Falling by the wayside
A couple of years ago, I would never have thought of using the word ‘bullshit’ in a column or letter to editor, but perhaps this is another one of the norms of a decent society that have fallen by the wayside under the Dear Leader. Not being one who is easily shocked by harsh language, still, I had to notice when I heard that our president had used that term in a public address. Unprecedented.
The Nation magazine’s always excellent columnist Eric Alterman recently wrote, “bullshit.” As defined by the Princeton philosophy professor emeritus Harry Frankfurt, these are statements made when the speaker “does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.” There could hardly be a better description of the entire body of one Donald J Trump’s spoken words. How ironic it is to see large placards posted in an otherwise pleasant Westside Ukiah neighborhood proclaiming, “Trump 2020. No more bullshit.” What are they talking about? Bullshit is his stock in trade!
His niece, Mary Trump, recently published a book (after a pitched legal battle from The Donald) about the family, called Too Much and Never Enough, subtitled something like ‘how my dysfunctional family created the world’s most dangerous person’. She was the daughter of Trump’s older brother, Fred, who had been brought up to take over the cutthroat white collar criminal enterprise that his dad Fred Sr. had created. This empire of hundreds of apartment buildings had been built on racist exclusion of renters of color, tax cheating scams that funneled profits on which taxes should have been paid into his toddler’s bank accounts, and who knows what other illegal scams. Apparently it was too grotesque for young Fred Jr, who was afflicted with something intolerable to the Trump clan; a sense of morality and decency. He followed his passion and became an Airline pilot, and in so doing fell afoul of the vengeful control obsession of his father, leading to estrangement from the family and terminal alcoholism.
Brother Donald was the man for the job; he tried to screw his siblings out of their part of Fred’s estate while the old man was on his deathbed. His older sister talks about him as a kid being a brat and that she had to do all his homework for him. Not surprising if you read any of his millions of tweets. The man is functionally illiterate; apparently unable to distinguish between ‘their’, ‘there’, and they’re’, he also manages to misspell the simplest words constantly (wouldn’t you think the president could get somebody to clean up his typos before he posts them?). He also has the annoying habit of, like a crank letter to the editor writer, going off on All Caps, the writing equivalent of yelling at people. She also revealed that the only way that he was able to get into the University of Pennsylvania, home of the famed Wharton school of business, was to have somebody a lot smarter than him take the SATS in his place. Though he often brags about going to Wharton, he didn’t; he may have taken a class or two in it, but clearly he didn’t get much out of it, as he turned out to be an epically terrible businessman.
Inheriting a colossal fortune, over and over again he squandered it on ill-conceived plans that crashed into bankruptcy, though he usually came out of each disaster with a pile of illgotten gain while his investors, bankers, contractors and everyone else involved ended up getting bupkis.
After a few of these goldplated fiascoes, the banking community wised up and refused to lend him a plug nickel, but for some mysterious reason, a European bank, BCCI, continued to loan him money even after he burned them on previous loans. This is the same outfit that recently paid huge fines to settle money-laundering charges for drug cartels. Hmmm, think there might be something that the American public should know about that?
Donald Trump is a desperate man at this point; his whole scene cannot survive legal scrutiny! This is why he is so determined to prevent the entirely legal oversight of Congress into his taxes etc. What even the most cursory investigation into his affairs is very likely to turn up is that not only is he not even close to being a billionaire, but that he is history’s most successful bullshit artist; in hock up to his earlobes to some of the worst characters in the world; Middle Eastern despots, Russian oligarchs and other parties with a keen interest in affecting the foreign policy of the world’s greatest superpower.
Mary Trump gives her Uncle Donald credit for being a savant at self-promotion, his single identifiable skill. His reelection campaign is broke, he’s trailing Biden badly even in Fox News polls, and what does he spend his time doing? Golfing!
ARTEAGA >> YAGE 11