity to operate both the country and his company in tandem in terms of his self-interest.  Rather than a conflict of interest, it’s a veritable accelerant of self- interest.  Think of how much money and power he will be able to accrue in The Trump Organization when he can negotiate business deals while carrying the ability to annihilate the folks on the other side of the table.  Who knows, he might even get rich.

And what an opportunity to expand Trump Air!

Who’s Fooling Who?

Donald Trump is not stupid, he just assumes the rest of us are.  Perhaps he’s right.  Where are the righteously loud and indignant objections to the notion that Donald Trump would even think about conducting his commercial empire as usual while wielding the power of the Presidency of the United States?  Let’s trust Trump to be honest and forthright in all his business dealings and in all his obligations to the American people. (It’s called turning over a new leaf.)  Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s trust Putin to do that too.  He’s at least as trustworthy as the Donald.

The Trump Organization Dictionary (4,276th Edition):                                                         promise  (prom-iss) N. or V.  Noun. A statement or position that is convenient to make or espouse at the moment, but which the Donald retains the right to reverse or revise at his discretion.  Verb. To make a statement or take a position that is convenient to make or take at the moment, but which the Donald reserves the right to recant or disavow whenever necessary.

Hail to the Cheer-Leader-in-Chief

How did the man who grabs cute felines get elected as President of the United States?  He counted on voters turning a blind eye to the history and nature of the parasite, totally discounting the objectionable so long as he was cheer-leader-in-chief for outlandish positions they longed to hear.

Now he’s elected, don’t hold your breath.

Many are expecting him to “empty the swamp.” I am here to tell you folks, Donald Trump does not want to empty the swamp; he wants to rule it.

I seriously fear that somewhere along the line Trump is going to try to tamper with the impeachment statutes of this land to somehow make himself immune to them.  When he quietly or publicly tries to alter the last possible threat to his absolute rule, let’s try to see what’s right in front of us and deny him the opportunity.

Otherwise we will continue to get what we deserve.

 

 

©2016, James C. Ash

 

 

A User’s Guide to Donald Trump

The 45th President of the United States will be Donald Trump, the first bona-fide modern celebrity elected to lead the most powerful country in the world.  He will also be the first president never to have held an elected public office before.  Both improbable and thereby impressive feats.

His greatest attribute in his election was his total lack of political experience.  For ample reason, he stood out from the crowd as the maverick, the new sheriff in town, the guy who was free “to tell it like it is.”  Americans, fed up with a purposely gridlocked government, craved change and he was the only candidate positioned to deliver it. The baggage he will bring into the White House in January will include no political debts.

He is truly and refreshingly neither a real Republican nor a Democrat, though he has called himself both.  He alone is the ultimate ”outsider” in a place where the money and power in politics come first, and the nation’s well-being is a distant second.

But his great asset – being a non-politician –  could also become the nation’s Achilles Heel. Of all the political stages in the world, the White House is the worst place to make a bluster blunder. Trump’s nature is bluster, so he is likely to make several.

His honeymoon may be short lived. The back room political powers and the monied interests that fuel them have not left our nation’s capital. Donald Trump has promised to “empty the swamp” single-handedly.  If we believe he can and will do it, however, we are naive.  He is far more likely to fall under the influence of the established politicos than they are to accede to his.  When one looks at his transition team rife with lobbyists, one sees the swamp critters already climbing aboard and taking premium seats on his boat.

Donald Trump was elected for what he isn’t.  Who he is will lead this country for at least the next four years.  So what do we know about him?

After meeting with the President-elect for 90 minutes just days after the election, President Obama diplomatically observed that Donald Trump has no ideology, but is the consummate pragmatist.  Obama was smiling at the time, but his words carried a serious warning.

History has shown time and again that a man or woman with no ideology who is empowered to lead a nation is dangerously unpredictable.   In fact, Mr. Trump has cultivated a well deserved reputation of unpredictability.  He considers it to be one of his greatest assets.  For a celebrity that makes sense; it’s entertaining and grabs the spotlight.  But as the President, if the Donald lacks dependability his reputation will become America’s as well.

To what degree can anyone count on Donald Trump in any respect?  He’s certainly not the first politician to lie.  But lying appears to come easy to him and is necessary at times to serve the pragmatist. Witness the birther diatribe, claiming President Obama wasn’t born in the US.  Donald held on to that false claim obsessively for as long as it was convenient, despite all proof that he was shouting a lie.  It was only when it was beneficial to him that he recanted the claim based on the same evidence he pragmatically ignored for years.

The discomfort and worry felt by the majority of voters who cast their ballots against Trump comes from a legitimate fear of what extreme and dangerous roads he may lead us down while promising not to.

Here is the key to understanding Trump. When dealing with him, always remember that Donald Trump has never done, and will never do, anything that was or is not intended first and foremost to be to his personal benefit.    He is the poster child of malignant narcissism (See Beware the Malignant Narcissist: April 15, 2016).  It’s not always easy to find “what’s in it for him,” but keep looking lest it is realized when it is too late to matter.

Never upstage him and don’t ever think that you can count on what he says any longer than the time it takes him to say it.

Like all narcissists, Donald Trump values loyalty, if not fealty, above all other qualities in those around him.  The danger is his loyal minions may not include folks with quality diplomatic, or statesman-like experience to draw on when called upon to represent the United States effectively on the national or world stage.  (Witness Rudy Giuliani, whose only qualification to be Secretary of State is that he was involved in security planning for the United Nations Building while Mayor of New York.  That he was even on the list of potential candidates for this hugely important assignment is absurd. But on the Trump loyalty scale, he’s off the charts.)

In the end, no one loves Trump more than Trump.  The reason he is a pragmatist is that when conditions change he can change with them, uninhibited by ethics or conscience, in order to assure his personal benefit.  A look at the crooked road behind him will reveal an astounding number of Americans and others who made the cardinal mistake of depending on Donald Trump to:

  • honor a contract,
  • pay undocumented immigrant workers for the dangerous and off-the-books demolition work he hired them to do
  • keep manufacturing jobs for products with the Trump label in America
  • protect investors’ interests as CEO of the spin off corporation to which he sold his bankrupt casinos
  • create and contribute to a charitable fund in his name and under his roof
  • provide a meaningful and useful education to those who took government loans to pay him their tuition to enroll in Trump University
  • show any sign of ethical restraint in his business conduct
  • refrain from further victimizing those who were victimized by others

In all of these cases it proved pragmatic under Trump’s personal financial interest to:

  • tie his contractual obligations up in the courts and watch his creditors’ legal fees force them to give up, or to
  • withold the meagre payment he owed hapless undocumented workers he knowingly hired, and threaten to report them to Immigration for deportation, or to
  • keep the margins on his products high by avoiding expensive American labor, or to
  • sell off his failing casino businesses to investors as hidden gems and then pay himself $44 million as CEO of the investors’ new company, which he tanked (as he knew he would) or to,
  • fail to donate any of his own money to the Trump Charity fund but to use the contributions of others to buy an immense portrait of himself, or to
  • bilk thousands of Americans, many poor and looking to better themselves, out of their government loaned tuitions in return for a two-bit real estate seminar. The hayena laughed all the way to the bank at how easily he grabbed their loan money while dashing their hopes. When he agreed to pay a $25 million settlement of that case he tweeted he paid it only because his presidental responsibilities now prohibit his agressive defense of the case, which “he would have won.” (No ethical apology, just a statement to satisfy his enormous ego with the notion he would have won, despite having been caught red handed), or to
  • exploit an opportunity to cash in on more Federal tax payer (a category he does not inhabit) funds in 9/11 rehabilitation government aid to small businesses because it was “smart” to funnel funds away from 9/11 victims.

We have to ask, what are Mr. Trump’s American values that can be depended on as he “Makes America Great Again?” As President Obama pointed out, it is truly hard to tell.  He’s a pragmatist.  “It depends.”

Donald Trump told  61,201,031 American voters exactly what they wanted to hear.  Despite whatever he may have espoused to the contrary before, he now firmly believed all they did. Drain the swamp, build the wall, provide relief for the working lower and middle classes, lower their taxes, prosecute Hillary Clinton, remove support for the fallacy of climate change, take big money out of politics, deport 11 million illegal aliens, strengthen our borders, destroy ISIS and “Radical Islam” etc., etc.  Now that the election is over, he has begun backing out of several of these “promises,” calling them just “campaign talk,”  a.k.a., the pragmatic lies it took to get him elected.

For the sake of the country and the world, let’s hope that his pragmatic needs do not lead to the destruction of America’s role and reputation in the delicate global balance of power, because he’s now playing in a different game than he’s ever played before.  The stakes are higher and it is now America’s chips that he has to manage. The survival of the greatest nation the world has ever known is in the balance.

When crises explode, and they will, we better hope he can find solutions in the mirror, because that is the only place he is likely to look.

 

 

©2016  James C. Ash

 

 

Bernie Sanders was Right

Donald Trump’s campaign, while preposterous and inconsistent, has thrown a bright light on a social divide in America that is deeper and more severe than most of us realized.  There is no doubt that Trump is a narcissistic ass who has the ethics of an alley cat with a grossly enlarged libido. Nonetheless, despite his bombastic claims and morally degenerate behavior, many Americans are willing to turn a blind eye to his racial, ethnic, and misogynist hate mongering, and believe that “Donald really tells it like it is.”

People, we know something’s wrong, but let’s not forget what is right.

What’s Wrong?

Clearly, the great social experiment of equal opportunity and mutual respect in our Democracy is far less mature than it ought to be at this point in our history.  What has happened to stir up such vile and destructive emotions among so many people?

I believe that the current, worsening social divide is a product of an even more stark divide in the United States, namely the economic chasm between the wealthy and the rest of us.

During most of the 20th Century, the strength of our nation was largely drawn from a large and vibrant middle class that bridged the divide between the rich and the poor.  That middle class provided a vital pathway to success for people in poverty who wanted to better their conditions. It provided the reachable goal of helping a next generation live better than the parents had. Anyone could get ahead through honest work and intestinal fortitude. There was credible reason for hope.

But the dawn of both the information age that supplanted our manufacturing economy and the political shift of tax burdens from the rich to the middle class, changed the role and nature of the class structure in America.  Today, the poor have little means or hope to achieve upward mobility.  They have been nearly completely disenfranchised from the American Dream.  They are surrounded by greedy predators, like Mr. Trump, who create bogus “universities” touting the promise of a bright future.  Unsuspecting and well meaning people take on student loans to pay for an ultimately bogus education and a useless degree.  Because student loans are not forgiven by bankruptcy, people least able to pay back loans trade their hopeful futures for a lifetime debt.  And the rich get richer.

While the poor lose hope, many in the middle class face the legitimate fear of falling below the poverty line to join the ranks of the hopeless.  The middle class is not shrinking because more people are getting rich.  The erosion of the middle class is from the bottom, not the top.

Meanwhile, the rich buy the allegiance of law makers in local, state, and national political arenas and quietly arrange the rules of the land in ways that allow them to systematically siphon off more wealth from middle class and the poor.  Nowhere is that more evident than in the tax codes of all levels of government.

There is no doubt that the top 10% of wealthy Americans pay significantly less than their fair share of taxes.  Don’t listen to politicians or political pundits who, like Mr. Trump, make up false statistics to the contrary.  Fully 50% or more of the wealth of this nation is owned by that 10%.  By far, more taxes are collected from our 50% than are collected from their 50%. End of story!

This economic disaster began with the Ronald Reagan notion that if we cut taxes for the wealthy, all kinds of great things would happen.  They would invest all that untaxed money to create tons of new jobs for millions of people. Some of the wealth of the top 10% would “trickle down” like soft rain from a cloud, nourishing us all.

It simply didn’t happen then, and it will not happen now. The rich don’t use their money to create rainfalls for anyone. Most use money to get more money. Few, if any people benefited more financially than the rich during the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of of the 21st.  They have built their rigged system.  All they need do now is maintain it.

What’s Right?

The spiral we are in where the rich profit at the expense of the rest of us can only be stopped if the rest of us, 90% of the electorate, demand that:

  • Tax codes are simplified and the wealthy are made to pay their fair share without exception. The purpose of taxes in a democracy includes being a mechanism for a healthy distribution of wealth among the electorate.  That needs to happen.
  • The power of free speech is equitably shared by all. One’s right to speak freely is sacrosanct, but the decibel level of one person’s right to speak should not be allowed to drown the speech of others.  Free speech needs to include the concept of an equal right to be heard.  That’s where the power resides.  That is why we desperately need to impose limits on how much money any one individual or group of individuals, or a corporation or a union, or a political action committee can contribute to the decibel level of any one candidate.  The idea that free speech in America includes the right to drown out the speech of others who may not have a mega-phone is dangerous and ethically contrary to the bedrock upon which this nation was built.
  • Good jobs are created by government to repair and improve the infrastructure we all depend on (even the rich) for transportation, communication, education, law enforcement, welfare, and commerce etc..
  • Education for the information age is widely made available and affordable if not free in many cases.

The gulf between greed and simple comfort is wide.

The gulf between greed and happiness is wider.

Being part of the solution is always better than being part of the problem.

Bernie was right.

Can the World Afford a Malignant Narcissist as President of the US?

Q: Can the world afford a Malignant Narcissist as President of the United States?

 A: Probably not, but let us not test the idea.

What is Malignant Narcissism?  Below is a bullet point rendition of Wikipedia’s definition.

As you read it, ask yourself, is this not Donald Trump?

“Malignant Narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of:

  • narcissism,  […no one loves Donald as much as the Donald does, and nothing that Donald does is intended to benefit anyone but Donald. His proposed tax break for the middle class is part of an overall tax strategy that would hand the wealthy top 10%  – including himself – a much bigger tax break.  Trump thrives on being in the limelight, disregards any inconvenient truth, and cannot acknowledge his mistakes to the point that, obviously contrary to his own best interests, he doubles-down on his numerous blatant blunders.]
  • antisocial personality disorder, […does bragging about being able to grab any woman’s crotch simply because he is The Donald qualify?  He has absolutely no respect nor an ounce of empathy for anyone but himself.]
  • aggression, […he sues everyone who dares to cross his path, is a misogynist, a bigot, and indiscriminatly intimidates any who might be in his way] and
  • sadism […refusing to pay workers who live paycheck-to-paycheck, and the act of firing someone are among many harmful situations that seem to give Donald great pleasure].
  • Often grandiose, […he genuinely thinks his five-letter name should be valued at more than a billion dollars per letter, nuff said?] and
  • always ready to raise hostility levels […like the schoolyard bully, he will pick on anyone he thinks is weaker than himself.],
  • the malignant narcissist undermines organizations in which they are involved […can America afford this?] , and
  • dehumanizes the people with whom they associate” [Women, Mexicans and Other Hispanics, Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Political and Business Opponents,  etc., etc.].

Power in the hands of a malignant narcissist is extraordinarily dangerous. The malignant narcissist does not want to lead, but to rule. Most of those who fought to depose the last major malignant narcissist ruler over 50 years ago are no longer with us.  Few are left who saw first-hand how dangerously evil a popular conniving malignant narcissist can be.

Donald Trump’s candidacy presents danger to the world, and many world leaders know it.  His bluster, reversals of expressed opinions, personal slanders, and complete disregard of truths that are in conflict with his desires, make him unreliable, untrustworthy, and insanely volatile.  These attributes might be useful in gaining the upper hand in business negotiations but it is a terrible mix when dealing with leaders of other sovereign nations that have national pride and military options.  Putin would love to play with someone who thinks Twitter is a great political forum.  Trump’s buttons are easy to see and easy to push.  All it takes to make him totally irrational is to insult him personally. (Have you noticed that he never says he was “attacked.”  Any assault on his character or comments is a “vicious attack.”  Apparently in his self-absorbed mind having the temerity to attack Donald Trump must be vicious.) 

Do you really want Donald Trump in charge of our nuclear arsenal?

Beyond Frightening – Simply Unacceptable.

We are in these seriously dangerous waters largely because for the last six years the Republican-controlled Congress chose to abdicate it’s responsibilities and freeze the government to undermine the remainder of Obama’s two-term presidency. Trump’s popularity is the genuinely frustrated but reckless grass roots response to the uncompromising leadership of Congress.  Perhaps Republican incumbents in both houses who are running for re-election as “down-ticket” candidates under Trump’s name this year will suffer for their intentional and petty gridlock.*

The last political malignant narcissist who rose to power on a wave of an indignant grass roots backlash nearly destroyed their world and ours.  Luckily, he didn’t quite have access to atomic weaponry.

The next one will.

 

 

 

*Ironically, the political career of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is reeling from self-inflicted wounds suffered in his very own gridlock scandal .  The now infamous George Washington Bridge traffic jam, deliberately engineered by Christie’s Administration to “punish” the Mayor of Fort Lee, has backfired on him. Christie is well suited to Trump’s sycophantic entourage.

Well, they asked for it.

I got an e-mail today from e-bay asking me to write a review of the refurbished Apple mouse I bought through them a couple of weeks ago:

This was my review:

Once upon a time there was a mouse that lived with an Apple that was bought by the parents of a spoiled little boy. They gave the Apple and mouse to him because it was Tuesday. (The little boy’s parents obviously had more money than they could ever spend.) The little boy was easily frustrated whenever he couldn’t figure out how to work the age-inappropriate toys his parents kept buying and buying for him to keep him busy while they lived their lives in other wings of their elaborate home. So it came to pass that the day after the Apple and mouse were installed in the wing that had been added to the house when little Donald (that was the little boy’s name, Donald) was born, the little boy, Donald, threw a temper fit when he lost another round of elementary checkers against the Apple. Despite the “computer always loses” feature programmed in the checkers app, Donald always found a way to lose, making the same exact moves in the same sequence every time he played. Naturally Donald (the little boy) blamed the mouse for always making the wrong moves, so Donald fired the mouse (he literally set it ablaze). Fortunately, the little boy’s parents (Donald’s mom and dad) knew that Donald’s favorite pastime was to fire things, so the sprinkler system they installed in his wing quickly extinguished the fire, but also water-damaged the mouse, so mom and dad took it back to the store and demanded a refund (the cheap bastards). The store then sold it for pennies on the dollar to the guys who refurbished the mouse, who charged me a very fair buy-it-now price for the mouse on e-bay. The mouse, my Apple, and I are living happily ever after because the refurbishing guys did a great job. And how’s Donald doing? He’s the Republican Party’s nominee for President.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome

cropped-blowing-my-own-horn1.jpgWelcome to Blowin’ My Own Horn, a compilation of observations and learnings that I have made over the more than six-and-a-half decades of living currently under my belt (right next to the results of six-and-a-half decades of poor eating habits that also reside under my belt).

Blowin’ My Own Horn topics range from politics, life observations, my beliefs about the relationship between here and the hereafter, and some rants and laughs. I describe some unique experiences I’ve had, especially as connected to my health and survival (so far).

Hopefully, the blog is thought provoking and even more hopefully it will be response provoking as well. If you think I may be onto something, let me know. If you think I am way off base, let me know that too. If everyone agrees with me, I will know that I am a reporter of the obvious just wasting my time and yours.

Feel free to let me know one way or t’other in the Comments segment and/or directly at jim@jim-ash.com.

Let me dispel one potential misinterpretation up front. I am not a musician; I don’t know how to play any horn. When I blow a horn, random, senseless sounds come out. So be forewarned. Blowin’ My Own Horn may not be pretty, but it will always be honest.

Jim C. Ash

Actual Cabinet photo - 1

 

 

 

 

 

©2016 James Ash