Trump an easy target for mockery
I don’t hate President Donald Trump.
I’ve been accused of this since he was elected. Heck, since he became a presidential candidate.
“Jerry, your hate for President Trump is showing again,” longtime reader Jeff T. commented on a recent social media post of mine regarding our president.
When I read his comment, I had a similar reaction to when I think of Trump. I shrugged. I chuckled to myself. I shook my head back and forth.
My social media post was definitely not filled with hate. It did not have even a trace of hate, which my dictionary defines as “feeling intense or passionate dislike.” My most intense emotion regarding Trump is typically the same: amusement, followed by mockery.
Yes, I’m guilty of openly mocking our tweeter-in-chief. I find it impossible not to.
No, I don’t hate him. Such intense, passionate emotions require energy that I simply don’t possess these days. It’s like hating the weather and hoping it changes. Or hating yesterday, wrongly believing it will somehow change what happened one day earlier.
I don’t have time for hate. I find time for mockery.
It’s the difference between a scream and a shrug. Trump deserves my shrugs, not my screams. It would be different if any of my emotions would have any kind of influence over our president or his administration. I’m not that delusional. I don’t wield such power, nor the desire to possess it.
Despite more than 60 million Americans voting for Trump — for reasons varying from believing his lies, hoping for his promises, or desperation for anyone other than Hillary Clinton — I don’t admire his persona, I don’t respect his rallies, and I don’t endorse Trumpism.
As I’ve written before, we elected the worst version of ourselves into the White House. So, in my book, the Divided States of America deserves Trump as its brash, lying, arrogant, bullying leader. He embodies the dark side of our collective composite.
Maybe this explains why Trump’s job approval rating has climbed over 50%, the highest of his tenure as president, according to a new Zogby poll. I’m not surprised. We elected ourselves into the Oval Office and we love ourselves for doing it.
When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of cowboy-actor John Wayne, whose persona represented the best of Americans, I believed. He was brash. He was unapologetic. He was the Marlboro Man with a
pretend six-shooter and a Hollywood soapbox. I loved his western movies. I recited his most popular lines.
Then I grew up. I came to realize who he really was and what he actually stood for, personally, politically and professionally. I eventually realized that Wayne was a lout. A blowhard. A womanizer. All under the guise of a patriotic American. Sound familiar?
Wayne didn’t change. I did. Similarly, Trump isn’t going to change. Not fundamentally. Not for personal growth. Not even for the United States of America. He feels it’s beneath him and that America loves him just as he is.
This reminds me of the 1988 film “Rain Man,” starring Dustin Hoffman as Raymond, a middleage man with autism whose little brother, played by Tom Cruise, believes he can change Raymond over the course of the movie. Spoiler alert! He doesn’t change Raymond. Raymond changes him.
This is why, at this point in Trump’s presidency, I’m curious how many Americans have changed their perspective of him. And how much it will matter, or not, in 2020.
My mockery of Trump also is a mockery of his supporters who refuse to admit any fault of his, whether it’s hundreds of documented lies, his childish outbursts toward anyone who opposes him, or how he throws his own people under the next oncoming bus.
All of Trump’s sins are either nonchalantly overlooked or purposely ignored by loyal to a fault supporters who equate a strong economy with pride for their president. As long as their bank accounts are intact, for now, their support is similarly intact for Trump.
I understand this attitude. I also understand Trump supporters who want tighter border security, and tough talk against Iran and North Korea, and a tariff war against China even though most Americans, including me, don’t fully understand its consequences.
Essentially, our collective ignorance emboldens Trump’s inherent arrogance.
Our president is as much a charlatan as a politician, despite his lies otherwise. Question is, how many lies should we pretend to believe? And for how long? It’s so tiring to play pretend for week after week, month after month, tweet after tweet.
Sometime last year, I got bored from riding the Trump roller coaster. This came after reading endless news stories about him, and listening to nonstop analysis from political pundits on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC or anyone with a new opinion and an old suit.
It’s old hat that Trump colors outside the lines, strays from his lane, and grabs anything he wants by the (expletive). I don’t hate him for it. I mock him about it. It’s the difference between fury and fodder.