The man we have heard call himself the “Stable Genius” is making me re-evaluate my aversion to armchair/peanut gallery psychoanalysis.
Donald J. Trump’s recent “press availabilities” with the media have me wondering about the man. I am not qualified to offer any form of diagnosis of him. I do want to offer some observations about what I have seen and heard from the president of the United States.
It is troubling … to say the very least.
He stood in front of the helicopter the other day and went off on a riff about a lot of things and about a lot of people — chiefly his immediate presidential predecessor, Barack H. Obama.
He keeps saying Obama got “outstmarted” by the Russians when he got Russia kicked out of the G-8 ranks of industrialized nations; actually, the G-7 voted to boot the Russians out over their ongoing conflict with Ukraine. He made some idiotic reference again to the former president, saying that the Danes outmaneuvered him on some such thing; I don’t know what the hell he was talking about.
Then he spoke to some veterans and joked about wanting to award himself the Medal of Honor; does he not get how offensive such a “joke” is, given his history of draft evasion during the Vietnam War? Trump said he was open to considering universal background checks for those wanting to purchase firearms; then he appeared to back away from it. Trump keeps blaming Fed chairman Jerome Powell for allegedly hasty decisions regarding interest rates; POTUS just won’t own any part of the concerns being expressed about the future of the economy.
What is with this guy? These are just the latest among a lengthy series of weird statements and behavior. I have seen some psychiatrists seek to offer diagnoses at a distance. I get that they are trained medical doctors who can spot certain signs of something that over the rest of our heads. I admire their knowledge and their intellectual wattage, both of which dwarf my own.
But as I watch the president writhe, wriggle and rant these days as the presidential election year approaches, I am beginning to wonder if this guy is actually starting to panic. I’ve read the views of those who believe Trump didn’t expect to win the 2016 election and that his victory caught him by complete surprise. I also have heard those who believe that Trump’s ego won’t allow him to accept the possibility that he has failed at the job and that voters just might be wising up to his abject failures as a politician.
I am not prepared to even offer a wild-ass guess as to what might be wrong with this guy. I do wonder, though, whether the pressure of seeking re-election to a job that is way over his head is getting to him.
If so, is he up to doing the job?
Let’s remember, the “Stable Genius” is just an arm’s length away from those nuclear launch codes.