I began by titling this depressing post “Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: President Trump,” but that seemed inadequate somehow. Maybe there’s no heading that could adequately express what an awful week the President had, how it was entirely unnecessary, how all of his deep political wounds were self-inflicted (okay, his clueless Chief of Staff helped), how much harm it did to his administration, influence and prospects of success, and how much he helped the Axis of Unethical Conduct when without his assistance the serious news would have had it staggering. <Breathe, Jack, breathe!>
EA covered three of the epic fiascos, but now I have to cover the fourth. The others were, in chronological order,
1. Trump’s petty, cruel, stupid attack on beloved director Rob Reiner immediately after he and his wives were stabbed to death by their son. I believe that his infamous Truth Social post may prove to be the tipping point in his administration. Recall that the Bush II Presidency was sent into a death spiral even before the 2008 economic crash because he was vacation when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and flew over the devastation. Then the inept Democratic mayor of the city, with help from Kanye West, successfully created the narrative that Bush shrugged off the disaster because he “didn’t care about black people.”
2. Trump’s presumed-competent Chief of Staff inexplicably gives interviews to a 100% anti-Trump Axis member, Vanity Fair, in which she dished about colleagues, suggested chaos in the White House, and opined that the President resembled an alcoholic even though he is a lifetime abstainer.
3. Trump allows his hand-picked Kennedy Center board to add the President’s name to the landmark, launched as a memorial to President Kennedy in the wake of his nation-shattering assassination, and to quickly plaster it on the front of the building. This was so stupid and gratuitous that I don’t want to think about it, but it sure gave my Trump Deranged theater friends on Facebook ammunition.
But wait, there’s more!
4. Trump completely botched a national address that was supposedly going to put anxious Americans at ease. They are freaked out about “affordability,” thanks to the news media assisting Democrats in the successful spinning of the Biden inflation damage, which is more or less permanent like all inflation, into Trump’s failure. I heard a pundit on Fox News this morning say, “The Democrats can’t be arsonists and the fire department on the same problem.” Oh sure they can, if the news media keeps misleading the public about it. (He was talking about the Obamacare subsidies, but it’s the same principle.)
I was out at a rare dinner with a friend and missed the broadcast, and didn’t take the time to watch it (I hate watching Trump speak) until yesterday. Ugh. Issues & Insights, a generally moderate to conservative website, properly framed the setting for the speech and slammed the performance, saying in part,
Processing five sets of high-profile murders over one horrifying weekend. Witnessing widespread and even violent resistance to promised efforts to enforce immigration laws and to the use of the military to interdict deadly drug traffickers. Buffeted by waves of worry set from Democrat demagoguery that wide swathes of the populace are in dire danger of “losing their health care.” But most of all, unsettled about “affordability,” with seven in 10 respondents to a PBS/NPR/Marist poll claiming monthly expenses soak up or exceed their income, a state of affairs increasingly laid at the feet of the current President… Apprehensive Americans were looking for Dr. Marcus Welby – handholding, heart-to-heart, and hopeful. The showman president gave them P.T. Barnum…blaring hard-sell and hyperbole, mixed with equal measures of vitriol and vituperation.
Bingo.
What happened to Trump’s political instincts? This was the last place for bluster, puffery, self-congratulation, egomania and Biden-bashing, but that’s what the public got…and in a week when Trump had given Americans cause to despise the man, because he had viciously attacked Gordy, Princess Buttercup, Inigo Montoya, Sally and Tom Cruise. Incredibly, the President even plugged the “TrumpRx.com” discount drug site, as I&I noted, “leaving one expecting a pitch of Trump watches would be next.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The worst, however, at least in my view, was the puffery, aka. to the Axis, lies:
- “inflation … the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country …”
- “the worst trade deals ever made in our country …”
- “more positive change … than any administration in American history … There’s never been anything like it.”
- “elected in a landslide …”
- “the strongest border in the history of our country”
- “the hottest country anywhere in the world … said by every single leader …”
- “the largest tax cuts in American history … perhaps the most sweeping legislation ever passed in Congress …”
- “(on prescription drugs) what no politician of either party has ever done … there has never been anything like this in the history of our country …”
- “We are respected again, like we have never been respected before.”
All of this was so destructive, in great part because it gave the news media a justification to bury, under-report or ignore the substantive developments that illustrate how dangerous to the Republic and its values that Democrats have been over the last decade.
I’ll discuss those in Part II.
Addendum: I regularly complain about how the Axis news media buries stories unhelpful to the Left’s quest for power. Despite the epic nature of Trump’s debacles this week, the conservative site Powerline, in its weekly collections of headlines and memes today, contained only a single meme related to Trump’s Four Botches of the Apocalypse, and to Susie Wiles’ “Vanity Fair” interview. It’s like “Saturday Night Live” in reverse.
Ethics Alarms 
Yep.
I’ve had about all of Trump’s loose cannon mouth as I can take. I know it’s likely a futile effort on my part but I’m choosing to post the following essay everywhere I can.
An Open Public Message To The President of the United States
I suppose this is what a Popeye moment drives me to do.
Yup, I did this…
No, I’m not deluded that the President will even read it.
I’m not going to regret not trying.
And, given the fact that he cannot run again we still feel the need to pound him down along with the Democrats. We have had several posts outlining these self inflicted wounds so it is obviously necessary to remind the ill informed electorate that he has not performed to their unreasonable expectation levels when inflation is only down to 2.75 % – a quarter point lower than expected, motor fuel prices are only about a buck less than last year, demand for food and housing is stabilizing due to more stringent border control, and yes, he has worked to bring prescription drug prices down all in the face of orchestrated resistance. I should point out that nominal income grew faster than the inflation rate so Americans have more purchasing power today than they did on January 20, 2025. But many Americans don’t think for themselves and rely on others to tell them what’s what. You want a well spoken seasoned administrator who fiddles at the margins that has little to no effect. So let’s admit that we don’t really want the changes that so many voted for.
This statement “But most of all, unsettled about “affordability,” with seven in 10 respondents to a PBS/NPR/Marist poll claiming monthly expenses soak up or exceed their income” contains no comparisons making it nonsense. Americans are routinely expending more than their income. In early part of the pandemic Q1-2020 Americans were saddled with $0.89T in credit card debt by the time Biden entered office the debt load had fallen to 0.77T. At the end of Biden’s term that number had risen to $1.14T. The expansionary spending of the administration forced inflation to rise to just over 9% which means that the consumer was hit twice because they need to use debt more frequently and consumer interest rates had risen well beyond the differential in in the federal funds rate because of higher rates of default because of the lockdowns.
https://www.solosuit.com/posts/credit-card-debt-statistics
The fact is that any inability to cover expenses must be placed at the feet of Congress that over spent during the pandemic, the people who did not know how to cope in dire situations like those who lived through the Great depression, the CFPB who did nothing to keep usuary in check, and the Biden administration who did not understand the fact that when you increase demand against a reduced supply you get massive inflation. Pure incompetence or what? Those elected are pretending that they did not know that once prices rise in general any significant and rapid price level reductions will cause profits to fall and producers will cut supply and lay off workers which is why prices are being allowed to equilibrate at a slower rate.
We know what he is and we know it seems that many people find enormous glee in beating the dead horse of his foibles. I guess it makes them feel superior. I for one find no benefit in ruminating over his inability to convey a persona of Marcus Welby to a bunch of people who somehow think that all the changes they want will come at no cost to them. Americans have lost long term thinking and want everything to happen immediately. This is what was meant when it was said that we will sell them the rope to with which they will hang us.
My personal feelings are simply saying just keep spending bucks to placate the masses. I have no children who will have children to pay the the bills for their grandparents, who may also find themselves living in a Europeans style mind control / goods rationing society. I don’t care if Sky Net or the Chinese take over and start rationing goods and services based on government dictated social benefit score. So what if billions are pilfered from the treasury and drug lords have carte blanche to infiltrate our cities and impose their rule on the locals. Lets keep focusing on Trump’s negatives so we can elect Democrats and progressives next time so you can have all the bread and circuses and honey tongued rhetoric that tells you all will be fine with millions of new migrants who will build wonderful businesses to give employment to those millions of new immigrants. I just don’t give a good god damn right now. Yeah lets go back to the days of the silver tongued Obama who will make everybody feel better while he hoses you and makes millions in the process.
What I know is that a substantial number of those people living in the DMV area, especially those who derive their relatively high incomes (relative to the rest of the country) because they in the areas that surrounds the seat of government love the status quo and will adopt whatever point of view necessary to stay on the gravy train of big government.
Sorry for the rant but my week has been one disaster after another and focusing on Trump’s speech is hardly worth my time. Merry Christmas.
Chris: surely you recognize that a Presidential national address has to be focused on because they always are. Carter’s “malaise” speech,Reagan’s Challenger speech, “This shall not stand,” Biden’s “Reichstag” speech. The whole point it to get attention. You can’t just brush off a botch like it didn’t happen.
I am not brushing it off I am simply saying that I am tired of the bitching and whining of so many Americans who are so much better off today than 11 months ago. I am tired of carpet bagger politicians who will say anything to get elected and even more tired of those who elect them and then complain when some they elect do the things they campaigned on. Americans cannot have limited government and then ask government to make things easier for them. I am tired of all those who speak about democratic principles but complain about and vilify the majority when they speak. I grow weary of those who want high wage jobs to be created but fail to understand that greater value must be created by the employee to pay the higher wage. If such things were easy why have they not done them themselves.
I abhor the calls to protect children from predators like Epstein but then demand we allow them to be aborted or mutilate their genitalia on demand. What I am basically saying is a big Eff you to all those who complain about a president’s narcissistic behaviors when they are in fact only concern about themselves 99% of the time.
In short, I am tired of seeing perfection being the enemy of the good. Trump is an entrepreneur/salesman. We knew it going in. It is not that I overlook his foibles, I look at the totality of the circumstance. We will never know if the silver tongued Obama would have been no different if he had to suffer the indignities of being called an epithet by his detractors relating to his skin tone or had an orchestrated resistance to every decision he tried to make. Obama outright lied and relied on the people’s ignorance on his only significant piece legislation yet we are going to get upset at sales puffery. We also don’t know which Americans will see another Christmas because Trump destroyed enough drugs before they entered the US we only know of those two poor drug runners simply trying to eek out a living transporting products to us and the dastardly guy who ordered their death. We are that shortsighted.
If that is not what people want let them vote for those who will lie to them, line their own pockets, and do little to make life actually better for them in the long run. If they don’t want that either then they should get in the race and get elected so that they can right the foundering ship of state. The psyche of the American people needs to change dramatically if you ever want to see an Eisenhower or Kennedy administration again.
I spent way to long trying to understand the image. https://youtube.com/shorts/m_OghVvNnNc?si=EA3qFYviNrYYNSZM
Anyway. Why the heck does our measure of value have to get warped wth time? What other things should we allow the Department of Weights and Measures to distort the measure of between three and eleven percent per year?
Ok… They are welcome at my bathroom scale, as long as they come during the holidays.
$19.83 in 1990 equals $49.63 in 2025. The total cost in 2025 was 55. and change about a 6 dollar difference. The implication is that prices are out of control. The You tube video fails because of price level changes in both income and prices. Additionally the market basket used in the YouTube video was not identical. The substitutions could have made the difference in price level and increases in the real wage may have more than offset any real increase in prices. Thus the consumer might have had greater purchasing power in 2025.