Some people who attain high public office grow in their position
of trust. Some, however, just bloat.
Bloat has been on spectacular display in the first months of
Donald Trump’s presidential tenure. He had a disastrous start, choosing a
cabinet and staff mostly made up of ideological quacks, incompetents, and Wall
Street grifters.
Yet, buoyed by his explosive ego, Trump pronounced his start
historic: “I don’t think there’s ever been a president elected who in this
short period of time has done what we’ve done,” he boasted at a recent news
conference.
Sadly, he’s right.
Some record!
And now Trump has embraced a GOP replacement of Obamacare,
hailing the “Trumpcare” substitute that will jack-up our health care costs, cut
benefits, and eliminate coverage entirely for millions of working-class and
poor people — while also sneaking in yet another underhanded tax cut for the rich.
It’s so awful that even hordes of Republican lawmakers have
gagged, refusing to swallow it. Yet, lost in self-deception, Trump calls it
“wonderful.”
We have a president who’s detached from reality, careening from
one mess to another. But who will say: “The emperor has no clothes”?
He’s so far gone that when he read his recent address to
Congress straight off the teleprompter, without his usual pugnacious ranting,
Republican enablers of his antics and even the media establishment applauded
him for being “presidential.”
Huh? The speech was a nasty wad of lies and right-wing nonsense.
If the occasional appearance of sanity is all we ask of Trump, then his reign
of insanity will be our fault.
OtherWords
columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The
Hightower Lowdown. Distributed by OtherWords.org.