Trump’s own words prove he’s not a ‘genius’, but a bully who is ignorant about the world around him

BRIAN Gibson’s letter (Write Back, January 9) asks is the media open-minded when judging Donald Trump? I suggest it has been too open-minded and that is why Trump is president today.

Mr Gibson is correct that Trump beat every Primary contender, through his bullying tactics, despite his lies and profound ignorance of the world he is living in (beyond the confines of his privileged lifestyle, that is).

The media’s mistake then, as now, is that it normalises Trump, responding to his streams of consciousness with endless fact-checking and attempts to rationalise his behaviour.

I have watched Trump’s submission on the UN building referred to by Mr Gibson. Going beyond the boasting about his own achievements, Trump adds nothing of substance to the debate, bad-mouthing, instead, those on the UN project. This ‘evidence’ was provided in 2005 and even then we can see the same pattern of vacuous boasting and character-assassination later used in his presidential campaign.

To understand how profoundly ignorant this man is, I suggest Mr Gibson forgets the Press and reads, instead, the rambling transcripts of speeches and interviews this ‘genius’ gives and wonder at the deep despair in America today that allowed so many to be taken in by his empty rhetoric.

If the mainstream media have been guilty of ‘fake news’, it has been in its constant attempts to rationalise Trump’s profound ignorance, narcissism and constant stream of abuse.

What has now changed, with Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, is that a journalist has exposed Trump and called him for what he is.

There is no ‘genius’ at work. The emperor truly has no clothes.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITH EDITOR