Dear America,
Yesterday, Donald Trump tweeted a question. He wanted to know if Hillary Clinton had ever apologized for getting the questions to be asked in one of their debates in advance. That question is actually encouraging in the sense that it seems to connote a limit as to President Trump's ability to act like a disgruntled adolescent. He is running out of outrageous snipes to send out to the world, and that means that we may be on the eve of a day in which there will be no news of Trump. It also suggests that he may soon get bored with being president and just shuffle off to Mar-a-Lago to play golf for the next four years and leave governance to those who at least understand that it is significant for more than just their immediate households. But perhaps more important is what this tweet says about the Trumpster.
He has somehow controlled the conversation for the past six months even though most Americans dislike him and wish he would just shut up. The vapid pettiness of what he tweets would disgrace most adults if they were confronted with it, but not Donald. And the reason is--and this tweet proves it--he is just a petulant child and what he wants is attention...more than anything else, he wants attention. He doesn't really care about the country or its people. He probably doesn't even care about his businesses and his money except for the fact that he seems to like gaudy luxury. I doubt that he even cares about his wives and children. His entire life is just a plea: "Look at me!" After all, the campaign is over and despite Trump's efforts to keep the controversy over it alive, it has waned in the public consciousness. No one cares about Hillary's emails anymore, and certainly, no one cares about the fact that some Democrat operative informed her that certain questions would be asked in a debate, among other reasons because it probably didn't matter. Clinton prepared for the debates; Trump didn't. It would have been news if the questions had been leaked to Trump and he had actually prepared to answer them, but that never happened as is obvious from his performance. The issue was dead on arrival and its twice as dead now, so why bring it up. The answer is that at 7:00 a.m.--notably hours after his tweets usually hit Twitter--that was the best thing he could think of. He went back to what was not much more than a faux issue then because he couldn't think of anything else to say to get his ration of publicity that day. Donald Trump is a publicity hound, and now he is finding out that when you have something important to do, it isn't easy to come up with some quip to rifle off every morning. He just doesn't have enough time to think about things that are stupid and petty anymore, so the best he can come up with is a six month old reprise of a previous stupid and petty idea. Donald Trump is running out of tweets, and that's good news for all of us.
Even the people who like him--there must be six or seven left...after all he's got all those children and a current wife that would add up to that even if there's no one else--there is a smoldering disdain for this childish behavior, and more important still is the fact that he is embarrassing us as a nation. Every week there is another foreign dignitary, president, dictator or fellow panjandrum who insinuates that Trump is a worry on the world stage because he seems so shallow and unstable. And consider the fact that when he wants to send an emissary to one of them, he sends a 36 year old real estate "tycoon" who inherited his wealth and significance just like Trump did. And what other qualifications does Jared Kushner have? Well, there's nepotism--he is after all married to the only one of Trump's children who seems to even look like she ever had a meaningful idea. And then there's the fact that he is ostensibly a liberal Democrat...or at least he purportedly used to be. And of course he must be well seasoned. He is after all thirty-six. Imagine how the Prime Minister of Iraq must have felt when his secretary came in and told him that there was some kid from America in the outer office waiting to see him, and then he found out that the kid was sent by the President of the United States. Trump apparently thinks of Kushner as the equal of world leaders. How must those world leaders feel about that, and why doesn't Donald Trump care?
If this last tweet is an indicator, Trump is going to have to do a little more thinking if he wants to stay on the front page, and that suggests that he is going to have to start engaging with more people than just Steve Bannon and his kids...maybe even play a little less golf. Maybe then he'll get it. He needs to be taken seriously. He's The President, not the Pillsbury dough boy, no matter what he looks like.
Your friend,
Mike
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