Trump’s in full attack mode this week, spouting a high volume of high profile and highly profane Tweets — “bullshit”, “circle jerk” — and fantasies about the New York Times getting “down on their knees” to beg him for forgiveness.
But we think this may be the most curious of all:
First of all, the President of the United States is never immune to criticism. And not to realize that reflects a high level of delusion about the job, or extremely low self-esteem deep down. Blaming the President for stuff, even stuff he had little or nothing to do with, is an outlet we Americans have that a lot of other people in other countries don’t.
“Part of the way we manage to get through life, through bad times and even good, is to complain about the President, whomever they are, and whatever party or set of ideas they represent.
Sometimes it’s fair, sometimes it’s not fair (maybe we’re griping about something the President has no control over), yet we do it anyway. Because we have this great Constitution that says we can. Sometimes we even know it’s not fair but we do it anyway just to vent, which we still have the right to do and is a far better option than taking it out on colleagues or loved ones.
Sometimes we even laugh when comedians make a good joke about Presidents we like, because nobody’s perfect.”
The President’s ultra-thin skin in the ultimate thick-skin job, informed his decision this week not to allow any White House staffers attend the annual Correspondents Dinner, which meekly (and now foolishly) decided not to have a comedian this year, after last year’s thoroughly hilarious performance by Michelle Wolf (link to video here), so as not to offend Trump and his folks. And now Trump’s people are not going anyway.
Except we don’t think anybody really cares about it. Except Trump.
Secondly, and probably more importantly, is the content of the Tweet itself. “It’s the economy stupid” was a mantra of the Bill Clinton campaign. Which made us feel compelled to point out two things Trump’s apparently missing about the “old days”:
- GDP during the Clinton years grew at a rate of nearly 4%. While Trump’s economy for sure has been good, it hasn’t even come close to that. (Also Clinton left office with a budget surplus, Trump’s running trillion dollar deficits.)
- “Immune from criticism”? Clinton was impeached!