One Trick Pony

Donald Trump is an idiot.* On that, reasonable people can agree. But that’s not the worst of it. Donald Trump is also a scoundrel. This means that, he not only pursues clueless policies that are bad for the country, but he pursues self-serving policies that are also bad for the country.

I suppose I should qualify the “Trump is an idiot” point, given that some might argue that if he were really all that dumb, he wouldn’t be president.

Point taken. It is true that Trump did manage to weasel his way into the White House, with an assist from Vladimir Putin, but this only demonstrates two things:

        A. He has one skill; he is good at getting people
        to believe nonsense that is patently false (like
        Mexico will pay for a magnificent border wall),

and

B. There are a lot of voters who are seething with so much resentment and so lacking in education that they readily fall for the manipulative bullshit that Trump routinely peddles.

On Point B, consider this: Trump just issued executive orders that will make it harder for people to afford health insurance. Obviously, he did this because he wants to stick it to Barack Obama. Throwing millions of Americans off the insurance rolls is his way of thumbing his nose at the former (and significantly more popular) president. Remember that when running for office, in addition to vowing to have Mexico pay for the wall, Trump also promised he would replace Obamacare with a much better health care system. This was a patent lie, of course, but a lot of people seemed to believe it.

I’m not really saying anything new here. Many people have pointed out that Trump is a con man. Probably the most famous person to make this point was Mitt Romney who, back in March 2016, said this about Trump:

“Look, his bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who work for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create it. And whatever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage. A business genius he is not.”

But wait, there’s more:

“Dishonesty is Donald Trump’s hallmark.”

“Think of Donald Trump’s personal qualities. The bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics.”

“Mr. Trump is a con man, a fake.”

And so on.

But here we are presented with an ironic twist. Once elected, Trump immediately conned Mitt Romney by suggesting that he could be Secretary of State. Now Romney at this point no doubt thought in terms of “serving his country” and all that sort of thing, but he also clearly dreamed of being a big player again. On this basis, he was lured into accepting Trump’s invitation to discuss the appointment, whereupon Trump arranged to have the two of them photographed at dinner – where Trump looked triumphant and self-satisfied while Romney squirmed with embarrassment.

With this one photograph Trump conned Romney, reducing him to irrelevance.

I suppose the lesson for Romney is that when you know somebody is a slick-talking con man, don’t put yourself in his manipulative hands.

I just wonder how long it will take for the voters who were conned into voting for Trump – as more and more of them lose their insurance - start to feel like Mitt Romney and realize they trusted a man whose only skill is slinging bullshit.

---

*Notice my restraint here; I did not refer to Trump as a “fucking moron.”

(The quotations are from a speech Romney gave at the Hinckley Institute of Salt Lake City as reported in the March 3, 2016, New York Times.)