In what seems like weeks ago, Trump declared against all evidence and against historic fact, that Ukraine had in fact started this war against Russia.
As farcical as this was, the real comedy was that Trump didn’t even seem to mean it. He was riffing, as he does, talking off the cuff, and it just slipped out. Sam Harris and Jonah Goldberg both go into this in the most recent episode of Harris's excellent Making Sense. Sam Harris has always been moderate, shifting slightly right to slightly left depending on the issue, but Goldberg was once considered quite far Right when he worked at Fox News. He has always been a big conservative voice, but found ever increasing pressure against him when he worked at Fox because he wanted to offer balance and be critical of the things Trump and others on the Right did, but the network wouldn't allow it. I'm sure the MAGA faithful now consider both of them to be raging liberals. Anyone not with us is against us, after all: the Rush Doctrine, which has only become more extreme in the years since.
(I can't recommend Harris's podcast enough, but this episode especially was great. See Here—click the "preview" button to listen. He gives 40 minutes of it free, which is a good portion of it and by itself is a great listen.)
Anyway.
The comment seemed like a mistake—a brain fart that slipped past his mouth. We certainly can't fault him for that. You and I have done the same many times in our lives. The key difference however, is when you or I misspeak, we normally apologize and correct ourselves. "Sorry, I misspoke" or "Sorry, that came out wrong" then "what I meant to say was...". But with our fearless leader, as he has done again and again, he doubled-down.
My son, when he misspeaks, he might double-down instead of admitting he was wrong. Many kids do. There is an embarrassment to making the verbal mistake that they haven't learned how to move past. To admit a mistake attacks their ego and is difficult to do. But as they grow, most kids learn this is incorrect behavior and that as adults it is better to apologize and move on. As we get older we also learn that literally everyone makes these verbal mistakes sometimes, so most people are forgiving, aren't bothered, and are quick to overlook it. This also helps us learn not to do it as we grow up.
Well... most of us learn not to do it.
The crazy part was that after Trump's mistake and his doubling-down, this became a kind of litmus test for the Right. No one on the Right wanted to be the first to say that Trump was wrong, so they either avoided saying anything about it, or agreed that Ukraine had been the aggressor. The Emperor has no clothes.
I was reminded of this again last night before I went to bed. Looking over the latest news, I saw several stories mentioning that Trump admitted that he used an autopen for signing documents which he considered unimportant. This made me laugh. Because, if you missed it, just the day before Trump declared all Biden's presidential pardons null and void because "Biden [had] used an autopen". He offered no proof of this, but as always with our fearless leader, we are to accept him at his word. The MAGA faithful went crazy, attacking Biden relentlessly. Some on Hive did as well. He needed to stand before the court, and the truth had to be uncovered! If he did use an autopen, even more things he signed should be declared null and void!
But now we learn Trump uses one. Another of Trump’s traits is projection—accusing people of doing what he himself does. It’s another trait we learn is not-so-good as children and that many of us grow out of.
I suppose the difference (the MAGA crowd will tell me) is that he only uses the autopen for "unimportant" documents, while Biden used it for pardons and who knows what else! We still have no proof that Biden used it at all. And how long before we learn that what Trump considers ‘unimportant’ is everything he signs off-camera?
It’s the same absurd pattern we’ve seen time and again: a slip-up, an ego-driven doubling down, and a party too afraid to point out the obvious. The Emperor truly has no clothes.
[Title photo from Wikipedia]
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. |
